“We are the people, and this is our spot, and we will celebrate it, expand it, and defend it with our lives. The soil we stand upon and the blood in our veins unites us.”

Community pride –”We are the people, and this is our spot” – brings people together for the common good.

“We are the people, and this is our spot” is why we build hospitals and schools and roads and bridges.

“We are the people, and this is our spot,” is why we work to keep the air and water clean.

“We are the people, and this is our spot,” is why we revere those who have served in the armed forces.

Let’s change just two words in the sentence that opened this essay. A man with a dark mustache slightly wider than his nostrils shouts into a microphone, “We are the people, and this is the Fatherland, and we will celebrate it, expand it, and defend it with our lives. The soil we stand upon and the blood in our veins unites us.”

Uh-Oh. Is that little nutjob with the narrow mustache one of us?

Of course not. Mustache-boy believed in a closed community, an ethnicity, a DNA sequence, a specific set of GPS coordinates. Adolph beleived “might makes right.”

His Golden Rule was “He who has the gold, makes the rules.”

But you and I know that America is less of a place and more of a belief system, a way of looking at the world and the people in it. Our Golden Rule is, “Treat others as you would like others to treat you.”

Americans believe in opportunity and equality.

Americans believe in defending the weak from the strong who would abuse them.

Americans believe in lifting people up, dusting them off, giving them a big smile and telling them to try again.

Americans don’t scare easily, and we don’t leave anyone behind.

America has always been a melting pot where men and women from every corner of the world have had mixed-race children for the past 400 years. America has gathered people from every nation that has ever flown a flag. Some of these people came to America voluntarily. Others were brought here against their will. But none of that matters because children do not get to choose their parents.

We are not purebred show dogs. We are mixed-breed puppies born in a howling wilderness.

Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock on the island of Nevis in the Carribean, but he came to this country and became one of its principal Founding Fathers. We have printed that man’s face on 11.9 billion twenty-dollar bills and the Broadway play about his life was a staggering success.

That play, by the way, was written by an American man whose DNA is Puerto Rican, Mexican, English, and African. His parents named him “Lin-Manuel” after a poem about the Vietnam War.

Is America portable?

I believe it is. Do you?

If you believe in opportunity and equality, defending the weak, lifting people up, dusting them off, smiling and telling them to try again, you are an American.

If you don’t scare easily and don’t leave anyone behind, you are an American.

If you believe in love with its sleeves rolled up, you are an American.

Take America with you wherever you go.America is demonstrated through actions of kindness and generosity.

Be an American today, okay?

Roy H. Williams

NOTE: Many of you reading these words live in other nations. Please know that I believe the people of every nation embrace the values I mentioned in this essay. Not one of the things I mentioned is exclusively American. I wrote directly to the people of my nation today – calling them out by name, “Americans” – because we have been fighting about some really stupid things for a long time. That’s why I chose to write about the virtues that all good people share. Insert the name of your own nation where I wrote the word “American.” I believe what I wrote today is true of your nation, and of every other nation on earth. Wouldn’t it be great if we focused on our similarities instead of our differences? – RHW