Dissent is Patriotic

There's been a lot of divisive talk about the NFL players kneeling in protest of the racial problems in this country. I've seen service members both applaud and denounce these players. What bothers me the most is the people who think that they should be fired, or the people who think that they should protest differently. The funny thing is, I’ve been here before. I’ve seen the ugly side of people who vehemently disagree with a peaceful, personal protest. I’ve seen it because it happened to me, a few months after September 11, 2001.

I remember exactly where I was when the office at my junior high school had me call my mom, who told me about the Twin Towers, about the Pentagon, and the plane that went down in in Pennsylvania. I was the first student to know, because my family is from Staten Island, and we had very close ties to New York. I was in my seventh grade art class. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. I walked through the rest of the day like a zombie. All I wanted was to go home and have my mom tell me that it wasn’t true. It was the worst day of my life. Apparently, when I got home from school, my mom heard an inhuman noise, and when she turned, she saw that it was me. We have a lot of family in the city, and my uncle worked across the street from the towers. We didn’t know if he was alive or dead. I actually lost two cousins. My father was depressed. Everything seemed so bleak. Time passed, my family was mostly alright. Then, the Bush Administration decided to start a war.

I decided to protest the actions of my government. I was 14 years old, and the internet was still very, very new. There was no Facebook, no Twitter, not even MySpace. I didn’t have a forum to express my disappointment, and my deep sadness at what my government was doing. The only thing I could think of to do was to turn my back on the flag, and not say the Pledge of Allegiance. So that’s what I did. From early 2002 until I graduated in 2006, I stood, with my head up and proud, and turned my back on the flag of my country.

I respect the flag (which is why I stood), but I could not bring myself to pledge my allegiance to a country that was doing horrible things to innocent people.

I caught a lot of flack for it in the beginning, much like the NFL players are today. People didn’t understand how I could disrespect our troops like that. I was bullied, talked down to. People who were supposed to be my friends sneered at me. I bared it all (I have always danced to the beat of my own drummer), because the thing was, it wasn’t about the troops. Neither my protest, nor that of the NFL players, has anything to do with the armed services. For me, it had to do with their boss. For the football players, it’s about the institutionalized racism in this country. I think that everyone, on both sides, needs to step back, take a breath, and look at what’s really happening.

You know what? That's exactly what happened to the students at my school. After a while, people stopped looking at me funny. They stopped harassing me about how I used my voice. If a bunch of junior high school students can take the time and understand the way someone is using their voice, you’d think it would be easy for adults to do the same.

The only person who can tell you how to use your voice is you.