A "Stand" Against the Pledge
Photo by Cora Kuhlenbeck.
The Pledge of Allegiance is a common tradition practiced throughout schools in America which signifies pride and freedom. However, over the past few years, more and more people have ceased to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I am one of these people. I stopped standing for the pledge when I was in seventh grade, and it came and still comes with a lot of criticism: “Do you hate America?”, “Are you against our soldiers?”, etc. To clarify— no, I don’t hate America, and yes, I do respect our soldiers. However, there are issues that deal with our politics and stance with minorities that entice me to not stand for this country as a form of peaceful protest.
To start off, I believe that America is a great country, but it has a lot of flaws. Not standing for the pledge doesn't mean that I don’t appreciate this country, but it is a silent protest to call for change. The first reason I don't stand for the pledge is the poor treatment of minorities across the country, especially in regard to race, creed, sexuality, or national origin. Take Milwaukee, which has the highest African-American incarceration rate in the entirety of the United States. This is attributed to the government’s act of deciding where certain people could live, where people could get a bank loan, and where people could work— all based on race, or “redlining” due to the National Housing Act of 1934. The Act allowed counties to “redline” certain districts called “red” neighborhoods, and it was specifically created to target minorities in the U.S. Luckily, this racist practice was abolished in the 1980’s after a federal judge found it unconstitutional. The problem that I have with this issue is that the nation has not addressed this topic since it was dissolved, meaning that the people in “red” neighborhoods are trapped there because no one in the government gives funding to these poorer neighborhoods. To this day, there are still cities like Milwaukee across the country that are highly segregated.
Another reason that I don’t believe in standing for the pledge is because of the phrase “under God”, added in 1954. It was added as a way for Americans to target people who don’t believe in God. This made them out to be “anti-American,” an idea that became popular during the Red Scare. The notion that people who don’t believe in God are “anti-American” is absurd, especially because of the first amendment which allows for religious freedom. Keep in mind that citizens during the Scare were deported if the government thought they were communists. Furthermore, in 2018, President Trump stated during a prayer service that, “faith is central to American life.” He implied that if you do not have a religion or believe in God, you are against America.
While this did take place in the past, discrimination against people who do not believe in God lasts to this day such as the president trying to pass a law that allows doctors to discriminate against people based on the doctor’s personal beliefs. Discrimination based on religion or lack thereof also extends to the Muslim community. With proposed laws such as the travel ban, and hateful words about Islamic extremists coming from the president, America has become a very unsafe place for Muslims. This lack of safety also applies to Jews, like the stabbings of five Jewish people during Chanukah, and many more minority religious groups. What is the U.S. doing about it now? Well, it’s allowing doctors as well as employers to discriminate against people of different religious backgrounds.
I don’t stand for the pledge is because of how the U.S. treats immigrants, refugees, and undocumented immigrants. There is rising tension now within the U.S. over concerns about such immigrants from Latin America, and a boom of refugees and immigrants coming from the Middle East. With caps on immigration that prevent people from coming to the United States, many people are stranded in war zones. And with the U.S. withdrawing troops from the Middle East, many American allies and their families are stranded there, facing persecution from their own government. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. helped thousands of immigrants from Vietnam come to the U.S., but now many less people are being granted the right to enter the country. Although many people are fighting for the rights of these immigrants and refugees, there is a lot of pushback coming from the government on people stealing American jobs and making the U.S. a more dangerous place, which is evident in the president’s tweets about Mexican immigration such as, “We have people coming into the country or trying to come in, we're stopping a lot of them, but we're taking people out of the country. You wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals.”
The United States of America is a great country; it provides a land of freedom for its occupants. However, there are many flaws in the American political system that prevent me from standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. I hope that after reading this, you understand why I choose to sit.
