My country tis of thee...
Sweet land of liberty...
Of thee I sing.
8 years ago, standing among almost two million people, shivering in freezing temperatures, I listened as Titi Retha (Aretha Franklin to those who aren't in the family) sang that song as part of the inauguration of Barack Obama.
Like many people around me, as I listened, I cried. It was a moment that I will never forget, and a moment that I fear I will never feel again. See, the tears that I shed that day were not of sadness, but of pride. I was proud to be watching the first black president be sworn into office. I was proud to be on the mall watching something that my great-grandma, a woman born around the time the Klan came to power, said she thought she would never see in her lifetime. For the first time in my life, I was proud to be an American.
For the first time that I could remember, I looked up at the flag and thought America had finally delivered on its promise. That my stolen and nameless ancestors' wildest dreams had finally come true and I was lucky enough to see it happen in my lifetime. The more the flag waved, the more pride I felt.
For a moment...
I even closed my eyes. I ignored the freezing temperatures and I let my emotions and Aretha's voice take me to a place that didn't feel constrained by the pain of the past, but encouraged by the promise of tomorrow. I had the Savannah, Bernadine, Gloria, Robin moment. A feeling that I and countless of “other” people had been waiting on...I exhaled.
In that moment I breathed freely and deeply, thinking that all 50 of those stars and all 13 of those stripes were meant for me. A 20-something, wide-eyed black girl from the South. The flag was finally for me.
But it was on loan.
And the owners have come to collect.
Somewhere in these past 8 years, even before He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was elected, that same flag that I looked upon 8 years ago which such pride and admiration, became a symbol of fear and hatred. Maybe it's been the election, maybe it's been the police shootings, maybe it's been inhaling the dense racial smog that is ever present in the South, but when I see it, it scares me.
The same feeling that was evoked in me as a little black girl growing up in South Carolina every time I saw the confederate flag, is the same feeling I get now when I see the American flag. A feeling of fear, confusion, and anger arises in my spirit every time I see it.
because they lied to me.
I feel like I've been kicked out of a club. A club whose general admission requirements are white skin, and more often that not, a penis. It's like Barack Obama's election was just Negro Day and now it's back to your regularly scheduled programming.
My only question is, where do I go from here? I am a person without a flag. Sure I could claim the Christian flag, I mean I do love the Lord...but the only time I see that getting waved is at Vacation Bible School. Should I claim the South Carolina flag that until the massacre of 9 church goers was consistently accompanied by the confederate flag? I think not.
I think I could claim an African flag every now and then. But which country? Unlike other immigrants to this country who can look at a book that says, Peter Macelli-Italy and Mike O'Malley-Ireland, all of the history books with my lineage will say Big John-50 dollars.
So which flag do I wave? The flag that evokes fear every time I see it? Or the flag of a place I've never been to and may not be from?
There is no flag for me.
Your country tis of thee...
Enjoy your liberty...
Of thee I dream...