Proud granddad shares 23-year-old's words on America

Metro Creative Connection

Since moving to Sun City in 2020, I’ve spoken many times on issues at RCSC Board and Exchange Meetings. I have always advocated for courtesy and respect, and thanked board members for their dedicated service, even if I didn’t agree with their decisions.

We live in a most complex and controversial moment in history. My 23-year-old granddaughter, Sage Goodwin, who is studying in TAIPEI, Taiwan, this summer wrote the following on Facebook. I believe it’s worthy of our consideration:

I’ve been struggling to find the words to express my messy, complex feelings about America this Fourth of July. Despair. Love. Horror. Hope. Rage. Determination.

I’ve thought a lot about what it means to love America, or what patriotism is. All too often I see patriotism get intertwined with exclusionary and narcissistic rhetorics of xenophobia and white Christian nationalism. And for some reason, people also seem to think that acknowledging the flaws of America makes someone less of a patriot.

I don’t think loving America is reserved for those who use it as a weapon, or as blinders to block out reality. In fact, I refuse to allow patriotism to be commandeered by those who would use it as an excuse to exclude and marginalize, or a reason to sit passively and quietly by.

I love my country. It might not look the same as stereotypical patriotism. It’s not a sunshine-and-roses “everything is great” kind of love; it’s a gritty, messy, demanding kind of love that it’s taken me 23 years to recognize. It’s because I love my country that I feel so much despair right now. Because I love this place and I love the people I share it with. And if anyone here suffers, it’s our duty to care. I refuse to let my country be defined by those who use her name to trample the poor, the refugee, the immigrant, the oppressed.

Let’s not sail quietly and passively into oblivion, rose-tinted glasses glued to our faces. All the fireworks and barbecues in the world won’t make us a lick better if we smother our empathy and shutter our compassion. Ignorance may be bliss to you, but it does nothing to remove the nightmare being lived by those whose lives are being upended and torn apart.

If we truly want to celebrate our ideals of liberty and justice for all, let’s start by fighting for them.

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