I am not patriotic. Sorry, but the Fourth of July — even, and especially, this summer’s 250th Fourth — inspires no more Yankee-Doodle gratitude in me than the Third of July or the Fifth. Maybe it’s cynicism or the fatigue of disappointments that comes with aging. Maybe, but it’s not that simple.
I understand that someone may be tempted to growl, “Traitor” or “Commie” or to scroll to the bottom of this page and write in the comment box with all the uppercase animosity they can muster, “AMERICA—LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!” or “Pack your bags. I’m calling ICE.”
But hear me out.
I haven’t always been like this. At first, like most children, I didn’t understand or question what was happening so I didn’t know what to feel. That’s how it was in the 1960s when I attended a small public elementary school in rural Minnesota, where both the Pledge of Allegiance and “The Star-Spangled Banner” were drilled into us. Even though I probably didn’t know what “ramparts” were or what “indivisible” or “perilous” meant, I repeated the words in the same obedient way my classmates and I recited the ABCs or sums on flashcards.
So, on that Friday in November 1963 when the intercom on the wall above the chalkboard buzzed in my first-grade classroom and Mrs. Beltz, our middle-age teacher wearing dark-framed glasses and a dress that extended well below her knees, stood before us and motioned to us to listen quietly, I probably expected something ordinary. Maybe Mr. Gislason would announce that the bus schedule had changed. Or maybe he would call out one of my classmates whose mom was waiting down the hall to take him or her to the dentist.
Instead, through the intercom’s hum and crackle, he said, “President Kennedy has been shot.” He probably said more, maybe about Dallas or about Mrs. Kennedy or the country. I don’t remember. But I also don’t recall that Mrs. Beltz gasped or that her shoulders slumped or that her expression changed, anything suggesting that this news shocked or saddened her. Maybe she didn’t want to frighten the six- and seven-year-olds sitting in front of her. And because she didn’t react to the news and because each morning before this one we had sworn “allegiance to the flag… and to the republic for which it stands,” not to the president, I don’t recall that I or my classmates reacted much either.
Not until I got to the old farmhouse where my family lived, did I gradually understand. At least, as much as a six-year-old could understand. The next morning, as my older brother and I did most Saturday mornings, we turned on the TV to watch cartoons. But on the only channel that we could draw with the antenna on the roof were news reports and Walter Cronkite’s solemn voice. All day long. And all day Sunday. Images from the distant Capitol of an endless line of mourners shuffling past the casket. Men in black suits holding their hats in both hands in front of them; women dabbing their eyes with a white hankie or pressing it over their mouth. Hour after hour, far into the evening.
And then on Monday school was cancelled. Mom and Dad, quiet and grim, occasionally stopped what they were doing, looked into the living room, and even briefly sat down in front of the TV, something they never did in the middle of the day, and watched the procession, Funeral Mass, and burial. That’s when I began to understand. Not about patriotism. But about sadness and loss and, it seemed, universal mourning.
After that and through the late 1960s, I progressed from elementary school into junior high and gradually became more aware of the country’s traumas — the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, the endless stream of body bags returning from Vietnam, and race riots in Harlem, Watts, Detroit, and other cities. But even then, isolated as my family was in the political, social, and cultural vacuum of that farm in rural Minnesota, adults’ demands on children to be respectful, obedient, conforming, and mostly silent followed me. I wasn’t privy to any of their conversations or discussions about these events and wasn’t old enough to understand the causes of war, assassinations, and civil unrest. I suppose the pledge I had recited every morning for years also had the desired effect, and the patriotism instilled in me seemed a natural part of who I was and what adults expected of me.
But in the next few years as I moved through my teens and approached graduation day, I saw the looming threat of the draft and the possibility of being shipped to Southeast Asia. The innocent pride inspired for years by the words I recited with my right hand over my heart was now chipped away by my own conscience and reaction to current events. Anti-war marches. Students killed by the National Guard at Kent State. The My Lai massacre. The Watergate hearings. CIA-backed dictatorships in Latin America. Nixon claiming, “I am not a crook” and his exile to San Clemente. The 71-day armed standoff at Wounded Knee. The last helicopter lifting off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. A seemingly endless parade of coercion and coverups, denials and discrimination, retreats and retribution, and all manner of hardship and atrocities inflicted on people at home and around the world.
And so it’s been decade after decade, war after war, lie after lie, administration after administration. Granted, I’ve seen moments of hopefulness, but nearly always they’ve been followed by a vengeful backlash justified with falsehoods wrapped in the flag or by denial and excuses: Americans insisting after nearly every horror instigated by our country or countrymen that this is not who we are. But this denial — patriotic at its core — reveals an ugly truth: this is exactly who we are and have been for more than two centuries. And this is precisely the sort of self-deception and willful blindness to which patriotism too often leads.
This love of one’s country or, etymologically, of one’s fatherland, is based on emotion, not thought and reason. In its sanest, healthiest form, it can inspire community and encourage selflessness. But not these days. And it hasn’t, it seems, for years. This current brand of patriotism is mere product and prod. It’s exclusionary and self-serving and narrow-minded, flaunted to prioritize one’s self and one’s own interests at the expense of all others. It’s a fear-mongering patriotism, and the loyalty and fealty it demands makes it easier for corrupt politicians to gain and retain power endlessly. This patriotism muzzles criticism, villainizes resistance, and truncheons opposition to the status quo. It’s a hustle, a con, a gold-plated fraud. This patriotism shrugs at masked men making violent, extrajudicial arrests and violating people’s constitutional rights. It celebrates profiteering from mass imprisonment, invasions, genocide, and suffering. It distorts and weaponizes Christianity and excuses the mutilation and Vegas-izing of the White House.
I am not patriotic. I abandoned the innocence, ignorance, and isolation necessary for that long ago. But I try to hang on to hope. Not hope that I or we regain our patriotism. Hope in people and the good we’re capable of. The good that moves brave, ordinary people to support, protect, care for, and understand those who cannot defend and care for themselves. Not just for the good of Americans but for the good of all.
That’s what I want to believe in.
