2016 has been a rough year, for America in particular. For all the writing I do about Eastern Europe, Alfred is by far my favorite character and the closest to my heart simply because I am American.

This is a journal entry I wrote in response to the police shootings in July. After a torrential presidential election, I can't help but feel that this country I love so much has taken one step forward and three steps back... and that breaks my heart.

Let this be a call for us to keep fighting for what America stands for.

After the Civil War, I thought the voices would go away.

They didn't.

After the Civil Rights movement, I thought the pain would finally be over.

It wasn't.

I try to see both sides, I do. I go to black churches, I stand outside in protest, I pray with these guys and bring them food and make music with them and hear their stories. Because they are my people too. "African American" is something you can't find anywhere else in the world, it is uniquely American. This is the birthplace of soul music, of rap, jazz, hip-hop – these people have an entire culture, a way of dressing and speaking and singing that is something totally new and beautiful to the world – something that I have had the pleasure to witness and be a part of, something that I am proud to take credit for.

But I am brought to shame when I am faced with the reality of the part that I have played, and the part that my own people have played in their persecution. Not just slavery, not just Jim-Crowe laws, but every day judgements and assumptions that hurt and eventually kill. And every time I wake up to a new murder on the news, with a woman who has just lost a husband or brother forced to stand in front of the country and overcome her unimaginable grief to speak for what should be obvious – I am left hating myself. Because I am the one who so arrogantly flaunts my "freedom" for the world to see, I am the one raising flags over military bases in the name of "freedom", I am the one kicking in people's doors and dropping bombs on their cities to bring them "freedom".

When I saw Hamilton, of course I bawled my eyes out. I listen to the soundtrack all the time, and there's this one line that really gets me: "Black and white soldiers wonder alike if this really means freedom – Not. yet." Because I remember the optimism of those days, I remember feeling like I could bring the same justice and ecstasy that I felt to nations all across the world. And I did – one by one, the monarchies fell and Democracy has become the staple of the world's most successful nations. And most days, I feel pretty damn good about that.

But there are bad days. Days filled with gunshots and wails and cries of injustice. And those are the days when I look myself in the mirror and say, "Who are you? Who are you, to declare your precious 'freedom' to the world when your own people don't even have equal opportunities to live? To get a job, to express themselves, to return home to their families at night just like every human being should?" And I look myself in the mirror and I hate what I see, because all I can see is history's biggest hypocrite.

Other nations aren't afraid to remind me of this – 'Oh shut up, boy, your people aren't 'free.'" But they say it like I should give up – like if I were to stop talking about it, the issue would just solve itself. But that's the thing: I can't. I have to keep believing in freedom, I have to keep fighting for what I started when I heard those first shots ring out in Lexington and Concord. Because if I were to just stop talking about it and give in to the prejudice, what's the point? I've seen the determination in men's eyes when they look up through the smoke and the fire and see that flag whipping in the wind, because they believe in something that isn't finished yet. I've seen those same men breathe their dying breath on a god-forsaken island, or jungle, or desert. And if I were to just give up – if I were to say, "Yeah, I'm not free and I'll never be", then those deaths would have been in vain. Every man and woman that was beaten and imprisoned for their beliefs, would have done so for no reason. So that is why, even though I know that America is not free, I refuse to live by any other ideal. I refuse to apologize for my people's blinding patriotism, I refuse to take down the flag and say "It's not worth it." Because I believe without a doubt that as long as we keep on fighting hate with love, as long as we keep breaking the boundaries of prejudice that some day it will be worth it.

I am the United States of America… and I have to believe that.

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?