It's Independence Day, and I really wish I could be prouder of my country.
But the unrecognized legacy of white supremacy has shown us our worst selves and we're still not doing enough to deal with that.
This year we emancipate ourselves from the lie of America.
But with that independence comes freedom -- and the responsibility to create the America we want to be.
We can be kinder, more empathetic, no longer afraid of knowledge and expertise, but courageous in the face of the many challenges we face in the coming decades.
But we have to be willing to face hard truths, make sacrifices, and commit to doing things that might be difficult for us.
Our ideals demand that we look outside ourselves and know we're not the only people in the world.
Being patriotic means being humble, having perspective.
And being humble means we recognize our own flaws and limitations. Even among progressives.
We can't let the fact that we're fighting for a good cause blind us to the ways we can be cruel, or the limits of our own beliefs. We can be wrong. We have been wrong. We will be wrong.
We can have faith in our beliefs, but also knowledge of our own imperfect selves and mistakes. We can own up. We can be better. We can change what we say and what we do because we know better. Both as people, and as a country.
Let's do that now. Together. Happy 4th.
We can reconcile our painful and unjust past, reckon with the systemic barriers it has placed on people of color, disabled Americans, LGBQTIA Americans, and do the hard work required to truly understand how to make a society in which all people are created equal.