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What Does It Mean To Be An American?
As the rights protected under the first amendment of the US Constitution have been exercised around the world, with people protesting the continued violence against people of color perpetrated by law enforcement officers, many are looking more deeply at the systemic racism inherent in the American system. While many are calling for the removal of statues venerating the legacies of slaveholders and traitors to freedom, how will we come to grips with the fact that the entire country we live in and the land mass upon which it has been stationed were not only named after a slave owner, but a slave trader? As freedom of speech now echoes worldwide, and the atrocities of American police brutality are publicly criticized in countries around the world, we should pause and reflect on what it actually means to be an American.
Does it mean to merely be born between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in an area described by some particular geographical coordinates? And why aren’t people from South America, Central America, and the rest of North America called Americans as well? Europeans from a variety of countries are called “Europeans” and the same could be said for Asia and Africa, but only those who are part of the 50 United States get to be called “Americans”.
For quite a long time, I thought that being American had something to do with our work ethic and…
