Tuesday, February 11, 2025
HomeOPINIONI STAND TO HONOR MY MILITARY FAMILY, REJECT INJUSTICE

I STAND TO HONOR MY MILITARY FAMILY, REJECT INJUSTICE

Illustration By Carla Labto / Staff

By Zeke Watson

A Perspective

My first grade class in Texas started each day as most other first grade classes. Like an electronic rooster, the intercom would crow and the principal would crackle over the loudspeaker at precisely 8 a.m.

“Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance,” he would say with proper solemnity.

Chairs scooted out from under us as we stood to face the flag fixed near the door.

My six-year-old self did not understand the purpose of that morning ritual, other than to signal that class had begun. It was an empty exercise, rote and dull. We just stood.

We are not wide-eyed little first graders anymore, standing on command. As adults, we do not recite the Pledge much. The National Anthem is our grown up ritual, sung before sports events and some ceremonies.

America’s high-minded pledge and anthem are aspirational, especially for people of color and the LGBTQ community. It is drug store makeup used to cover this nation’s ancient blemishes. Our checkered history has left it smeared and runny, revealing patches of ugliness. Sometimes it is hard for people like me to stand.

Yet I do. So do other people of color and those from the LGBTQ+ community who devoted a portion of their lives to serving this country in the military. I enlisted not out of blind patriotism but for the opportunity. The Navy allowed me to escape small town Texas to begin a new life and a new adventure. During my five years in the Navy I developed a sense of pride for the flag and National Anthem. I stood erect and held a tight salute when called for.

As a Black veteran, though, the rituals can be complicated. America can be a dangerous place if you are Black. A stroll down the street can go well or become fatal in an instant. Sometimes I am praised for serving my country when folks learn I was in the Navy. Other times I feel I should just tuck tail and go home so people – specifically white people – can’t profile me. 

I do my best to avoid the police. After being racially profiled by San Diego Police during my first visit to the city, it left a disgusting and permanent taste in my mouth.

In 2013 a friend and I were pulled over by SDPD officers after we missed a turn and pulled into a parking lot to reroute ourselves. I saw a police cruiser slip in behind us and turn on its lights. My stomach sank as my mind raced for a reason for the stop. We pulled over, they approached the car and said a taillight was out. A classic line to start a classic “Driving While Black” episode.

We had just driven nearly 2,000 miles without a problem and now our taillight is not working? I felt my blood boil and my jaw tighten as I listened to the lying cops spin their fanciful and condescending tale. I assured the officer that the light had been working last time I checked – which was true. His disrespectfulness caused my tone to evolve from docile to militant. He did not like that.

We were ordered from our car and told to stand against the hood of the squad car as one of the cops put on a charade like he was smelling something strange emanating from our vehicle.

“Kind-a smells like weed,” he said with the mechanical roteness of a bad actor reciting but not performing his lines.

We had smoked a cigarette before we began our San Diego excursion, but no weed.

Surprise! They found nothing.

I was livid, but swallowed my anger so the cops would not have any excuses to mistreat us further. California was supposed to be progressive, I thought, more progressive than Texas. That encounter damaged my view of police and made me once again ponder my place as a Black man. 

It is all so common for Black men to be singled out and treated with suspicion. This type of prejudice casts a dark cloud upon us that seems inescapable. My every step needs to be calculated and carefully mapped out to ensure safety. It is disheartening, exhausting and can leave me feeling helpless.

America does not embody its Pledge of Allegiance or national anthem. This country does not treat everyone with the same respect or dignity they are entitled to as citizens. Prejudice and violence toward people of color and the LGBTQ community is the real daily ritual.

Being a Black veteran in America is tricky.

I still stand proudly for the national anthem and the flag like that wide-eyed first grader standing for the pledge. When I stand, though, it is not a celebration of this country, but respect for my brothers and sisters who took that same military oath of service I once did. I demonstrate solidarity for my friends and those I consider family who are still serving. I stand for them.

I understand why people who identify as Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous and members of the LGBTQ+ community feel excluded from the embrace of America when they see the flag or hear the National Anthem. These symbols do not always represent our experiences. I understand why many people sit or kneel in protest. It is honorable to protest laws and practices that silence or belittle entire classes of people.

Although I stand for the National Anthem, I will not stand idle and blind to the injustices that diminish our country. I, too, demand change from a country that talks a good game but has yet to ensure “liberty and justice for all.”

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