By Ray Cardello for July 4, 2023, Season 20 / Post 31

We are suffering a lack of love for this country that most of us recognize as the greatest on earth. We tend to emphasize the ills of America because most people look for the tragic headlines and gloss over the stories of good and hope. The old line, “If it bleeds, it leads,” is still true today, even though our sources for news have changed dramatically. Unfortunately, this logic has permeated the teaching of our children. Instead of focusing on our great land’s blessings, freedoms, and opportunities, our children are inundated with tales of gloom and oppression. There is always the other side of the coin. If we could flip the side we dwell on, we could change the thinking of future generations. The negative outlook of America is a learned, not an experienced viewpoint.

An example is WNBA player Natasha Cloud. Here is a 31-year-old woman who was educated at the University of Maryland and Saint Joseph’s University thanks to basketball scholarships and makes her living playing professional basketball. She has a life many would love to enjoy, but Natasha still has the time to trash the country that has given her a good life. In a tweet Cloud posted on Monday, she wrote:

“Our country is trash in so many ways and instead of using our resources to make it better we continue to oppress Marginalized groups that we have targeted since the beginning of times. Black/brown communities& LGBTQ+ man we are too powerful to still be attacking issues separate.”

Cloud drew immediate attention and criticism, and my favorite response was from Enes Freedom. I stipulate that Enes is one of my most admired people because he has embraced what America has given him after growing up in Turkey. He enjoys the fruits of America and maybe its biggest cheerleader and spokesman. He responded on Twitter:

Just ask your colleague Brittney Griner how “trash” America is. Calling America trash huh? Let me know when your season is over, I’ll buy your ticket and we can go together to counties like China, Russia, IRAN, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, & Turkey. Forget about calling them trash, I would like to see if you can even criticize those regimes!! You and your family members would be thrown in jail, tortured to death, and raped. People have NO idea how lucky and blessed they are to be in a country like America. I’m not saying America is perfect, but trust me, you don’t wanna see the other side.

Enes Freedom gets it. He has lived in a country that has banned him from returning home. He cannot see his parents. He lost his job playing in the NBA because he spoke out about the evils of China, yet he still raves about the greatness of America. He has seen both sides of the coin, and he will take the American eagle. Natasha Cloud has only experienced the best the world has to offer, but she has been taught that America is oppressive and racist. Cloud needs to shed her ignorance and get beyond what she has been programmed to think.

Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas is an American success story. He is a direct descendant of a slave. His great-grandfather was a plantation cotton picker. Wesley Hunt credits his parents, who taught him and his siblings that race was not the factor to determine their lives but sacrifice and hard work were. Wesley and his brother and sister are all graduates of West Point. Can there be a more patriotic success story? I don’t think so. Hunt is working on a bill that would name July as National Pride Month. That is a Pride I can embrace, and I will send the first T-shirt to Natasha Cloud!