The Rag Blog

Only by helping create the change that makes liberty and equality possible can I feel patriotic.

Columbus lands on Hispaniola where he is met by Arawaks who were subjected to genocide, a pattern of suppression that continued with Native Americans. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | June 26, 2019

“A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle, and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.”  — George William Curtis, 19th Century writer and editor of Harper‘s

“Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.” — James Bryce, British Member of Parliament and Ambassador to the U.S

I’m not sure when I began to feel patriotic about this country. From the age of 10, when I began learning about the history of mistreatment of “Negroes,” it was impossible for me to feel pride and love for a country whose government allowed and encouraged the enslavement of some people followed by massive discrimination against those same people.

Later, I learned about the destruction and subjugation of “Indians” in numbers rightly called genocide. Later, I found out about discrimination against others due to their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, and their birth into the poor and working classes that pushes them into multiple forms of impoverishment.
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