I Don’t Stand For The Pledge of Allegiance. I Sit With Colin.
When I read about Colin Kaepernick, quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, not standing for the National Anthem, it brought back memories of my childhood and the years that I sat in silent protest.
In the late 1970’s when I was in my last year of Stagecoach Elementary School and the entire time I attended Selden Junior High School, I received detention everyday because I refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Every day at recess, I had to stay inside at my desk. The teachers took turns staying inside to watch me. Some were so angry that I thought they were going to hit me. But some were cool about it and chatted with me until the other kids came back in from playing. By the time I reached Newfield High School in 1980, the home room teachers didn’t care what I did, so no punishment was levied against me for sitting out the Pledge.
But my middle school called Child Protective Services on my mother because I wouldn’t stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. She had nothing to do with it. She was an agreeable housewife who wanted nothing more than to just live quietly in her house, go to church on Sunday and watch General Hospital. The only time she protested anything was when the town wanted to use two feet of her land to put in sidewalks on our side of the street. She sued the town as a “homesteader” (first-ever developer of that property) and won. To this day, you can’t walk on our side of Boyle road at night because there are no sidewalks or street lights. If you don’t walk tightly against the tree line, a car could come up behind you in the pitch black night and kill you.
My Wokeness to historic Black Oppression began in the ‘70’s when my eldest sister was attending Stonybrook University. Her Black Power friends were always in the house wandering around wearing dashikis and displaying perfectly formed huge Afros.
Like any kid, I was around and no one noticed. These Black intellectuals spoke about black oppression, equality, self respect and civil disobedience. My sister would take me to the student cafe at Stonybrook University to watch concerts. After one such performance, Gil Scott-Heron sat at our table and discussed his song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” That home-schooling influenced my relationship with school officials for my entire public education.
In 6th grade, a new bus driver told my sister and I to go sit in the back of the bus because we were “too tall” to sit in the seat directly behind her. My sister got up to comply, but I grabbed her arm and refused to move. The bus driver and I locked eyes and stared at one another for a very long time. Only she and I on that bus knew about Black people being forced to sit in the back of the bus all those years ago. She contacted the school and the principal met the bus when we arrived. She told him what the problem was. The principal and I exchanged a knowing glance. He told her to just drive or find another job. I never saw her again.
That following year, a substitute teacher was taking attendance and told me I couldn’t sit in the front row of the classroom because, once again, I was “too tall.” I told her that we sit alphabetically and this was my assigned seat because my last name started with an A. I wasn’t moving. She chose the three largest boys in the classroom and told them to physically move me to the back of the class. They hesitated and moved slowly toward me. They knew what was going to happen. When she saw them getting beat down, she tried to help them move me. I broke her glasses in half and threw them in her face. Principal Sadeski showed up, flung me over his shoulder and carried me out of the cluster. I was glad to get out of there, so I enjoyed my ride to the main office. I was given a week at-home suspension. I couldn’t convince my mom to sue the school district. But the school never used that substitute teacher again.
Things went that way for me for years in my suburb on Long Island. I could have made things easy on myself and just complied. But once I learned about all the instances of historic Black Oppression, I was hurt and angry and I couldn’t go back to sleep again.
I wanted them to know that I knew, and it wasn’t OK. I wanted them to know that the status quo was changing today, right now, in this classroom in America. And they could fear it, fight it or accept it — but no matter what, they were apart of it and they needed to get on the right side of history. I don’t sit in the back, no matter how tall I am. And I won’t put my hand over my heart and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance until it’s not a lie.
After graduating high school in 1983, I painted a Black Power sign, an American flag and the words “All Rights For All” on the back of my leather jacket. On the front of the jacket I wrote “Your America is not my America.” Not a very smart move on Long Island in the ‘80’s during the era of the fake skinhead. I took a few lumps and got into more than a few heated arguments, but I still felt compelled to Wake everyone up.
I left Long Island in 1989 after college to find freedom in New York City. It was easier to be Black there, and I soon forgot about my years of protest.
27 years later, I found that jacket in a downstairs closet in my childhood home. It’s cracked and faded, but the words are still there. And sadly, so is the reason that I had to write those words.
“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.”
Wake up, America.
