![]() Afterward, when I took a job as a reporter for the Tampa Tribune and became the first Black member of that newspaper’s softball team, monkey sounds invariably cascaded from the stands whenever I came to bat. Since revising the Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school, I served my country by enlisting in the Army – not that that kept some ignorant Maryland redneck from shouting “nigger” at me from a passing pickup truck shortly after I was honorably discharged. ![]() Along those lines, I’m always amazed that most Black Americans aren’t in a homicidal rage after having been oppressed for 400-plus years, but that’s grist for another post. When you live in a world where race-based micro- and macro-aggressions occur daily, remaining rooted in reality tethers you to sanity. Ditto lofty-sounding verbiage about governments `for the people, by the people, of the people.’ Black children come to grips with this long before White kids figure out that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are figments of adult imaginations. Looking back, I wish we had looped them in, because most Whites are oblivious to the dualism Blacks must necessarily embrace from cradle to grave.Ī critical juncture in the socialization of any Black American is the realization that `all men are created equal’ wasn’t written with us in mind. If our White classmates or teacher ever noticed this mini rebellion, they never let on. With our eyes solemnly affixed to the Stars and Stripes at the front of the classroom, we quietly thumbed our snotty noses at one of society’s most sacrosanct pledges of national fealty. So, my youthful Black cohorts and I took matters into our grimy little hands. The horrifying pictures coming out of Selma and Birmingham reinforced this point, along with my parents’ inability to explain why Bull Connor and other White lawmen had carte blanche to whip the shyt out of peaceful Civil Rights protestors. 18 in Baltimore, it was already abundantly clear that `liberty and justice for all’ was high-minded boolshyt that had nothing to do with me, my Black classmates, or friends and kinfolk who looked like us. ![]() My offense? Altering the Pledge of Allegiance to end with, “with liberty and justice for some.”Īs a fifth-grader at P.S. Edgar Hoover to materialize inside my classroom, reeking of brimstone and clutching silvery handcuffs to immobilize my 11-year-old wrists (which I’m sure would have titillated his closeted ayz to no end). ![]() Because I always half expected FBI Director J. My elementary school days had a Twilight Zone feel to them. ![]()
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