America, the United States, was never great. I know the first thing most people will say to this:

"Leave then! If you hate it, then you shouldn't live here!"

Trust me, I know this, because I've been told it several times. Most likely the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, but I digress. The United States has many people that like to pride themselves on being "'Merican" and how "free" we are (we are actually lower on the list of free countries, just to point that out).

I am not proud to be an American. I am ashamed and embarrassed. I am ashamed that we have let a fascist corrupt businessman make his way to the top as a candidate for the President of the United States. Someone who makes his living off the suffering of others and isn't being placed in jail to be held accountable for his criminal actions. Donald Trump is a coward. When Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "The only to fear is fear itself," he did not realize that the people would someday vote for the very person that builds his campaign on fear.

I am not proud that we have succumbed to the fear and blame an entire religion and other cultures for our problems. We get angry that people have killed four United States citizens, blaming a religion for that, but yet we have been killing innocent people there since before the incident. We wonder where terrorism comes for and we call everyone else terrorists, but what about us? Are we that blinded by our own false exceptionalism? To make matters worse, I have seen the same people, that are angry over Benghazi, say that the Japanese deserved Hiroshima and treat them as unworthy of an apology. I am not proud to be an American.

I am not proud that we would rather contribute to the murders of thousands of people at the U.S.-Mexico Border than help decrease that by ending the Drug War. The same people wanting to fund the Drug War are the same people that wonder why many cross the border and complain that they are "illegals" taking our jobs. The only thing illegal is the wrongful deaths. The city of Ciudad-Juarez is cruelly nicknamed "The City of Murdered Women" because femicide is severe problem. Women, as well as men, have to protest not being killed, because the Drug War has become a War on People.

I am ashamed at the selfishness of this country. People are feeling personally victimized by the government for displaying last years fireworks display because of weather issues as ISIS's deadliest attacks occur in the Middle East. Let us not forget that the mosques in our town are being attacked by people that assume Islam is the problem. Americans feeding into terrorism and shaping it to one race and religion, so much that they are hurting innocent people because they're afraid to sit on a plane or stay in a hotel because of what they assume.

I am not proud to be an American, where the color of your skin still plays a factor on whether you're worthy of news coverage or what is covered on you, from your criminal records to whether you went to church. We should be bothered that there is a movement called "Black Lives Matter" because their lives should have ALWAYS mattered. They are not blacks or browns or whatever stereotype you please, they are humans and they matter. We tell people to stop being "thugs" but we make them feel that they are and treat them as if they are. The fact that someone is afraid because their skin color could cost them their life is not something that anyone should feel. How can we be OK with this?

I am not proud to be an American, where we tell Muslim women they are being oppressed, but we send girls home from school because their shoulder distracts a boy from achieving success as if a young woman's education is below a man's. As a woman that has been raped, the fact that the first question I was asked is what I was wearing and how much I drank is not acceptable. My rapist is free, but who cares because he was my boyfriend and that meant I wanted it. Being a woman has felt like a curse, even though it isn't. We say we are free and equal, but hold expectations for men and women alike. We shame a woman for not wanting children and we shame her for having her period. We tell a man to be tough and criticize him for being sensitive.

We scrutinize the details of everyone's lives and wish to control them, but want to be isolated from the world. We don't want our guns taken away, but wish to control a woman's body and stop people from marrying who they love.

The very fact that a Christian pastor applauds the death of people or punching a child for not wanting to go to Church does NOT receive any form of media coverage or outrage, but God forbid a refugee want to be safe from the terror back home. We don't acknowledge Nazis as radical Christians (because they aren't Christians) but the second someone attacks in the name of Islam, this is radical Islam. I am not proud to be an American.

We want to blame others for the issues we face instead of looking in the mirror.

How many more photos of Syria, Yemen, Libya, and many more countries burning to the ground, children wounded and starving without their family, of people losing their homes before we realize that a religion is not the problem? How many more news articles before we realize we are brainwashed? When will we recognize people for who they are and not the color of their skin? When will we stop trying to pry our way into the destruction of another's happiness because of who they love or the gender they are? When will we start treating humans as humans?

If America was so great, why does it feel so cruel?

I am not proud to be an American, because I refuse to follow patriotism blindly.