Don't Take a Knee?
I live in fear, despite being law-abiding.
I live in fear.
I live in fear.
- What happens to the police officers who pull my white husband over and ask for my license, even though I am the passenger?
- What happens to the officer who murdered a 12 year old with a toy gun?
- What happens to the officer who stops and frisks my dad, who is 75 years old?
- What happens when society adores this mistreatment and gets angry at men with means who nonviolently oppose it?
- What happens when America denigrates a race of people for CENTURIES? What happens when Americans are conditioned to not give a damn?
I am saddened by the callousness of some of my fellow Americans...and especially the Christians.
Why are folks so comfortable with this dual America? The America where we celebrate in song a violent rebellion against the monarchy, but vilify those who want to uphold this country's ideals...silently and peacefully?These players are shedding light on an ALREADY divided America.
There are plenty of black Americans who fought valiantly in wars, while segregated and vilified. It didn't earn them America's gratitude! Plenty of black Americans were forced to live and die penniless and illiterate, sacrificed on the altar of America's prosperity. Americans who are black had to protest and die for the right to vote and go to school. Plenty of black American soldiers right now can get pulled over for a broken taillight and get blown away.
America constantly disrespects its own flag with this systematically repugnant inequality. America has thrived on the hypocrisy of "one nation" while it operates as separate and unequal.
This is an abysmal and diabolical track record.
Now, some Americans are fighting for the right to live by kneeling during the anthem.
If you really love America, you would love Americans--all of them; even the ones that haven't served in the military, and even the ones who are black like me and live in constant fear--and fight like hell for everyone to be as free as the flag ought to represent. THAT is how we honor our veterans.
This is what America's Favorite Martyr (now that he's dead and not agitating) said:
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate,
who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice;
who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice;
who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action';
who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom;
who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.'
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Letter from Birmingham Jail