Reflection Essay Sample: What Does it Mean to be an American?

Being American by definition is to be born or live with American citizenship, But being American also holds countless definitions by individual nations of people. Even with these individual nations, we all belong to one country that has to live with the history of its past doings, such as slavery. Slavery played a big role in our nation’s past and the means of how our nation has grown into such a wealthy and powerful country. After the abolishment of slavery, our country continued to struggle with racial inequality in many ways, with the original creation of the decoration of independence, help from the American philosopher Cornell west while we are still experiencing racial inequality through the criminal justice system to this day.

A large part of being American is following the laws and regulations written in with the creation of The Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence, separating the United States into its own country, implementing the constitution and a whole new set of laws and promises made to the citizens. One of the promises written into the Declaration stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”(Declaration of Independence). Since there were 56 total authors of the Declaration 41 of the 56 total authors were slaveowners. This amplifies the idea of how America was founded on an uneven playing field for African-Americans as they were not treated equally from the start. The Declaration of Independence also took the motto for this new country “e Pluribus Unum” or out of many, one, translated from Latin. America’s past with slaves contradicted this motto once again, out of many ones, means out of the many individuals we come together and unite into one country, except African Americans were not accounted as members of society suppressing and subjecting them to an inhumane way of living. 

After slavery was abolished in the 1860s didn’t mean racism was over and everyone was finally getting treated equally again. Cornel West is an African American philosopher who focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society. West went on to state in one of his books that “Western progress rendered black peoples economically exploited, politically oppressed, and culturally degraded.” (West). West Believed that the progress of America as fast as the country grew into power, grew too fast for its own good, this left the African American population left behind with the outdated rules this community of citizens was left behind continuing to be exploited and oppressed way past the time they were legally considered equal. West later stated in his novel that “ The fundamental meaning of this white supremacist ideology is this: New world Africans enter European modernity cast as disposable pieces of property.”(The Ignoble Paradox of Modernity, 1997). West states that Africans were registered as disposable pieces of property. Wests and many other African Americans had a similar outlook to how they were being treated, which contradicts the Declaration of Independence. 

Justice and Equality, another two big takeaways stated in the Declaration of Independence. Both of these values weren’t fulfilled for the African American population in America. In the book Just Mercy, by Brian Stevenson, an American lawyer, founder/executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, he has challenged bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system, especially children. In this Novel Stevenson stated on pages 17-18,  “Finally, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned”(Stevenson). Stevenson spent this novel talking about his experiences with defending wrongly accused African American prison inmates and fights of the freedom of his clients. Stevenson in his career has won the freedom of 135 wrongly accused death row prisoners. This particular quote stood out because of the emphasis on the treatment of the poor. Today the news only reports the wealthy and the relevant news for that day, not as much the judicial problem in our government locking up minorities and suppressing a whole nation of humans. 

As an American citizen living with certain privileges, that the cruel, uneven start of the country was apparent and there are still parts of the system that haven’t been changed to date, continuing to oppress a select few nations of people. To be an American is more than that, being an American is having a homeland to many, constantly evolving to be the best version of itself possible. The American population needs to use the power it has and speak for its injustices because after all the major changes have come in this country by citizens using their voice fighting for their rights until one day America is truly equal.