Original background image:
Copyright: milena1234 / 123RF Stock Photo
Fighter planes image (upper left corner) source NPR News
Racist graffiti image source: Olean Times Herald
Misogynist quote source: Donald Trump
Notes:
I like to think the piece speaks for itself, but I will include a little personal history.
When I was a young child in my early school years, I was very proud when it came time to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I sprang to my large and far from dainty feet, puffed out my scrawny chest, put my hand over my stalwart young heart, and spoke those hallowed words in my biggest voice.
I was born in 1965. I didn't go to Kindergarten. Many years later I had a nightmare that Ronald Reagan ordered me to go back to school starting with Kindergarten. Initially, I attempted to comply, but then I realized that there was no legally binding reason for me to do this and I said "I quit," and walked out of the classroom to the sound of Mr. Reagan's voice berating me as a loser.
From first through third grade, the Viet Nam war was still taking place. I believed that the United States would eventually see that the war was a bad idea and would end it, so I said the Pledge proudly because I believed that my fine country would eventually do the right thing because we were the Good Guys.
During the next several years, the country was healing from the aftereffects of the Viet Nam War. I believed that we were headed in the right direction, and I thought that Jimmy Carter was a fine president and would continue to take us that way.
The Reagan era began when I was fifteen years old and I came to believe that we were all doomed to either eat flaming death in a nuclear holocaust or freeze to death in the nuclear winter which would follow. The Pledge of Allegiance lost its former wondrous appeal to me, but I still said it because I felt it was my duty as a patriot to try and believe in my country.
As my son says, the United States is still one of the best countries to live in, but we have a lot of problems. The election of Donald Trump brought a plethora of pathology boiling to the surface.
We are not post-racist or post-misogynist and we are severely intolerant of anyone who isn't a God-fearing American "Christian." I put Christian in quotes because I don't think the behavior of those who subscribe to the ideals of American religious fundamentalists is Christ-like in any way. There is a frightening new wave of nationalism, and free speech is under fire. There is normalization of bigotry and intolerance.
This is not the America that young me believed in when she put her hand over her heart to proudly say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at school and even at home in her bedroom on Saturday and Sunday because she thought it was the right thing to do.
This America brings tears to the eyes of middle-aged, working class me as I write these words. I despair for the loss of innocence in the heart of the child I once was and fear for the future of who I have become, for those I love, and for my fellow citizens of this world.
~Sly Speaks~
As real as it gets
Copyright Julia Henze +123RF.com
