Dear America

A Love Letter to My Country

Dear America,

I love you. I don’t say that with blind devotion nor do I say it for purposes of performative patriotism because it’s your birthday. I truly mean it.

I’m telling you this because I’m reading articles about how so many people doubt you. So I want you to hear directly from me why you’re so great and why I will always fight for you.

So where do I begin? Let’s start with your food. Honestly, America? It’s unhinged. And I mean that as the highest compliment possible.

Your airports — places of chaos and anxiety — can smell like heaven because somewhere there is an Auntie Anne’s pretzel calling out to the hurried masses yearning for their flight to just be on time for once. Dripping with enough butter to shorten a human’s life expectancy. And if you get that side of - I think it’s cheese because the label says it’s cheese - cheese sauce? Now you’re talking, baby.

But wait…is that a Cinnabon I see by the dawn’s early light? Oh, there’s nothing modest about that thing; it’s the size of a truck tire. Indeed, one marvels that our country has created a menu item that can cover an adult’s daily caloric needs in one sitting. Let the French have their boulangeries; we have a rotating fleet of warm dough vendors operating adjacent to a Hudson News and a charging station.^[i]

America, I love that you don’t do anything small. Other countries have regular-sized things. You look at regular-sized things and ask: “But what if it were much, MUCH bigger?” Our sodas come in sizes that require the bottom of the cup to be markedly smaller just so it can fit in our already oversized cupholder in our already oversized car. Heck, you exhibit your love for all things large in all kinds of ways. Your movies, for example. Their budgets are now nearing the size of the annual GDP for a small island nation. And say what you want about Tom Cruise, but I’ll tell you what: that man makes sure you are ENTERTAINED. I watch the first two minutes of a Top Gun film, and I’m picturing myself in aviator glasses and a leather bomber jacket, launching off a carrier somewhere in the ocean – call sign “Widowmaker” – to take on an unknown enemy.

I love baseball. With all due respect to football, baseball is quintessentially you, America. It’s not the fastest sport; it deliberately operates at a leisurely pace. A manager will walk to the mound, exchange a few words, and then walk back to the dugout without the 30,000 people in attendance thinking that was strange.

But baseball actually captures something else about you: your eternal optimism. Every spring begins with each team and its fanbase believing this year will be different. Yet, come August, disappointment likely takes over. But you know what? There’s always next year. And this process will repeat for years, if not decades. Don’t believe me? I watched my husband cry early in the morning in November 2016, as the Cubs finally broke the curse and won the World Series. He kept screaming, “You were wrong, Zadie Max! They ain’t bums!”^[ii] Bottom-line, you’re always looking to tomorrow and unafraid to reinvent yourself along the way.

But let’s get serious, America. I love that somewhere right now, there is a young person sketching out a business idea on a napkin at breakfast, incorporating a company by lunchtime, opening a bank account in the afternoon and waking up tomorrow to embark on a dream. Think about that for a moment. For most of human history, starting a business required permission: from a king, a guild, or someone else in authority. Don’t believe me? When I left MSNBC, all I had was the burning ember of something bigger than me. A year later, I’d like to think that WE are building an army of people that have got your back, America.

I love that your music tells the story of your progress sometimes better than a history book. Don’t believe me? Your song — “The Star-Spangled Banner” — was written by Francis Scott Key, a man who owned slaves and who actively opposed efforts to end slavery. He opposed abolition and favored the idea of colonization. But he watched the battle at Fort McHenry from a ship and then wrote a poem that became your theme song.

And, in 1983, Marvin Gaye walked up to the microphone at the NBA All-Star Game and sang your song in a way nobody had ever heard before. He didn’t just perform it; he transformed it and made it all his own. He took the words of a slaveowner and wrapped them into something that was uniquely…Marvin Gaye:^[iii]

And then the incomparable legend, Whitney Houston, stood before 70,000 plus people at the Super Bowl in January 1991, lifted a microphone, and sang those same words with such a breathtaking, otherworldly power that her performance became the standard by which all others are judged.^[iv] And although many have come close, no one has ever surpassed her:

But talent aside, what matters is that although the song never changed, you sure did, America. The descendants of a race of people that were enslaved took a song written by a slave owner and made it all their own. Whitney Houston and Marvin Gaye picked up those words and sang something so powerful that the original author became a footnote. Thank you, America, for your willingness to change for the better.

And that brings me to what I love about you the most: I love what is the real driver of your exceptionalism. It’s not your geography, Constitution, or resources. Yes, those things matter, but it’s not the real answer. The real answer is that you are a nation largely built by the world’s outcasts. Think about who’s come here: it’s not the comfortable ones or the people who already had a seat at the table or a fancy title or family name that meant something. Squeezed out, starved out, or persecuted out. These people showed up with little else than the clothes on their backs and a fiery determination to prove the old world wrong.

And remember what you said to them? "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” THAT is a radical proposition, America. At bottom, you didn’t weigh them down with a thousand years of history about where they came from and why they weren’t acceptable. Don’t believe me? Well, I remind you about my own family, how you graciously accepted us, and gave us the chance to do great things. I will never forget that about you, America. It’s your greatest quality.

Yes, America, you’ve got some flaws. But honestly, it’s not you; it’s us. Beyond our sometimes tacky confidence that borders on the irrational, you have so much to offer the rest of the world. We need to do a better job of sharing that and not the ugliness we’ve seen over the past few years.

So on your 250^th birthday — did I tell you that you still look so youthful!? — I just want to remind you that you are loved, America. Because despite the noise, the arguments, and the imperfections, I know you are the greatest ongoing democratic experiment in human history. I still believe in your promise and your unwavering dedication to what we can be.

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^[i] I know there are many other food items that can be mentioned. But, for now, I’ll give a shout-out to a few honorable mentions that didn’t make the final cut: Fried Oreos, the Monte Cristo sandwich at Bennigan’s, and the entire menu at The Cheesecake Factory.

^[ii] The backstory, as told by my husband: My grandfather, Max (about 5’6’’ and weighing 110 pounds), was an unbelievably tough man who grew up in the Russian Empire before coming to the United States at the age of twelve. He came to America to escape the pogroms and the viciousness of that part of the world. But because of where he grew up, he had no illusions about people and never put much stock in words such as “hope” or “optimism.” Anyway, in 1989, the Cubs had a magical season. Jerome Walton was electric, Mark Grace’s swing was a natural wonder of the world, and the pitching staff was elite. It was early October and we took my grandfather out for Mexican food because, even though he was a curmudgeonly 91-year-old Russian Jew, he loved quesadillas (no joke). Dinner ran a bit late, so on the drive home, we turned on the radio to listen to Game 1 of the playoff series between the Cubs and the San Francisco Giants. We were playing at Wrigley with Greg Maddux, the greatest modern-era pitcher, and it was a night game, so the crowd was electric. And then Will Clark just ANNIHILATED us. By the top of the fourth inning, he already hit a double and a homer. But then he stepped up to the plate, got down to business and crushed a grand slam (I’m still unsure if the ball ever landed). It was such a punch in the face that twelve-year-old me began to tear up. My grandfather immediately pulled the car over on Milwaukee Avenue (yes, he still drove at 91), turned off the radio, looked at me and said, “Jonathan, they are bums and will never win anything. I didn’t cry at twelve. Grow up.” We then proceeded to drive home in silence, my father and I too afraid to say another word to him. I am almost fifty years old and still remember that night like it was yesterday.

^[iii] One of my favorite comments in the YouTube video I linked is: “The National Anthem smoked a cigarette after Marvin was done making love to it.”

^[iv] Yes, I know she lip-synched the song – and so did Marvin Gaye – because there were concerns about potential audio problems during a live performance. I don’t know about Marvin Gaye, but the story about Whitney Houston is that she pre-taped in ONE TAKE. And the fact that they both lip-synched the song doesn’t change how life-altering their performances were.