Sorry for what you and your sister experienced. I wonder how many times that or
a similar story's been played out over the decades? That's one reason that
even now, I'm not in favor of black kids growing up or going to school in
all-white environments if it can be helped. It's gotten better, no doubt. And,
if the only good education to be gotten is at such a school, then you have to
do what you have to do. But I still think it's healthy to be around those who
look like you, share your unique history and culture. Mixed neighborhoods (I
live in one) and schools are fine, but I still don't get the need for people of
color to be sent to--or seek out--an environment in which our children are the
only children of color in a particular group. I knew some people who sent their
kid to an all white school,and the kid came home one day and complained about
being too dark. What followed was a lot of issues about trying to teach the
child to love being black. Yeah, yeah: i know we're all post
-racial now...
If I'd had the same experience, I'd probably feel much the same way as you.
Indeed, I have some of the same conflicted feelings you have. I've always risen
for the flag, put my hand on my heart during the Pledge, and National Anthem.
But, given the racism my dad saw, and that I and my brothers experienced, I've
felt conflicted as well. Thank God they changed the Georgia flag before I
moved here, 'cause if I'd ever been in a situation where I'd been asked to
stand when the flag had the Stars and Bars it wouldn't have been pretty.
My experiences were different. My older brothers integrated the Fort Worth
schools, so by the time I started, blacks had been mixing with whites for a few
years. We were in the minority, for sure, and I definitely dealt with racist
teachers and students. But the kind of overt hatred, fear, and separation you
experienced came before me. (Over in Dallas, they were fighting those battles
long after Fort Worth had at least arrived at a sort of acceptance). My older
brother was called four eyed n- when he was in elementary, but by the
time I got there, he and my other brother had prepared the way for me. All my
teachers from elementary to high school knew my brothers, and had great respect
for them. Indeed, I was one of the guys who posted the colors before assembly
when I was in elementary school. All my classes were integrated, black and
white kids played and ate together, and i had a lot of black teachers, as well
as white ones. My best friend in first grade was a white kid,
and the first two or three little girls who liked me were white.
Problems? Oh yeah: teachers who told me I was a credit to my race, teachers
who were mean to black kids, a whole lot of white kids with bigoted parents,
lots of racists in the area (a white girl I used to walk home was told i'd be
shot if I did it again). But I saw enough good people, had enough good white
folk who helped me, for me to always look for the positives in America, even as
the bad sickened me. When I said the Pledge, it was for the good the country
had, and the good I knew was coming, and that flag? I could and can salute the
*spirit* of what it represents, even as the *practice* often falls far short.
-- Original message --
From: ravenadal ravena...@yahoo.com
I can only speak for myself but I was struck by the sea of American
flags waving in unison for a number of reasons. I stopped reciting
the Pledge of Allegiance in the third grade, the same year my sister
and I became the only children of African-American descent at the
public grade school my mother somehow had managed to enroll us in.
The city of Milwaukee had something called intact busing where they
would take an entire class of black children from an overcrowded
inner city school and bus them intact to a white school where they
would have no contact with the white student body. They would arrive
after the white students were in class and be ushered to a classroom
in the basement - then they would be escorted out of their basement
classroom and back to their bus before the white children were
excused for the day. I would watch this daily spectacle from the
window of my second floor classroom. Henceforth, I would choke on
the words with liberty and justice for all. Couldn't say it.
Refused to say it.
When George Foreman waved a tiny American flag when he won the gold
medal, I thought, sellout. I was glad when Muhammad Ali knocked
him out.
In the movie Rocky, when Apollo Creed came dancing into the ring
wearing his red, white and blue trunks and his Uncle Sam hat, I
thought, you punk.
When they play the national anthem at sporting events I attend, I
never stand and I never remove my hat.
Last night, when I went to see the Milwaukee Bucks annihilate the
Dallas Mavericks (133-99), I didn't put my hand over my heart or
remove my hat but
