I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United
States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I
wonder what would happen if each person in America today were required to put
hand to heart and face an American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance
before starting work. What if we
were to stop each day and stand still in the light of truth? Words or no words, there is something
about this ritual in honor of a promise that can be powerful if held up to the
integrity and unity its empty words imply.
When
I think about all the times I had to say the Pledge of Allegiance to pay for my
day at public school, I feel betrayed.
Never mind the individual words, picking that apart would be a waist of
time. I never felt as if I would be punished if I did not say the pledge in
class. I knew that I would feel
the sting of difference if I'd abstained.
For all our American individualism, I recall a sense of wanting to fit
in. The unity of being under one
God, however, sounded pretty ominous and I couldn't imagine how this could be
anything different from the oppression of my own mother's rules. But, under God, lived Sesame
Street, Cub Scouts, doughnuts, fireworks, and my new blue Schwinn bicycle. This
was patriotism at age 5.
The
Vietnam War had ended the year before we celebrated the bi-centennial. Plenty of flags had been carefully
folded with white-gloved hands and handed to the mothers and fathers of
American youth. The flag was all they
had at the end of it all. There remains, in me, strong memories of raising the
flag up a pole in front of our school and taking a turn to handle the flag with
careful, shaking hands. We were
all convinced that the flag was a treasure to be handled with care.
When
it came time for the Pledge of Allegiance, the classroom would quiet and the
day would wait for the ritual of the pledge. I felt so much a part of
something. Words spoken or sung
together vibrate in my bones like a tuning fork. As I understood it, I was
being asked to devote my love and energy to the mother tit of freedom and
justice. In 1976, we celebrated the 200 years since the Founding Fathers signed
the Declaration of Independence with special coins, furniture sales, and
parades with drums pounding to the rhythm of my heart. We celebrated the hard fight for
freedom, the one thing that was constantly in danger of being taken away. As a kid, freedom sounded pretty good. I'm certain that I relished the idea of
doing whatever I wanted.
Four days after my 20th birthday in 1991, I watched the
United States drop bombs on human beings in Kuwait on a big screen TV where I
worked. I remember large tan
colored cannons shooting from the decks of ships. I began to sob non-stop for what seemed like days. Why was I the only one crying? People
would ask me if I was okay. My
mother tried hard to teach us to abhor war and violence as well as guns. I had watched Woodstock the movie over
and over again as a teenager. My
idols were the young people who fought long and hard to end the Vietnam
War. The one's who wore American
flag shirts and played the American Anthem on electric guitars. The ones who were beaten, jailed, or
killed because they tried to change things. I thought that once such a birth of civilization like the
peace movement or the equal rights movement had taken place, war would never
come around again.
I was so deeply disappointed by my country's actions in
the world, and so very unaware of the truth. History was but a fog of romanticism and lies for me after
that. I couldn't fathom why
individuals were sent to prison for killing another human being, but things
could just keep right on ticking after the Native American Indian cultures were
systematically dismantled. If this is how this country got started, when would
things ever be in balance again? If we were to stick to the pledge of
allegiance, we would have to stop everything and focus just on fixing THAT before we
could move forward with any kind of integrity. We would probably even have to elect a Native American to
the office of President of the United States. The whole of congress would have to get down on bended, bare,
and hurting knees and apologize for what our forefathers and mothers did to
live on this continent, for all of the terrible ignorance that has followed.
After all, how can we ever put it all back? How can we rationalize so much pain, and blood shed? I was
not feeling very patriotic.
Two years after
the gulf war, my mother informed me that I was officially a member of DAR, the
Daughters of the American Revolution.
I had no idea what this meant.
I was told to attend a meeting and that it could possibly bring me some
much-needed support...I never went.
The idea of sharing patriotic luncheons with those who celebrate their
direct connection to warfare seemed ludicrous and sad.
My image of the gathering was of a bunch of old
republican women bloated with self-importance and surrounded by lace
tablecloths and white napkins, all set up under a gigantic American Flag. Never
the less, being genetically linked to revolutionaries did give me a story
during a time of great thirst for cultural lineage. I was in college in the arts program during the
multicultural movement. White, was
not a culture. White was the
eraser of cultures. The symbol of
dominance over all that was expressive, passionate, and poetic. It was the blandness of British food
and the creator of the unhealthy burger and fries. White equaled stiff dancing, lack of style and color, thick-necked
men in trucks with shotguns, and pale, allergic children with thick
glasses. Whiteness paved the
countryside, killed the buffalo, and hung African Americans for wanting to be
treated like human beings. My
family's connection to the Mayflower and to the American Revolution was my dark
secret. It was reserved for times
when I felt completely devoid of culture.
Nostalgic
tears well up each time I hear the national anthem played to a large gathering
of United States citizens, their bodies straight with pride and holding hats
low. It's the rare moment when I
see people stand still and quiet without some sort of tragedy having to take
place. Perhaps we are standing
still to gawk at the tragedy we all deny in our hearts. I also tear up when all the cars on a
busy street pull over and out of the way of a speeding, yowling ambulance. What do these two things have to do
with one another? It is a
miniscule tick of the clock in honor of our humanity. It's an easy way to do something heartfelt for the common
good. It is, after all, an
emergency.
Relief
is what I feel when the American public shows its ability to stop and let
humanity march through the middle of a hard working and hurried day. I wonder if we should all be standing
still or sitting right down where we are when we become aware that our country
is using our tax money for killing, torturing, and taking. As I see it, we should all pull our
cars over to the side of the road to let the ambulance of our healing
begin. Or stand up where we are and
put our hands over our hearts or sit down to weep and wail without regard for
the watchful eyes of the children.
The children already know of the violence, the numb faced disregard for
human feelings and human safety.
We are walking testimonies to the tragic every day.
Our
numbness to the disparity between the Pledge of Allegiance and the inequality
of 99% of the people in America is like driving a car down the road while blocking
the ambulance behind, siren wailing, lights blazing, and horns honking. I see myself behind the wheel with the
music turned up loud, eating a snack, drinking my coffee, and thinking about
what I need at the grocery store. A
police car following closely behind will turn on its lights and administer a
ticket for ignoring an emergency, for being a negligent citizen. It would take me only a moment to see
that I was in danger of being singled out and shamed for my negligence. I envision a grueling finger wag from
the police officer asking me how I would feel if my loved one were on the way
to the hospital and someone failed to move out of the way.
Now,
I sit in silence with 60 to 100 other American citizens for one hour each week
to connect our hearts to our heads. In the silence, we feel things.
We witness to our humanity.
We carefully center ourselves on finding a way forward that will put
war, violence, and destruction of nature on a linear path to the finish
line. We look for a way to promote
a cycle of integrity, peace, simple living, community connection, and equality
that will forever feed into itself for many generations to come. I feel like I am a part of
something. I feel the rhythm of
our hearts beating together. I sit
still in the light of truth and I weep.
I am feeling peaceful, patriotic, and hopeful. I am ready to join the Daughters of the American Revolution
to promote a new kind of revolution.
I am the daughter of many revolutionaries who dreamed of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.
Learn more...
Collaborative Consumption
War Is Not The Answer-FCNL
Cry Your Tears For You-John Trudell
Quaker Woman Fired For Inserting "Non-Violently"
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