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Jul 2016
My dear America, I don't buy it anymore.
You are not so beautiful as you believe.
You are braggadocious,
Pompous,
You are surface.

My dear America, call me a cynic if you wish.
But I know your lies.
You know them too, my dear America,
Though you refuse to admit them.

Steal the land, **** the Indians, **** them with your foreign diseases,
What do you care?
Manifest destiny, right?

My dear America, there lies a trail of death and destruction in your wake.
It is miles long, millions of lives deep.
And you step around it, like it is some murky puddle you prefer to avoid.

My dear America, I am ashamed of you.
All men are not created equal.
Surely the streets of the ghetto must tell you this--
Or are you blind, my dear America?

"Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses," you cry.
My dear America, don't you know?
You are a nation of rejects that excels only at rejection.

My dear America, your flag is spangled with the stars of the souls you have crushed.
Slavery,
Jim Crow,
Segregation,
(separate is inherently unequal, you know; we are not so united as you would like to believe),
And this is to say nothing of your internment camps.

My dear America, your history is a ****** one.
What are we so proud of, my dear America?
Our democracy?
It's not too far off from the Greeks', though.
Adult, male, land-owning, non-slave citizen.
(I think I just got a Jefferson déjà vu.)

13 centuries later, and all you did was dilute the democracy, my dear America.
Representative, not direct.
For fear of the unintelligent masses, of course.
Even in the birth of our nation,
Out of the ashes you rejected kindling for the flame of the future.

Fast forward two and a half centuries more,
And still I ask, what are we so proud of,
My dear America?

All that has changed are the faces of those we shun.
First Black, Irish, Italian, Asian.
Now Mexican, Muslim, Transgender.

My dear America, please do not misunderstand me.
I know you are not the same country as 240 years ago.
But I also know you are not that much different.
A little grown up, perhaps.
More mature, maybe.

It is not good enough.
A toddler to a teen in 240 years is progress too slow.

You must evolve, my dear America.
You must be more than you are,
More than you have ever been.

You must be the dream so many believe in.
You must allow those who work to achieve the dream.
You must allow those who want it to get there equally.
No restrictions, no barriers, no smoke and no mirrors.

Your flag waves so ***** and proud,
But my dear America, don't you know?
It does not reflect--
But refract.

I challenge you, my dear America.
Drape yourself in your many sins.
Make no bones about who you have been and who you are now.

Nobody likes a liar, my dear America.

Where is my America, my dear America?

Where is the America of my history textbooks?
Where is the greatness so readily found in your songs?
Where is the beauty your flag claims to represent?

Where is my America, my dear America?
Frank DeRose
Written by
Frank DeRose  New Market, MD
(New Market, MD)   
1.6k
   NV
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