My grandmother Mamatha used to preach to me about forgiveness. She said that "turning the other cheek" when someone wronged me—no matter what that wrong might be—was a big part of that forgiving. She also said that Jesus wanted me to forgive whoever wronged me—no matter how bad the wrong was—"seventy times seven times." That was the number of forgivenesses I was supposed to give. She never did the math, but it didn't take me long with my third-grade multiplication skills to understand that by biblical standards, I'm supposed to hand out forgiveness like Halloween candy. Yes—490 bits of forgiveness. She had read this in the Bible somewhere, and even as I sat respectfully in her tutelage as a malleable-brained prepubescent child, it made me wonder: Why should I stand for abuse or keep forgiving someone set on hurting me? 

For years, America, beyond that blind adherence to what I'd been taught as a boy and even as I shed the scales from my eyes to learn about the things you as a nation stood for and promoted—like Indigenous genocide, the transatlantic slave trade, abusive natural resources exploitation, misogyny, chronic prejudice, unequal access to civil rights, and a warped sense of jurisprudence meted out on skin color—I stood for the flag and pledged allegiance to it. I even sang the songs dedicated to you: “My country 'tis of thee, oh say can you see.” I drank all the red, white, and blue Kool-Aid, and then asked for more. I considered myself a good-enough citizen with all that forgiveness in the face of what you'd done wrong. I've been an ever upwardly mobile, law-abiding  “good Negro” in going for that whole "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" thing your founding father's espoused. Brain-washing worked way too well on me, on too many of us. Maybe the 401 years of assault numbed me into submission. Nothing like a hard slap to wake a body up.

So much of the affront was built in. The founding fathers rubber-stamped wrongs against the liberated enslaved to let them fester into Jim Crow, land-stealing, mass incarceration, codified unequal justice, and outright murder. Hate was woven into your tapestry. It's a lot to look past, America—much less overcome. 

Even as you continue to find insidious ways to hit us with widening disparities in wealth, health, and well-being, you salt the stinging wounds with reminders that being Black inside of your reality is the longest and hardest row to hoe. No matter how hard we try, we mostly end up being outliers in your story. I'm thinking you're now way over the 490 cheek-turning, slap-forgiving gyrations my grandmother told me to give you.  

And so daily I'm slapped. We are slapped. Jabbed. Punched and haymakered by racist social media remarks and policies that call out in codes of approval to the worst among us. When the skinheads, the Ku Kluxers, and the white nationalists claim "blood and soil" and you stand by and allow hate to spread like wildfire, it is like a backhand brought down from on high each time. You gouge the unhealed scars of bondage and bias when you tell us to " . . . go back to the countries we've come from." When you set the game up so we get murdered in broad daylight with everyone watching and no repercussions for the crime, you tell us that you do not value who we are. Why do you let statues and monuments of treasonous traitors, racist monsters, and murders stand? What happened to the promise of "liberty and justice for all" you made?

In the midst of viral and racist plagues, the constant stream of lies, insults, and disrespect you're watching flow by has opened a Pandora's box of impugned hate and loosed a kind of rabid rampage against inclusion—a war against difference. I'm having a problem forgiving you for this. I don't think this is a slight I can just sing an anthem for or pledge an allegiance of a flag to and wait another election cycle for—or another near-half millennium for, in hopes you'll correct this thing. I'm tired. I’m scared. I'm angry. I'm frustrated. I don't know who to trust anymore, and the time is past for me to look past all this hurtful shit.

You should know, My Country “'tis of thee,” that I'm no longer going to stand for this abuse. It's almost like I was trading comfort for silence; bartering the silence of my own mind and what I know to be right for peace of mind and your acceptance. I was silent to protect the little pieces of prosperity I managed to squirrel away while playing your game. That's a coward's trade in complacency with comfort coming at the cost of consciousness. It's fool's gold. So, my dear bittersweet Nation, I've finally grown up beyond the boy at the elder's knee. I guess I should thank you for that, America. All that history of hate and oppression came to weigh heavier than I can bear any longer. Even as I've taken crumbs from the pie you said was for all of us (but was half-baked for some of us). Even with all the things baked into that pie made to hold me back. Even as you tell me daily I'm not worthy to be among you, I strive. And yes, America, I will continue to strive, to swim upstream as my ancestors would have me do. But just know, I'm no longer satisfied with the status quo. It's not OK to just "turn the other cheek" to be silent and calm—waiting for things to "work themselves out." I know it's what you desire, but I won't practice that warped kind of "patriotism" anymore. The present and devolving situation you let yourself get mired in demands I stop such foolishness. I'm ready for change, and I think anger is an OK way for me to feel right now. 

As you hopefully try to live up to the promises you’ve made, I have to escape from time to time. The daily assaults are exhausting, and so I try to find solace by seeking wildness. I can go to nearby places: forests and mountains, streams and salt marshes, to be alone and away from so much of the tension. In those places where I (usually) don’t have to fear human beings or being tracked as prey by the police, I can be closer to the me you guarantee in the Constitution that, for the longest time, only valued me at 60 percent of full human.  

I go out to claim all of who I am. Wild birds and beasts in wild places help to heal the wounds afflicted by so many years. Out there I can find my whole self not discounted by law or preconceived notions. Out there I don’t find redlining. If I get stalked in the midst of some wilderness, it’s my own fault for being an unwary piece of potential bipedal protein. There’s no suspicion or fear generated by my brown skin. Even as I've lived life as a free man with rights and a few privileges my ancestors only dreamed of—and literally slaved and died for—the toll taken by bias is still great, and being out and away the truest salve. 

So I ask you, implore you, please Dear USA, try to keep as much of yourself green and unpaved, undrilled, undeveloped, and untrammeled as you can. Please see wildness as an inalienable right. Please stop seeing land and soil and trees as commodities to be bought and sold. Please stop driving animals to extinction and warming up the globe (and denying you’re doing so). Please understand that rights to clean air, clean water, and nutritious whole foods and access to green spaces are essential civil rights. You see where exploitation got you with my people. Don’t continue to commit the inhumane sins of the past against nature. Yes, there’s already been a shit ton of damage done to us and the wild world, but there’s time to make things right. You can begin now.

James Baldwin said that "to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time." I think Mr. Baldwin wanted more for this country than its history and behavior showed. I want the same, and without the pain. I want better for everyone. I want better for nature because we’re all linked whether we admit it or not. I'm tired of wincing at shadows, dodging doubt, and wondering where the next blows will fall. I'm tiring of being angry and on edge. I'm tired of turning cheeks knowing the next slap will surely come. I won't forgive hate. I won't forgive racists of any stripe, living or dead, whether president or pauper populist, who would just as soon see me in chains, in prison, or dead in the ground.  

I won’t stand for nature’s desecration at the hands of some revisionist great-again scheme. It’s just too much, and I demand you cease, desist, and redirect. Past these plagues, I want a new normal and not the same old thing. And until you do better, US, I’m going to keep speaking loudly and not be prone to any more acts of blind forgiveness. So you’ll try to do better, right? Yes, I still love you, America. You’re my home, and I’ve got too much invested to just let it all go. Remember, it’s not just me I’m speaking for but all my kin and kindred spirits that know what you've done—but want and know you can be better. But you really need to change. Now.  

With Liberty, Justice, and Wildness for All,
Drew