1. WHY I DON’T STAND FOR THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Christine Suciu
Ever since we
were young, we were
taught to stand up, place
our right hands over our
hearts, and pledge our
allegiance to a country that
claims “liberty and justice
for all.” In the last few
years, multiple incidents of
police brutality have
caused people to sit down
or kneel in protest,
bringing attention to a
cause we should all
consider joining.
Whether we like it
or not, we live in a country
still plagued by racism,
where if you’re not white,
you could get shot or
arrested for simply the
color of your skin. A bag
of Skittles, a can of
Arizona, or just simply
“looking suspicious” were
all apparently justified
reasons for the first murder
of many to come: Trayvon
Martin’s. In 2012, Martin
was coming back from his
local deli with those items
in hand when
neighborhood security
coordinator George
Zimmerman shot the youth
after a scuffle. This case,
through the efforts of
#BlackLivesMatter,
brought public attention to
the random disregard some
police officers have in
shooting black citizens.
Since then, the
shooting of black citizens
has escalated to an
unimaginable amount of
people dying for minor
issues such as broken
taillights (Sandra Bland)
or jumping a fence
(Nathaniel Pickett.) While
both were killed, the
police officers involved
were not charged with
murder, which is a
complete disregard from
the United States
government and even from
local law enforcement.
A big theme in the
world lately because of the
movement sports
personalities such as Colin
Kaepernick initiated is to
kneel instead of stand
when reciting the pledge.
When he chose to kneel
instead of stand for the
dozens of people who have
lost their lives to police
brutality, it wasn’t for
attention or because he
was lazy; it was to draw
attention to the countless
murders that would take
up pages upon pages to
name. Because of
Kaepernick, multiple
sports teams across the
U.S., including the 49ers
and the Dolphins, have
chosen to kneel during the
National Anthem, causing
a huge up-roar in
“patriots.”
A lot of people
would say that it is our
patriotic duty to stand,
especially for the soldiers
that risked their lives for
our country. But what
people fail to realize is that
those soldiers risked their
lives for all of us to
experience what the
pledge outlines in its mere
31 words, but instead
experience the epidemic
sweeping the nation that is
the murdering of African
Americans because of
preexisting prejudice and
racist beliefs. Another
argument that could be
made is that the people
who take this stand only
do it for attention, but they
could be using their fame
to bring attention to the
cause. By kneeling or not
standing, it brings
attention to the cause,
which in the long run
could do a lot more than
just hosting a press
conference. Mostly
everyone that’s talked
about Kaepernick’s actions
knew why he didn’t stand,
but they also couldn’t even
name five of the citizens
who were unjustly
murdered, which was the
whole reason for
Kaepernick’s kneeling in
the first place. America is
a long way from being
perfect, and this just
proves it.
In the United
States, we apparently pride
ourselves in being one big
melting pot of cultures
where people from all over
the world can come for
refuge and to start over, so
why don’t we start acting
like it?