Bryn+T’s+Final+AmEx+2015+Speech


 * American Pride... and Prejudice **

This speech will be a response to Austin’s speech. Please note that I call it a “response” and not a “rebuttal” because, firstly, this is not a personal attack, just another set of ideas in response to his own; and secondly, there are actually things that we do agree on which I would like to acknowledge. I will be linking to his speech when I put mine up on the wiki, so that you may verify for yourselves that I have not misquoted in any way or taken anything out of context.

As a brief summary for those not in fourth period English, Austin’s speech essentially argues that America is a land where “[w]e as Americans have everything we could want” and that we are “weakened with the lack of American [p]ride.”

To start us on a positive note, I agree with you that the student with the flag in the bed of his truck should not have faced disciplinary action. //As long as that flag was not being used to discriminate or exclude,// there is no harm in displaying it on his vehicle.

But unfortunately, so far as the content of your singular speech goes, much of our agreement stops there, because it seems like there is quite a bit of romanticization of our country, both past and present, floating around today. And I say this as a massive history nerd, but I’m not about that life at all.

You talked about a “crazy spike in nationalism” after 9/11 and the killing of Osama bin Laden. And it’s true that millions of people came together in the wake of the Twin Towers tragedy, that rival gangs made peace, if only temporarily, and flags flew in abundance. Yet that tragedy also brought a 1,700 percent increase in Islamophobic attacks in 2001, and that prejudice continues to rise, according to the BBC. It created the atmosphere of fear and suspicion which lead to the passing of the USA PATRIOT Act-- an act passed, according to the ACLU, with senators complaining that they “had little time to read it, much less analyze it, before having to vote”-- a worrisome prospect for the most innocuous of bills, to say nothing of one which violates the “search and seizure” clause of the Fourth Amendment.

Not to mention that the PATRIOT Act, according to Fox19 (which, yes, is affiliated with the eponymous Fox News), has done little to actually protect the American people. Says correspondent Ben Swann, the Heritage Foundation “says [there] are 30 instances of terror thwarted since 9/11. But among those 30, very few can be traced back to the PATRIOT Act as a source for prevention.”

And all of that is overlooking yet another issue-- why is it that it takes nothing short of death to bring our nation together? What does it say about us that we can only treat our neighbors-- or rather, some of our neighbors (but a greater quantity of them than before)-- as human beings when we’re staring disaster in the face?

But let’s move on.

You have stated, and I’m quoting here, “If you don’t like the US, I hope I don’t offend you in saying, please feel free to travel back to your homeland.” I’m not offended, Austin, just confused. You see, I was born and raised here in Ventura, and my mother and father come from Orange County and West Hollywood, respectively. As a matter of fact, I’m a fifth-generation Californian. My family lived in Nebraska for even longer than that, and current genealogical research indicates that I may have had relatives come over on the Mayflower. I’m about as American as any descendant of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant invaders can call themselves. So, with my tens of thousands of dollars that I have right at my fingertips and immediate ability to get a permanent residence visa to a country of my choosing, to where should I return? Would it be the Independent Republic of Camarillo, or the Duchy of East Ventura?

My point here is that a “love-it-or-leave-it” approach is simply not viable. After all, we are forgetting the one truly revolutionary thing about the American Revolution: that it was fought specifically so that citizens wouldn’t just have to up and leave any time they disagreed with the government, but rather so that they could change it to help it reflect the needs and wants of its citizens. I think now would be a good time to remember that our Constitution, the oldest governing constitution in the entire world, was written after Shays’ Rebellion specifically so that it would not be down to either insurgency or exodus to change the government-- that the people could make their voices heard. And the “love-it-or-leave-it” mindset in question, the one that says that you either have to put up or shut up? That’s not democracy-- that’s dictatorship.

So I do complain, and I won’t stop. Not while women are murdered for saying, “No. I owe you nothing, for my body, and my mind, and my soul, are mine to use and mine alone.” Not while male victims of rape are shamed into silence by the toxic, patriarchal cult of masculinity, because to dare to speak about their experiences as a survivor of sexual assault is somehow seen as “unmanly,” and therefore something to be reviled. Not while a teenager can sit in their calculus class, in June of 2015, and hear homophobic slurs bandied about with as much carelessness as you or I would give to a reading of our grocery list.

I am proud of the Americans who pulled strangers into their homes so that they would not choke to death on the dust of the collapsing Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, and I am proud of the Americans who put their lives on the line every day in our armed services and our police forces and fire departments, and I offer them my profound thanks. But I am not proud of America, because we have not lived up to our “founding” ideals (put in air quotes because it’s impossible to ignore the hypocrisy of the Founding Fathers). Every time you say the sweeping generalization, “America is the greatest country that ever was,” you ought to realise who has been thrown under the bus: who was turned away and told that they could not serve their country because of their gender or their sexual orientation or the color of their skin, and who has been told that they are second-class citizens, or even less than that, due to circumstances beyond their control.

Our America today writes, "Love each other!" in flowing purple prose with its left hand while crushing the windpipes of its oppressed citizens with its right.

But we are, albeit hesitatingly and (for some) unwillingly, shambling towards liberation from prejudice. We still have a long, long way to go, but, like a drunken hoarder in the dead of night, we are fumbling for the light switch which will finally force us to treat our fellow human beings as exactly that-- human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. I don’t believe everything can be solved in our lifetimes, but every inch is vital on the road to equality.

We can’t fix anything, however, if we stay still and say, “We have gotten closer to the switch than anyone else before us, so just shut up and be happy with where we are.” This is unacceptable, for we are still cloaked in the darkness of prejudice, and will remain so from now to eternity if we do nothing.

What I am asking of you, then, is to see this country with a level head. Acknowledge the good, certainly, but do not shut your eyes to the rampant injustices that we have ignored in our past, and which we still instigate today.

I, too, want to grow old in an America where everyone is happy to be an American. But for that to happen, many wrongs still need to be put right. I promise to be proud of America when there exists an America that I can truly be proud of.


 * Cite your sources **

Pecoraro, Austin. "American Pride." //Final American Experience Speech.// 3 June 2015. Web. Rose, Steve. [|"Since 9/11, racism and Islamophobia remain intertwined."] //The Huffington Post.//12 October 2013. Web. [|"Surveillance Under the USA PATRIOT Act."] //American Civil Liberties Union.// Web. Swann, Ben. [|"Reality Check: Has the Patriot Act thwarted 42 terror attacks?"] //Fox19 Now.// Updated 8 December 2011. Web. [|"US 9/11 revenge killer convicted."] // BBC News. // 1 October 2003. Web.