The Pledge and the Color Line
In fifth grade I was a rebel, mostly without a cause. How could I really have one? My parents loved me, so did my siblings. I grew up in a wealthy suburb with everything I could want – including a refrigerator dedicated entirely to soda. What more could a fifth grader aspire too?
Unlike most eleven-year-olds, I loved reading history and had developed a radical viewpoint because of reading books like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Growing up in a time of strife helped form my world view as well. The Vietnam War was still raging, school busing was an intensely divisive issue, and I could easily take a train into New York City to see the effects of poverty and racism on our culture. At that time, NYC was a poverty-stricken mess with something like a million heroin addicts, if the papers could be believed. Back then heroin primarily affected the poor, the dark-skinned and the dispossessed, so the only weapon used against it was mass incarceration.
One day, amid this swirling maelstrom of war, racism and poverty that I saw all around me (but did not feel on a personal level), I sat down and refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Even though the teacher who wanted us to recite it was my favorite teacher ever, shout out Mr. Stamler, I felt honor bound to protest. Eventually, Mr. Stamler shrugged, and told me to go to the principal’s office.
The next day my mother sat in the principal’s office with me, and listened to Mr. Stamler go over the details of my behavior. When he finished, she asked the principal if they’d questioned me about my motives. Mr. Stamler knew what motivated me; so he shut up. But the principal took the bait, and asked me why my ass remained planted.
When I responded that America seethed with racial and economic injustice and the pledge ignored those national shortcomings, the principal looked perplexed. I’m sure he expected something less nuanced from an eleven year old kid of privilege. When he asked my mother what she thought about my reply, she asked him to refute anything I said. Within moments I was back in class, and the pledge was not said in that room for the rest of the year.
I’m not reminiscing because my mom is one of my heroes for this and a number of reasons, but because an eleven year old youth from Florida was arrested for not saying the pledge. That’s right a boy was arrested for exercising his first amendment rights. Oh they dressed it up with other charges than “refusing to pledge.” This fifth grade threat to the national peace was accused of four things: Threatening the teacher with violence (for which they have no evidence); “Nonviolently resisting arrest” -an eleven year old unsurprisingly lost his cool and shouted when the police dragged him from the room; Not following directions (all my kids should have been arrested as eleven year olds for that); Saying the principal should be fired.
Of course, the boy is black. Could you imagine a white child arrested for similar behavior? I could understand, though not agree with, the child receiving some school based disciplinary action, but arresting an eleven year old for voicing opinions and losing his cool?
The kicker? The pledge was being administered by a substitute teacher who was unaware that children have the right in that district to not say the pledge. Given that the very first amendment to he Constitution guarantees the exercise of free speech, perhaps all kids should have this right? But that is a topic for another post. Maybe my case would have been handled differently if it were to occur today. But given my family’s color and economic circumstances, I doubt it.