Loyalty is tested when things go wrong. When Columbus sailed the ocean blue, besides being lost, he claimed previously discovered and occupied land for Spain. Thus began what we know as colonization. Myths are romanticized because it makes the dominant society feel good about missteps and atrocities. By all accounts, George Washington must have been Superman, hurling a coin across the Potomac and, as a child being unfailingly honest— wrote Washington biographer Mason Locke Weems. The history of one people has never suffered the ignominy of wild exaggeration, black Americans. There are no stories of Doris ‘Dorie’ Miller bringing down the entire Japanese airforce at Pearl Harbor or tales of Matthew Henson throwing Robert Peary over his shoulder along with a Saint Bernard and carrying them to the North Pole, although some accounts say he was the first to stand atop the Pole.
If any history lends itself to wild stories and tales of superhuman feats, it would be the history of African Americans. The thing that has prohibited such stories is racism. Imagine Beaver, Wally, or Lumpy being taught stories of black heroism at Grant Avenue Grammar School or Mayfield High—making them feel bad. Even worst, being told that Black Americans may have shown more patriotism than their fathers. Captured, enslaved, raped, bred, and worked like animals, black men and women had little choice but to hope for the American dream. African Americans have adapted hairstyles, manner of dress, and food to fit in. Meanwhile, despite the misinformed and self-delusional white Americans who believe they are the victims of discrimination, America was designed with them in mind.
A few days ago—fighting one of my frequent bouts of insomnia, I re-watched a late-night showing of the movie Selma. Like most historical civil rights-era pieces, substantial use of vintage black-and-white news footage is interspersed for realism. As the marchers finally crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the way to Montgomery—the Alabama capital, American flags were waved in abundance. The screeching white men and women were not waving them, nor the hectoring crew-cut good ole boys whose necks were as red as the stripes on Old Glory, but by the black protesters and white sympathizers. A sea of Confederate battle flags, stars, and bars waved angrily lined the streets. If one were to close their eyes to the color of each side, ascribing patriotism would not be a question.
I was reminded that no matter what the indignity, Black Americans performed for their country when the chips were down. Crispus Attucks, who may or may not have been an escaped enslaved man, is reputedly the first man to die in the American Revolution. Harriet Tubman, who undisputedly escaped the ravages of slavery, lent her immeasurable talents as a scout, spy, and leader to freeing enslaved people and helping win the Civil War. The aforementioned Doris “ Dorie” Miller, who was assigned one of the few jobs, a mess assistant and cook, for black sailors, manned a Browning .50 caliber anti-aircraft machine gun at the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and shot down as few as four and as many as six Japanese fighters. Miller became the first black American awarded the Navy Cross.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. regaled the country’s virtues, hoping to force white America to live up to its promise. In his Other America speech, Dr. King labels one America as a place where ‘children grow in the sunlight of opportunity.’ As for the other America, said Dr. King, ‘there must be a recognition on the part of everybody in this nation that America is still a racist country. Now however unpleasant that sounds it is the truth and we will never solve the problem of racism until there is a recognition of the fact that racism still stands at the center of so much of our nation and we must see racism for what it is.’
Despite black Americans laying down their lives for a country that has shown its contempt for centuries, black Americans still don the uniforms, run for public offices, fire off skyrockets on the 4th of July, and turn a cheek when our children are killed for as little as selling loose cigarettes or parents praying in church. Cultivating the roots of patriotism leads to fruitless arguments, but black Americans have seeds firmly planted.
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