Allegiance

I'm kinda sad that the pride some people feel in being American leads to enforcing compulsory nationalistic displays amidst threats and shaming for anyone who doesn't think it's appropriate or doesn't want to do so in certain circumstances. I'm kinda sad that people who have never left the US and don't have any international friends don't realize how creepy some of our customs are.

I saw a thread recently online where people were horrified that children in American public schools are compelled to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. You can assure them that it's actually illegal for kids to be REQUIRED to say it all you want, but in practice, most kids feel like they ABSOLUTELY MUST SAY IT or they will at best be singled out, at worst be interrogated and punished regarding why they aren't patriotic enough.

Think about that. If you're forced to ritualistically chant an oath of allegiance before you even know what your country stands for, how in the world can it be sincere or meaningful?

And the Pledge isn't just a simple celebration of appreciation for America, any more than reciting a religious blessing has nothing to do with God. We open by pledging ALLEGIANCE. It's not legally binding, and it's not even understood by many who recite it, but being asked to display your LOYALTY to your country in a public place where abstaining quietly would be considered a political statement that could mark you for ridicule or other negative attention, well, that certainly encourages you to be a good little soldier making daily promises before you know who you promise yourself to, doesn't it?

Doesn't that sound like the kind of thing a dangerous government would want?

Imagine if it was a different country that started its days by standing, looking at the flag, and chanting a statement of loyalty--led by an educator, consisting of language that makes statements about the nature of the country and declares alignment with its values--regardless of whether they, their families, or their people have been properly served by said country.

If you saw another country do it, with a different flag, in a different language, you'd probably think it sounded like brainwashing. I'm pretty sure that if you excuse our country's use of it just because, well, it's us and it's totally not creepy, then I think you might want to do some thinking about what brainwashing is.

Here's the thing. Let's say you refuse to pledge allegiance--you don't speak against it, or make any statements criticizing it, but you just fail to display the expected chanting of loyalty. Or say you refuse to participate in affirmation of your country's greatness because you know its laws don't actually protect you, or your family is currently being harassed and treated like strangers in your own land, or you're punished for exercising the rights you're supposed to have as an American, or your body is being controlled in a way that limits your freedom to pursue your goals equally to other citizens. Say you've learned the promises your country made to you are not being kept, and you've discovered you do NOT, after all, have inalienable rights that have been granted to others whose traits appear to make them more "real," more American, more worthy of considering family. Say you no longer want to sing your country's praises because those promises sound like insults now that they've been broken so many times.

Say you want to express that you do not, in fact, choose to stand to that country's honor because its systems have dealt out only DISHONOR. Say you want to express that you do not, in fact, consider yourself allegiant to this country's values because you see daily examples of how they are honored unequally. Say you want to kneel during a football game because you and yours are NOT represented by these creeds no matter how many ignorant people insist your complaints based on lived experience are groundless.

Well, say all of that is how you feel. What are you expressing with that?

You're saying the authorities have lied to you all along, and you're aware of it, and want more people to be aware of it so it can change.

The reaction: you encounter people whose eyes go wild and whose throats fill with shrieks about the DISRESPECT and INSULT inherent in not patriotically waving a flag and shutting up. How DARE you. How DARE you express that anything at all is wrong with the system, and how DARE you use your guaranteed freedoms of speech and protest to express that! Surely the answer is to badger and shame until that person shuts up and toes the line. Surely it's better to make a country where nobody feels safe criticizing the government.

Peculiar how consistently those who champion free speech still want folks who speak against the government silenced and punished. These same people clamor to support fines, bans, and harassment campaigns for people who speak out against unfair treatment, and they consistently attach their motivation to the country itself. Why, if you think the country isn't perfect the way it is because its systems are designed to keep you from prospering (or designed to literally kill you), you must HATE THE COUNTRY. You must hate those who govern it, hate people who live here, and hate whatever else you conveniently associate with the "right" culture of living in this country. Your values of other sorts will be questioned, from morals and religion to personal relationships and preferences. You will be interrogated. You will be treated like wanting this country to be BETTER is a sin; as if the only words you could be saying about America is that you HATE IT and ALL IT STANDS FOR if there are some things you don't like about it.

They want America to be BETTER when they kneel. We want America to be BETTER when we point out the ways the government abuses its power or doesn't do its job.

And the people who squeal about treason and stampede to do violence to people who protest are often the same people who have used racial slurs, called for deaths, contemplated secession or revolution, and refused to state loyalty in other situations when they didn't like the country's leader or didn't feel their neighbor deserved to be called American. They're all about unity and obedience and allegiance when the laws and practices aren't hurting them. But when someone else wants to call attention to how they're being mistreated? Well they must just hate. our. country. Pigs, they need to be deported, jailed, or executed.

(You know what you sound like when you say that, right? If you literally think people need to be thrown out of the country or physically punished for not chanting a loyalty oath when it is demanded of them by their peers, then you support a fascist dictatorship. If loyalty is compulsory and may need to be driven into you through fear and threat of catastrophic consequences, it is not love for country. You are not demonstrating how love for country should be if you ever have to threaten someone over it.)

People will love their country if it treats them like an equal and sustains their life.

In the past, unfair laws supported humans owning other humans, segregated facilities in an "equal" country, second-class citizenship for women who could not vote or own property, and condemnation over how to practice religion. Most of the people screaming about respect for the flag today actually would support the Civil Rights leaders of the past who gave us emancipation, gave us voting rights, ended segregation, stopped religious discrimination. Of course, many of them still think marriage equality was a mistake, think women's bodies need to be regulated, and think there is no racial disparity regarding how people are treated under the law from police on the street to legal sentences for criminals. Some think women are not equal. Some think white people are superior. Some have no awareness or compassion regarding disabled citizens or impoverished people. Some don't want vulnerable populations to be protected because they believe some weird mixture of "they're not even being hurt the way they keep whining about, because I as a person who can't experience it have never seen it" and "if they are being hurt, maybe they deserve it." But there are many in the creepily nationalistic populations of our country who actually thought the Civil Rights actions of the past were worth pursuing, while hypocritically believing the Civil Rights activists of today are going too far. At some point they decided we were equal enough and the last "real" issue had been solved with laws (because that's totally how systematic oppression ends; in a day, with a passed law), and anything more progressive than that is liberal whining that's mostly about feelings being hurt, special snowflakes, and playing the race card.

I guess it's easier to see it as a game someone's "playing" using equipment and strategy if you can't imagine real-life consequences; therefore, it all seems like a theoretical exercise to you.

If you only support and love the country when you and yours are in charge and you and yours are getting what you believe you deserve, you're doing the same thing these guys are. They love America as much as you do--and they understand the country can improve, it can become better through social change and involvement, it can properly support and serve more of its citizens if issues are identified and addressed. They can't be if someone doesn't sit in the "wrong" place on the bus or go to a polling place when they're disallowed or, basically, disobey the country they want to be an equal citizen of. Civil disobedience is how we confront unjust laws, and you're either uninformed or willfully ignorant if you think our laws fairly serve everyone and things are fair for everyone right now.

You can listen to the people who have been failed by the system and agree that the system should serve them as it serves you. And you can do that without trying to drown them out and shout them down with demands for obligatory gratefulness. No one is disrespecting military lives lost in service of the country through the act of expressing that the laws still don't protect or serve some citizens. It is not about disrespect for the country itself, or its culture, or its banners, or its warriors. It is about KNOWING we can be better, and doing something about it to reach that improvement.

If your reaction is to misrepresent their mission and then call for blood over the words you put in their mouth, you are the problem with this country, and you are the one helping to keep those laws in place.

You can choose to stop being a tool of stagnation. You can do that by closing your mouth and listening when someone else tells you what it's like to be them.