Happy #BlackHistoryMonth
Still haven't made it to Black history yet. I'm still working through white US history.
Q: Why do so many Black people refuse to sing the US national anthem? I'm sorry, but that seems unpatriotic to me. Plus, the Whitney Houston version is amazing! Why don't you like Whitney Houston? Whitney!
A: Because more Black folk know the true history of the anthem, and some can't get past the racism.
I do sing the anthem (off-key, and with a suspect falsetto for that high note. Hey, we can't all be Prince! Some of us have to be Barry White. OK Biz Markie).
But I'm making an informed choice, because I know white US history.
I don't judge Black folk or folk of any color that choose not to sing it, as "un-American" or "un-patriotic."
For some folk, American patriotism means unquestioning loyalty to the ideals of a white supremacist America. For them, anti-racism itself, is anti-America.
That's a cynical and pessimistic view of what the US stands for, and I reject it completely.
To me, the US stands for a nation of all of us, that has lofty ideals that we don't live up to. But we strive to get closer to them over time.
The very notion of who gets to criticize the US, is wrapped up in racism. Racists afford white people license to criticize the country (e.g. "we used to be a proper country!" and " Make America great again!"). But Black folk are not afforded this same freedom.
If history erasers can repurpose the meaning of the statue of liberty to mean "white immigrants" I can repurpose the anthem to mean that we're about to win this women's soccer game! ⚽🥇🏆
And if the players like the president, they'll speak on that, and will accept his phone call.
And if the players don't like the president because he's running a hateful administration that advances white supremacy and misogyny, they'll block his number, and speak on that too. 👍🏿
That's how this democracy thing works. This isn't feudalism. We aren't serfs. This isn't monarchy. We aren't subjects.
This is a constitutional federal republic. If we don't like something about our government we change it. That might be changing the leaders, changing the laws, changing the systems that enforce those laws, or changing the very Constitution itself.
And stop pretending that the Constitution was some perfect document. The thing even has typos in it! They misspelled Pennsylvania!🤦🏿♂️
@mekkaokereke One thing I really wish more Americans understood is that there are free, democratic societies all over the world that change their flags and national anthems all the time, and we could do so here in the US, too. In fact, reviewing the emblems of the nation and updating them is actually an incredibly democratic thing to do and untethers them from the Cult Of The State, which makes us more free rather than less so.
@roadriverrail @mekkaokereke Thinking of the flag & anthem changes I'm aware of: South Africa, Myanmar, Rwanda all represented a hope to leave behind some former trauma (Apartheid, colonial past, genocide, respectively). The other examples I know of new flags and anthems typically came through secession or break-up of a union (USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia). Are there examples you have in mind?
@roadriverrail @mekkaokereke I dislike jingoism & the symbol-worship too, and it definitely is not as prominent in other countries, but I'm not aware of a lot of symbol-swapping without some legacy of trauma.
@dneary @roadriverrail @mekkaokereke the reason why you don't hear about things like the somewhat recent change to the French flag is that no one really cares, unless their is a lot of emotional trauma tied to the issue.
Short story the French changed the blue in their flag to show solidarity with the EU, Macron changed it back.
@dneary @roadriverrail @mekkaokereke just for fun I will add another story a bit closer to home. Sweden changed the colour once in the 70's to make it more printable, and again in the 00's to improve the rendering on computer screens.