On Being a Patriot...

A big US flag flutters in the breeze right now in front of our house in Ojai.  This 4th of July weekend, Roberta and I enjoyed waving smaller ones at our town's parade.

It included the usual small-town spectacles:  vintage cars festooned in red, white, and blue, floats assembled by schools and civic clubs, etc.  Then there were "only-in-Ojai" entries, like the herd of brush-clearing goats that marched with remarkable poise down the main street, and the Hindu-temple juggernaut with huge ropes pulled by bhaktis of the local Hare Krishna community.  On its side were the words to the chant:  "Hare Krishna, Hare Hare...."

And on the back of the juggernaut was a huge American flag. 

When I saw it, my eyes welled with patriotic zeal. 

As they did when each of four different "equipos de caballeros" rode their prancing horses accompanied by brass bands.  Hispanic women, men, and children, many in US flag-themed garb, proudly rode their beautifully groomed steeds down the street, pausing to display remarkable horsemanship skills. 

I love being a citizen of this country where Hindu Americans and Mexican Americans and Euro Americans and the rest of us love being citizens of this country, enriching it with our diverse spiritual and cultural heritages - which become the heritage of us all as we march down Main Street on the Fourth of July. 

That's what makes America exceptional.  Not that we're better than other nations, or ought to have special privileges.  We're exceptional because of the sheer quantity and quality of our cultural and ethnic and religious diversity.  We're exceptional because of our unique history.  Because we started out in 1776 with an idea emulated by people around the globe.  Even when we failed to emulate it ourselves, it is an idea that, over and over and over again, impels us to reckon with our failures.

We're exceptional without needing to claim exceptionalism.  A nation without needing to be nationalistic.  We're patriots without demanding patriotism from each other. 

Lately, menacing mobs have descended on local school board meetings demanding an end to teaching something that isn't even being taught.  The histrionics aren't about "critical race theory" itself, which few of the right-wing protesters comprehend in the first place.  They are using it as a red herring to deny the existence of systemic racism in this country, claiming that those who recognize its reality must believe that America is a bad country.  This brouhaha is a manifestation of the long-term right-wing agenda to privatize and individualize all the systemic problems in this country, so they can be swept under the rug and ignored.

But sweeping stuff under the rug is not the American way.  We're not, and never have been, a racist country.  We are a nation with a history of racist individuals and institutions - a history that spills into the present.  And we're a nation that has reckoned, and is reckoning with vigor today, with that history.  And that history, and present efforts to rectify it, must be taught in the schools if we are to have educated and empowered citizens who can make our country greater and greater.

For this current mass movement to right the wrongs that continue to be inflicted on people of color in this country by social, economic, and political institutions, let us wave the American flag with pride.  We're a great nation partly because we are recognizing and meaningfully addressing systemic racism.  I want the children of this country to know about the problem, and to appreciate the heroic efforts being made to fix it today. 

What makes America great is not sanitized propaganda about ourselves.  What makes us great is that we are a nation of hundreds of millions of fantastically eclectic humans who don't just march proudly down the main street in red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July, but give the flag meaning by making our union ever more perfect.