In fact, I'd argue that many African Americans experience a different kind of patriotism than our white counterparts because our history and experiences are so vastly different. This is what many people who scratch their heads at Rev. Wright fail to understand.
Generally speaking, African Americans don't wear flags on our lapels or post bumper stickers on our cars to display our patriotism. In barber shops and basements, we often speak harshly of this country. But we pledge allegiance, pay taxes, vote reliably and serve in our military. And when we see injustice, we forcefully speak out against it.
Jeremiah Wright was not the first to damn American. In 1852, Frederick Douglass was asked to give a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. At Rochester's Corinthian Hall, Douglass delivered a biting oratory, in which he told his audience:
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.This is the same Frederick Douglass who later wrote that "Truth is of no color. God is the father of us all, and we are all brethren." The same Douglass who conferred with presidents and became the first African American to be nominated as vice president.
Slavery and Jim Crow have long since been banished, but many of Douglass' sentiments remain with America's sons and daughters of color. The feelings often simmer beneath the surface. We know better than to voice them around the water cooler at work, but when we are among "family," we let our guard down and speak more honestly.
And when that frank talk bubbles up to the surface and out in the open, a confused majority wonders, "why?"
Our history and allegiances are complex. Shortly after Douglass' speech, African Americans in the 10th Cavalry of the U.S. Army earned the name Buffalo Soldiers, serving with distinction for a country that frequently treated them with indignity. In fact, there is no war in American history in which African Americans did not participate.
I think I am fairly safe in assuming that many of them often damned America in the same hearts that pumped the blood they willingly spilled for it. The two emotions can co-exist and have a long history of doing so in the black community.
But this is 2008. This is the America where black men could rise to lead institutions such as Beatrice Foods, American Express and Aetna. It is the America where Robert Johnson and Oprah Winfrey could lift themselves from poverty to billionaire status. It is the America where a second generation African immigrant could be a serious contender for president.
It is also the same America shamefully exposed during Hurricane Katrina.
So when Barack Obama said that he could no more distance himself from Rev. Wright than he could from the black community, we understood.
Can you rise to the level of presidential contender in the United States yet still feel at home in a community that would curse it?
Absolutely. Sometimes when a wound heals, a scar remains. Sometimes pain outlasts forgiveness. And sometimes, when we still see symptoms of the old sickness, we rise up with righteous indignation and curse the sinner as well as the sin. It doesn't mean we don't hope or that we don't love.
Patriotism is not the absence of criticism. The mouth that damns America can still speak for the heart that loves it. For Frederick Douglass, for Rev. Jeremiah Wright and for generations of African Americans in between, love is not blind. That's the complexity of African American patriotism.
I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
