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I thought I did my bit. I served in the Army. I went to college. I started and ran a successful business. I raised two kids and sent them to college. I bought houses, cars and furniture, and paid my taxes. I walk my dog. I love my wife of 32 years.

I wasn't blind or naïve. I recognized our hubris, our weaknesses, our failures. But I believed in us; I believed the stories we told ourselves; I believed in justice and equality, in dignity and truth; I believed in smart people doing smart things to protect and advance those ideals. I understood that progress is hard and slow and occurs in starts and fits, that sliding back is part of going forward. I understood that I wouldn't always agree with all that we did.

I was sure my fellow Americans shared my ideals, not in the details, but in the grand scheme, the big picture. I thought we all believed in the purple mountains' majesty. I thought we all valued honesty, respect, expertise — not that those things were always there, but that they were always important. I thought we were leading the world to a better place.

I'm in Africa, the continent we all call home. I came here for perspective. Looking back across the ocean, I can see clearly that we are no longer the iconic land of myth, the home of the free and the brave; we are most certainly neither. We hum our hymns now, because we've forgotten the words.

I came to Africa because I wanted to see what America looked like from outside the long, dark shadow of our hubris. And what I see is poor and lazy thinking shorn of ideal. We cite the myths created by our forebears and have feasted at the table they set. But what have we done but get fat?

I no longer walk the streets of a non-American city proud of where I come from, proud of the blue and gold book in my money belt. I no longer believe in who I am and where I'm from, I no longer look at local peoples confident that they recognize me and my America for our ideals. I no longer pull out my passport with a flourish and hand it over with pride. I'm ashamed, now, of my country. And I'm ashamed of myself, for having believed what I believed about the country I adored for so long. And because I did so little to protect it.

I look back across the Atlantic and I don't like us. The America I see from here is fat, shallow, materialistic and dishonest, and lacking entirely in introspection, wisdom and decency. We fail to extrapolate; we fail to see that the actions we take against others, we take against ourselves. Our daily news continues to blare the story of who we once were. But we're not that anymore.

It's not the little man. It's us, it's you and me. We didn't fight the good fight when it was our time. We sacrificed our beloved country because it was easier than insisting, than arguing with neighbors and people we love, than calling out the lies, the hypocrisy, the greed, the degeneracy, the unfairness of it all. And pitchforks are dangerous and messy. We were too focused on the things we're entitled to, the money, the guns, the pronouns, to dirty ourselves in battle. We live in his world now. And it's because of us.

Stephen Banks lives in Minneapolis.