American Patriotism or a College Football Rivalry?
It’s Independence Day, 2025, in Marble Falls, Texas, a small lake town adjacent to Horseshoe Bay about an hour northwest of Austin, Texas. “We are Texas Born” emblazons the exterior of the local gas stations in big, bold lettering that you cannot miss driving by. The rain here is relentless, but that does not stop the young dads around my age, exclusively white, from chasing their kin on the inflatable floating obstacle course in front of the condo where I am staying. A woman dressed in a red, white, and blue sequin-covered t-shirt dress with the words “TRUMP” spelled across the back walks directly in front of me as I try to locate the 4th of July parade. I can’t tell if I'm at an SEC football tailgate, getting ready for the big rivalry game, or celebrating the breakup letter we served to Britain. Is this how the Founding Fathers celebrated?
There is a feeling of grounded masculinity here that feels alluring to the nervous system for a few hours before it feels like a straitjacket of homogeneity. The women are all dressed the same, talk the same, and are praying that the rain will clear up so their bored husbands will get their asses back on the golf course, where they belong.
No one pays attention to my friend Claire and me. We fit in just enough as we are white, attractive women minding our own business, but no one goes out of their way to talk to us. We are invisible in this sea of families as we wear the scarlet letter of being single and over forty. We must be lesbians. Bless our tainted hearts.
I feel off-kilter, and yet everything in my external world appears fine. My friend and I are on a beautiful lake in a lovely condo with a fridge full of food, surrounded by people who are living their lives and enjoying a rainy 4th of July. At the same time, a lethal flood is taking ninety lives forty miles down the road, and my Instagram is blowing up with communal heartbreak over the Big Beautiful Bill going into law on Independence Day. As I lay on the back porch and stare out at the floating obstacle course with children screaming in delight and Usher pumping through the speakers, I begin to dissociate.
It feels strange being able to fit into this culture on the outside in the safety of my white skin, yet feel hypervigilant of the incompatibility of our values on the inside. While everything looks “whitewashed idealic”, the resort's high-end restaurant bartender overshares how drunk the guests at the tables adjacent to us will get, as well as the table next to them.
“That woman will drink about four glasses of wine, and her husband has about ten Jack Daniels and Cokes. She’ll end up driving him home about an hour after we close. It’s going to be a loooong night.” I remember those days.
Knowing that I used to live like this myself, believing this was the gold standard of health and wellness, I refused to acknowledge that I was the unwell one. Entrenched in a boring life of superiority and glazed over with a constant drip of Whitehall Sauvignon Blanc is not living. It’s its prison sentence of mediocrity.
A week before my immersion in the deep red state of Texas, I spent a Saturday morning in South Central Los Angeles listening to the gospel of Dr. Jaiya John and Dr. Thema in a converted salon as they gathered the local community, mostly black residents, to receive their sacrament of holy inspiration and truth. As one of two white attendees, I felt a sense of belonging and aliveness as I drank in their words and sensed Jesus’ work, even though they did not mention His name.
The week before my time in South Central, I spent my first Shabbat dinner in LA at a new friend’s gorgeous home in Beverly Hills, surrounded by her twenty-five Persian/Israeli Jewish family and friends, who embraced me immediately. It reminds me of the same experience I had when I moved to Baltimore, Maryland, after spending five years in Auburn, Alabama. I was overwhelmed by the cultural differences, but it didn’t matter; they were open to teaching me because I was curious.
I listened for hours about the complicated relationship and crisis in Israel, Gaza, and Iran and the lack of feeling safe in parts of our country.
Living in a country with diverse cultural beliefs and ways of life is a complex and multifaceted experience. Imagine if Europe attempted to have one governing body and culture. That sounds ridiculous and impossible!
What I take away from all these diverse experiences is that curiosity has always melted away my stories fueled by fear. Multiple truths can exist in a single moment. I genuinely believe we, as Americans, all want the same access to resources that will enable us to thrive. But suppose our political system is more representative of an Auburn vs. Alabama college football rivalry, one that is eager to win, rather than a thriving ecosystem of shared high minimum standards of living for everyone. In that case, we should expect to stay as sick as our current system. Who is ready to build a new system?
We have a history of both truths.
Check out the episode of We Can Do Hard Things, titled 'We’re Taking Patriotism Back,' with Historian Heather Cox Richardson, as Heather takes us through a clear and concise understanding of our country’s historical politics and social fabric through specific dates and once shared values, even if we disagreed.
How will you stay curious and dream a new version of what patriot leadership means to you?