My question: Have White people lost their minds or do they believe Black people are stupid or crazy when it comes to the history of the American flag?
All this talk about the pride Black people should have for the American flag is nonsense. Our tenure under the American flag has been nothing short of a catastrophe. Our woes under the U.S. flag are enslavement, discrimination, terrorism, lynchings, Jim Crow laws, present-day police killing of innocent Blacks and rigged courts.
For me or any other Black person to actually have a joyful thought about the American Flag is an insult to our multivariate humanity. Our people have been pissed on since day one under the American flag.
Truth, justice and the pursuit of happiness are a White person’s privilege under the U.S. flag. As a brutalized people, we have been flogged mentally and physically too much to believe in the useless Athenian doctrine about the glory of the American flag.
It’s mind boggling to me the audacity White people have talking about Black patriotism, when our first experience on these American shores was about compromising for our very lives.
We have been practicing American patriotism the entire time. It’s the White power structure that has been holding out on true patriotism. A piece of cloth or rag with red, white and blue on it does not define Black people’s patriotism.
If President Trump and his followers had really heard the topic of conversation about the injustices of the courts and police brutality and the murdering of Blacks as though it was a sport, they would know why protests are increasing among Black professional ball players and Blacks in general.
White people always want to change the narrative to fit their point of view. The U.S. flag isn’t a sacred scroll. It’s just a banner that represents the ideas and doctrines of the American constitution, which is suspect to its true meaning and attributes of a diversified conscience of true creed.
As Black people, we don’t see the American flag as the apple of our eyes. We see it as a reminder of all the ugly experiences and bull-headed supererogatory from White people and their slang. Yes, the American flag deserves respect, but so do Black people’s tribulations.
White people, quit trying to make the U.S. flag into a political super-ordinate because there has been far too many atrocities and plain and ugly slang that has happened under the American flag.
Willie Johnson is from Minneapolis, MN.
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