Monday, September 26, 2016

Regarding a Certain Posture

When I think of the lyrics, …the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, I think of the men and women, known and unknown, who survived and fought for the right to be treated as equal citizens in the eyes of the law and in the hearts of their fellow Americans. Rev. Dr. King, of course, and Ida B. Wells and Cesar Chavez and so many others. The slaves who survived, the Chinese railroad workers who endured, the Jews who preserved, the Filipinos and Hmong and name a country, name an ethnicity, name a people who were once treated as less than and/or taken for granted and whose condition has now, (no matter how slightly), improved.

When I see the Stars & Stripes, I have no problem standing for these people. I have no problem standing to acknowledge where we are and how far we have come as a nation.

********************************

Many of us still kneel to pray, to humble ourselves before our God.

It is still, as far as I'm aware, the posture folks assume when proposing marriage to their beloved.

Reminiscent of what we imagine of medieval knights of old, the posture is not the issue.

There is nothing disrespectful about kneeling.

********************************

In the presence of my country's flag, it is also right to honor and remember of those who may not have survived the cruelties of the United States. For the Trail of Tears and other massacres. For those unknowingly subjected to government sterilization. For nationwide Jim Crow laws. For the soldiers who fought abroad for the freedom of others and came home to either derision, second class citizenship, or both. For law enforcement officers shot in the line of duty, or murdered because of their uniform. For civilians killed by law enforcement, civilians who were not instructed to drop a weapon or given enough time to comply, who were shot in the back, who died for not opening the car door quickly enough.

To honor these people, it would not bother me to kneel.

********************************

At this point, if you're still upset, you may have an issue with the audacity to use so public a forum to silently proclaim America's continuing imperfections. There's a proper way to protest, you may insist, forgetting that the nature of protest is never proper, that it is a disruption of the status quo. Or you may feel it's unpatriotic, forgetting that love of country is not simply embracing where it is but also but pushing it to be better.

At this point, if you're still upset, it's not about the posture. It's not about the kneeling. It would be disingenuous to claim so.

No comments:

Post a Comment