I haven't stood up for the Pledge of Allegiance or "The Star-Spangled Banner" since I was in high school. I played with the idea in junior high, but I was too shy to consistently act on what I felt was right. Now, as a teacher in a public school with a high immigrant and immigrant-related population I have to consider why I do or don't stand and what message I'm sending to my students. It's made me question what the purpose of these things are, and I've come to two conclusions. For many people, the Pledge represents all that they think is true and good in the USA. They truly believe that we are "one nation...indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Considering that I only got the right to be married to my partner a bit over a year ago, I definitely beg to differ with that. To others, the Pledge is something to aspire to - a goal to aim for in the collective consciousness - that we recommit to each time we speak those words. For the impoverished, the minorities, and the disenfranchised, perhaps this hope is inspiring, but for me it just serves as a reminder of how often and how deeply we have failed.
Being a citizen of the United States of America is a lucky fact of my birth, and it's simply happenstance that the U.S.A exists anyway. Texas used to belong to Mexico. The Louisiana Purchase was made from France. The original colonies belonged to England. The idea that a country is somehow some ultimate expression of human existence is ridiculous. Countries change all the time, and citizenship is determined by lines on a piece of paper. I don't have any inclination to stand and pledge any sort of allegiance to a country or a flag representing that country when I realize that a country is only what the people living inside those arbitrarily drawn lines believe is important.
The other thing that is off-putting is this whole "under God" business. Originally "under God" wasn't in the Pledge of Allegiance; it got added because of a fear of Communism. I've never particularly believed in a single god with a capital 'G' and I've never been comfortable with that bit. I stopped saying those words long before I stopped standing up. I'd get to that part and just skip the phrase. I tried replacing it with "under Goddess" for a while, but the problem remains - the diversity of human spiritual belief is such that we don't really know that we're "under" anything, and the atheists are probably even more frustrated by this than I am.
So, yes. I'll be staying in my seat.
