Given the mathematically-proven inequality concerning police violence against African Americans, and the countless videos of police assaulting protesters, this doesn’t seem like the ‘land of the free’ right now, but it still can be the ‘home of the brave.’

You can always, always be brave.

Be brave enough to speak your mind.
Be brave enough to defend someone you don’t know.
Be brave enough to march, put up signs, get loud.
Be brave enough to abandon your identity.
Be brave enough to challenge yourself, your upbringing, your environment.
Be brave enough to stand up.
Be brave enough to defend THE Constitution, not the one you think applies to you when it’s convenient, but THE one that supposedly covers ALL Americans, ALL the time.
Be brave enough to donate to a person whom the state has unjustly deemed a criminal because they did something braver than you ever did.
Be brave enough to teach your children the truth.
Be brave enough to start now.
Be brave enough to fight.

Be brave.

Because silence is not brave.
Apathy is not brave.
Contentment because your guy is in the White House (bunker) is not brave. Hiding behind vests and helmets and batons and shields, shoving old men and macing little girls, is not brave.

The state can always take away your freedom, that much is clear (even despite that speech in Braveheart), but they can never take away bravery. Bravery is spirit, and a spirit is only as crushed as it thinks it is.
So do not be crushed.
Be brave.

And when they do try to crush you, when their walls close in, and they sure as f*ck will, remember you’re braver than they are. They hold our home back, terrified for their status.
But in spite of their muscle and guns, and against all forces, you move this country towards a truer ‘land of the free’ for future generations.
What’s braver than working brutally hard despite certain difficulties and potential failure?

Nothing.
So be brave.