Dear America,

I have so much to thank you for. I mean the list goes on and on. Myself and so many fellow Americans have so much to thank you for, so much that I certainly will not be able to encompass it all in this piece. But I truthfully have to thank you for the lessons you have taught me. Lessons I will need to pass onto my children to ensure they live a happy and successful life. Now where do I begin?

Thank you for teaching me the value of being a woman in our country. For teaching me that even though I could have the same degree, work the same or even more, men will earn more money than me. You have showed me that a woman who has all and more of the necessary qualifications for an important job will have a man who has none of the qualifications for the job, steal it from her. I have learned from you America, that simply speaking loudly and providing false promises, can get you a hell of a lot farther than working hard. You showed me in every magazine article, news video, and media source that my worth truly only comes from my body and looks. That no matter how hard I work, my body will never be good enough. Thanks to you America, I know that even after generations of women marching and fighting for their rights, you still believe old, white men know better about our bodies than we do. Thank you for truly showing me the worth of women in our society.

Thank you for proving to me that the lives of our students and teachers really don’t matter to you. Time and time again you try to shut down the public school system, cut funding for programs, and allow teachers to be paid minimal amounts of money. Thank you for creating a society where if I don’t have a college degree, I will have a very hard time making a decent living. And by that, thank you for thus putting me and so many others into thousands of dollars of debt I will spend my whole life paying off. But hey, college isn’t free anywhere else in the world, right?

Thank you America, for killing my planet. Thank you for choosing industry over the well-being of our planet, our nature, our wildlife, and even the health and livelihoods of so many human beings. You have overfished the oceans, cut down billions of acres of forest, polluted the air I breath, made hundreds of species go extinct, and continue persist this ridiculous use of fossil fuels. Thank you for denying the use of green energy simply so corporations and government officials can fill their pockets with money. I can’t thank you enough! After all, it will be wonderful to have to explain to my young brother why the government shoved a pipeline into our river, simply to have it explode, so he can never swim there ever again. Thank you for killing so many of the species I grew up with, so now my future children will only be able to see them in pictures.

Thank you for teaching me how much people matter to you. For showing me that someone of color will never have the same status as me, simply because of their skin tone. Thank you for showing me that those in the LGBTQ+, who in cases love each other more than heterosexual couples, can never be married and given the same rights as other couples. Thank you for putting the needs of corporations over people’s rights to their land and homes. You have truly shown me, unless born as a rich, white, heterosexual male, our rights and voices don’t matter. That when people across the world are truly in need of protection and safety, we will deny that to them. We shall judge based on religion, skin color, and generalizations. Thank you for basically going against everything the Founding Fathers put in place for this country, even though you claim daily to be carrying out their will.

But my biggest thank you comes from a quote by Thomas Jefferson, “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so”. Thank you for uniting much of the American public. Now more than ever we are determined to protect the rights of our citizens and our fellow humans across the globe. We are determined to not let you kill our planet. We are determined to set the world right. Thank you for lighting a fire under the American public. Thank you for inspiring us to make our voices heard. Thank you for bringing in the strongest era of public action you will ever see.

Thank you and get ready America.