Why We Are Claiming Our Patriotism

what urban patriotism means

I was born and raised in the initial National Capital city of the USA, Philadelphia, PA.  For almost  30 of the past years, I have lived and worked in the now National Capital city, Washington, DC.  I energetically embrace both the challenges & opportunities these densely & diversely populated urban communities present.  I am urban-oriented and city-gritted.

I am a US Naval Academy graduate and US Marine Corps combat environment-experienced Veteran.  I am a patriot and patriot-committed.

I am an urban Patriot.

We did not inherit our patriotism. Nobody does. We claim it. Block by block. Year by year. Through the work we choose to show up for.

That is a harder activity than it sounds. Because most of what gets called patriotism in this country is just inheritance. A flag at the door. A hand over the heart. A hat with the right words stitched across the front. A feeling that arrived at birth and costs nothing to keep.

We are not claiming that version.

Somewhere along the way, patriotism got fenced off. The loudest voices in the room claimed it, stitched it onto a hat, and turned it into a uniform for one team. Those voices  told everyone else that loving this country meant looking like them and standing where they stand. They shout about it the most and do the least for it.

That was always a facade. The flag was never one group’s  to hand out. urban Patriot is activated to put the flag where it belongs. In the hands of the people who actually do the work. People like you.

Patriotism Is a Practice, Not a Costume

For 250 years, the strongest force in this country has never been the monuments or the slogans. It has been the people who showed up for the places they lived.

For example, the families who came north in the Great Migration and helped build Washington, DC. The owners who stayed on U Street when everyone else left. The coaches running programs out of Anacostia rec centers before there was a dollar of budget. The organizers. The builders. The ones who showed up.

None of them waited to feel patriotic. They accepted the mission to claim it.

A feeling is passive. A costume is cheap. A mission is a choice you make again every single morning. And that choice, the decision to show up for your block, your city, your people, is what actually holds this country together from the ground up.

The corner does not care how you feel about America. It cares what you do for the people gathered on it and/or passing it moving from one block to another. 

Claimed Through Work, Not Handed Down

Here is the part that always gets left out. The people who do the most for this country are often the ones told they belong to it the least. City people. Working people. The ones who get talked about on the news instead of talked to. Misrepresented, underestimated, and still out there every day doing the work that keeps a neighborhood standing.

Claiming your patriotism does not take a ceremony, a uniform, or a hat. It takes showing up. Specifically. Consistently. In the place you actually live.

It looks like:

•   Knowing your neighbors by name.

•   Running for the school board.

•   Opening the business your block needs.

•   Coaching the team nobody else will coach.

•   Sitting through the community meeting that runs two hours too long.

It looks like caring more about your city's next 250 years as much as celebrating successes of its last. urban Patriot is for the people already doing this. The gear is not a costume. It is a signal. It says: I claimed this. I earned it. I am in for the long haul.

Our Nation of Neighbors

Here is a truth most patriotism talk misses. Community defines country. Not the other way around..

America is not an idea that is defined in one specific part of the nation and exported to your block. It gets built from the block up, by neighbors who decide to act like neighbors. People who treat civic life as a mission, not a show.

That is the nation we are building. Not a nation of people who inherited a feeling. A Nation of Neighbors. People who know the link in the chain that matters most is the one on their own street. People who decided their city, flawed and unfinished and complicated, is worth their time and their sweat.

People who claim their patriotism. And wear it like they earned it.

Stand up. Serve up. Rep loud.

The gear for the people who show up.

Join the movement. Shop the urban Patriot Collection →