This Fourth of July, I’m Redefining Patriotism and Celebrating Gen Z
Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
I’ve never been one for confrontation, but as I sat alone in my college dorm a thousand miles away from home, with an unbearable tightness overcoming my chest, and my lungs feeling as if they could no longer support me, I knew I was ready for change.
On the last page of my Alabama absentee ballot were the words “Signature of Witness.” This was my first time voting, and instead of feeling like a proud and liberated citizen, I felt confused and disgusted. What do you mean someone has to watch me vote, and why didn’t anyone tell me?
I was seeing firsthand that voting, a symbol of rights and freedom, turned out to be riddled with restrictions and barriers that ranged from requiring a witness to vote to long voting lines to the spontaneous relocation of polling sites. This lack of transparency reminded me of voting barriers from before the 1965 Voting Rights Act – like having to pay a fee or pass a test –– and fed my growing disillusionment with America. I felt ready to take to the streets and scream. Maybe then my voice would be heard.
But my grievances didn’t begin with this voting experience nor did they end with it.
A few months before, police brutality became so normalized that the words “I can’t breathe” seemed to perfectly summarize the suffocatingly precarious nature of being Black in America. Soon after that, the January 6th insurrection made our democracy feel like a scam. Why were the Proud Boys told to “fight like hell” by the President while others were brandished as “thugs” for advocating for Black lives?
So, a few months later when my parents mentioned watching fireworks for the 4th of July, I apathetically replied: “Eh…I’m okay.”
The thought of celebrating a country in which a fraction of its citizens enjoyed all of its freedoms felt sickening. I had the ick. More than that: it was difficult for me to love a country whose civic and social systems made it clear that it didn’t love me.
I didn’t want to patriotically watch fireworks. I wanted to create change.
But how? How could I possibly change centuries of exclusion? For almost 250 years, ever since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, people have had to fight for access to rights written in our founding documents. This blueprint of “inalienable rights” for some and not others was established hundreds of years before that, when early colonizers excluded, exploited and dehumanized Black and Brown people.
But just as history tells us that our country’s structures are old and established, it also tells us that they are man-made and thus disruptable. Access to quality education, housing, and voting were all dreams only a few could live as a reality until people came together to march through the streets of Washington, Birmingham, and Atlanta; until people refused to give up their seat or change their appearance for the comfort of others; until they stood in the face of violence — symbolic and physical — and declared “try me.” While we’re still building a nation that more clearly reflects the experiences and dreams of all of its people, our history reminds me that change is possible, especially with a little confrontation.
We — Gen Z, the current generation of teens and young adults — are the continuation of this legacy of changemakers and revolutionaries.
We are activists, embodying the conviction of human rights advocate Ella Baker, Black nationalist Malcolm X, and feminist Alice Paul; we come together to fill the streets and take up the space that has been previously denied to us until the echoes of our chants are felt all throughout America.
We are educators, reflecting the strength of scholar and professor Angela Davis, writer Zitkála-Šá, and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar; we use the classroom, social media, and our artwork to spark conversations and debates about the socio-political environment of our nation.
We are trailblazers, imbued with the hunger to learn how to mold a more just society like civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois, Black feminist poet Audre Lorde, and grassroots activist Huey P. Newton; we create and join organizations like Anytown Social Justice, Made By Us, and DoSomething Vote 2000 to deepen our knowledge of the historical inequities and barriers we face while also sharing resources to empower us as we make voting, education, and other rights more accessible and relatable.
This revolutionary spirit of ours has pushed me to reflect and re-envision America as a nation that feels like home — that makes me feel seen, listened to, and welcomed as a young woman of color. I envision a nation in which I know that my vote is being counted and not challenged or questioned; a nation in which Black and brown mothers don’t have to protect their children from “the protectors of the law;” a nation in which white supremacy and violence are not tolerated by its people or its leaders.
It’s up to us to create this home. We can start by reading our nation’s history to provide insight as we write the future chapters; we can re-envision traditional American holidays, like the 4th of July, not as celebrations of the freedoms only a few can access but as reminders of the change we’ve created and the change we will create; we can partake in Civic Season and recognize Juneteenth as an extension of Independence Day; we can create a nation that builds upon its past and current traditions to create a space that more closely reflects the experiences of all of its people. We can be the change.
Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
Want more U.S. government coverage?
