Missing The America That Never Was

America has been really good to me — but it needs to be really good to everyone.

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I’ve shed many misplaced tears since the last presidential election.

For the first few months I thought I was grieving over the loss of America; that I was missing something we used to be, a place we once were, a new national erosion of hope I thought I’d been witnessing.

I imagined this great attrition was the source of my despair, mistakenly believing I was lamenting something that had at one time been here, but was now gone. It was until recently that I realized that I’d been mourning the death of a ghost.

I haven’t been missing America — –I’ve been missing an America I wanted to be, an America I imagined to be — –an America that never was.

For months I was sitting a straight, white Christian guy’s somber vigil over the dying of a country most people have never experienced — at least not in the way I’d convinced myself they had, and definitely not in the way that I had.

Growing-up I believed every word about America as land of the free and home of the brave. I imagined us to be that singular, brilliant beacon to the world, welcoming every weary soul who sought sanctuary on its…