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mysharona1987

Happy Independence Day!

Lord knows that the United States has and continues to commit atrocities. I can't justify that. And the current political situation here is scary as hell. But I love this place. I love the Atlantic Ocean and New York City and the Pacific Northwest. I love my Blue Ridge Mountains with my whole entire heart. I love cardinals and mockingbirds and kudzu and possums and black rat snakes and the way the woods smell in the mornings.

I love that Americans are known for complimenting strangers. I love that we fry everything, and that we do it well. I love 12-foot-high plastic Halloween skeletons in people’s yards and tacky Christmas lights that stay up too long. I love that we are an unabashedly goofy people.

I love bluegrass music. I love stepping. I love that there are always folklorico dancers in my town’s Mardi Gras parade. I love that my town has a Mardi Gras parade, even though most people here aren’t Catholic or French and didn’t grow up with any kind of Carnivale tradition. I love that if "Livin On A Prayer" comes on a pizzeria, at least one person at each table won't be able to stop themselves from singing along. I love that the middle school gym shakes to the rafters when families cheer for THEIR baby finishing eighth grade and that they bring balloons and bouquets and flower garlands to celebrate.

I love the 80 year old couple at our local No Kings protest. I love all the little kids there with their families, too. I love the brass band that always shows up at protests here and plays old union songs and gospel music. I cry like a damn baby every time I hear “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”

This country is horrible and selfish and destructive, but it’s also wonderful and kind and full of people loving and fighting and trying to make things better. And the people saying that there’s only one kind of real American, and that if you don’t look like they do or talk like they do or think like they do, then you don’t count, those people can go pound sand. I’m as real American as they come, and those people aren’t the only ones who get to love our country.

adi-lives

as a non american i gotta say it i fucking hate those posts that are all like. "noooo why would i do anything on fourth of july fuck fascist america"

you get to barbeque, eat good food, do fireworks and sparklers, dress in unnecessarily patriotic clothes, and most of all, make fun of the british. why would you want to just sit at home moping about america being bad when you could be doing all that? idkidk seems kinda stupid to me.

(also i hate this notion that celebrating your country is an inherently right wing thing to do, therefore playing into right wing rhetoric that all leftists hate and want to destroy the country they are in)

cringecorp

power-handmaiden

when I was in high school I had a literature teacher who had a policy of unlimited extra credit. All you had to do was read a book by a notable author (his discretion) and have a little chat with him after school to prove that you read it. No limits, no need for variety (one month I decided I really loved Kurt Vonnegut and just read everything of his I could get my hands on).

Yes, I was tearing through books constantly, and talking to this teacher at least weekly. Because even though I always loved reading as a kid, literature was always a very weak subject for me in terms of a teaching-to-standardized-test school setting (I just do awful on "what color were the curtains" type multiple choice questions. Those details don't stick in my memory THEY JUST DON'T). But that didn't matter for this class. I could just read my way out of any bad test score. I have always had fond memories of how I "fudged" my way through that class and "abused' the extra credit policy.

I was thinking about it again today, and only just now realized that he absolutely tricked me into being well-read, while my teenage self thought I was totally getting away with something. THAT MOTHERFUCKER. I hope he's doing well.