Dear Mr. President,

Don’t call me a fascist on this 4th of July. I am an American.

People are crying, “Something is wrong. All is not right.” I have listened. You have not.

If my black friends and brothers are saying equality is not here, I will listen. If my gay brother is in pain, I will listen. If my Latino brother says all is not well, I will listen. If my wife and my daughter and my sister say equality is not here, I will listen. I love them; I trust them, so I will listen — as they would listen to me, if I said all is not right, because they love and trust me in return. You have not listened.

If my family is not content, how can I sit idle and be content? I can not.

The honest American fight is to make life better for others, not simply to take for myself. By lifting each other up, we help lift up us all. That is the American spirit from our greatest of generations.

Our imperfect founding fathers wrote brilliant documents that created a country, not as a fortress of immovable stone, but as a path. It is this path we have been striving to properly find and then follow for 12 score and 2 years—amending our route when we strayed from the path toward equality. Our country has been deeply flawed in the living of it — and yet, the ideal we strive for is beautiful.

It seems I come from abolitionist Quaker stock. My ancestors trace also to Robert Lee. So this fight of equality is in me. I fought to keep people enslaved, and I fought with blood and sinew to help free them. Do not tell me I am not America. I am a piece of this land, the good and the bad. Don’t tell me I am un-American because I speak out for freedom and equality today. I know this fight of old. We will win again. We will win again, because it is the good fight.

And yet, today you call me a fascist? Is this because I love equality and justice for all, enough to fight for it?

Most sincerely, on this 4th of July,

an American