Trinity Bella Hawkins 6th - Since When Was America Great?

Summary: In this article, a young writer from Affinity Magazine talks about the idea of American greatness, mainly Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign slogan "make America great again". In the article she also states reasons why we shouldn't uphold this and lists the reasons why, some of which are how there were 126 mass shootings in the U.S. this year alone, the U.S. is #1 is guns per capita next to Yemen, and that censorship is still a reigning force in our lives (re. Edward Snowden). This article asks us to really examine in the coming months who we pick to be our president and what effect they will have on these things.

Analysis: When we talk about this we need to really think about privilege - specifically who has it. Whenever something is created someone is benefitted; maybe on purpose or maybe accidentally but someone is benefitted. The slogan "Make America Great Again" uses language that directly references this idea of American greatness and who does that benefit - white upper class/upper middle class heterosexual cisgender males. This group of people have been the dominating force in America from the start of our country - our "first settlers" were white males who had enough privilege that they started their own colony for people like them to escape religious persecution, only to bring an entire race of people and disenfranchise them and disestablish the entire race of people that were already there and wipe them out. Our country was grown from corruption and until we realize that nothing will be fixed. You can't make something great again that was never great.

Synthesis: The slogan "Make America Great Again" reminds me of when on July 22, 2016 a KKK leader David Duke declared he was running for Louisiana senate using the slogan "America First"