Here's what to read while you really consider the country's legacy.
Happy (belated) 250th, America! We’re not exactly in the party mood this rainy Monday, but que sera. This weekend brought Washington a militaristic display, and most states a conundrum: how do we celebrate a country that is actively furthering a violent, fascist agenda, in and outside its own borders?
To paraphrase Dazed and Confused‘s Ms. Stroud on the day of the bicentennial, we can’t forget what we’ve been asked to celebrate: “the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn’t want to pay their taxes.”
And yet, Woody Guthrie. Baseball. Hollywood! Jazz! What do we do about the pickle of American patriotism? A lot of our best writers have spilled ink on this question. Last week, some of the brightest minds of my generation left us angry elegies and poetic travelogues. But I left the weekend still craving some context for ye olde national experiment.
Here are a few blessed links to carry you into another epoch of wrestling with the U.S. of A. From historical correctives to reparative reading lists, the articles below all serve to remind us what actually can make America great: our long histories of revolt and resistance, and an abiding curiosity that transcends borders.
