Happy Periwinkle Day
If you mix the bold red, white, and blue of the American flag,
you get . . . .
. . a lovely, soft shade of periwinkle.
In anticipation of the 4th of July, there is an American flag on our front porch.
I’d like to say our flag is waving proudly, bravely, but that wouldn’t be true literally or metaphorically.
In reality, it hangs limp and impotent in the morning calm, and flaps violently in the wind that races across the island almost every afternoon.
My feelings about the flag are similarly conflicted: I want to be proud of our flag, the symbol of what it is supposed to represent – freedom and equal opportunity for all; a promise that our government will strive to protect the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; a melting pot of ideas and perspectives that manages to preserve individuality while seeking common ground and working collaboratively for the collective good; a haven for the world’s “tired . . . poor . . . huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
But in America, freedom and opportunity are preserved first and foremost for the wealthy, the white, the male. Immigrants and refugees are regarded with suspicion by many, and turned away more often than welcomed. There is no official recognition that the “inalienable rights” enumerated in our constitution are meaningless if the land that produces our food is scorched, our fields and oceans clogged with plastic waste, the water and air toxic. Too few acknowledge that “all lives can’t matter until Black Lives Matter.”
We have become (perhaps always have been) a country that espouses the doctrine of scarcity. We can’t mandate climate change abatement, reform our policing, and make room for immigrants because then there won’t be “enough” for us – enough safety, enough money, enough housing, enough jobs, enough food, enough room in the schools . . . .
We have enough.
Fly over the United States and you will see whole swaths of space. Drive across and you will see many empty small towns with shuttered schools and hospitals and stores and factories. Talk to employers and they will tell you they can’t find enough workers. Farmers can’t hire enough people to harvest and process their food. Urban areas abound with doctors and professors and business owners and skilled labor who left their home country for a better life and now they are . . . driving taxis.
We have enough.
I’m not as naïve as I sound. I know there are no easy answers, and that every possible solution has risks, obstacles, and unintended consequences. But we must try. Because the status quo is not acceptable. It’s not good enough for the country that bills itself as the shining example to the world, the “city upon the hill” (as America has been called by a truly bipartisan list of politicians: John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama – and of course the phrase is implicit in Amanda Gorman’s breathtaking poem The Hill We Climb).
We are not and will not be the “land of the free and the home of the brave” while
Week after week, more Black lives end at the hands of police
Laws restricting voting access are affirmed by the highest court in the land
And laws are passed pre-exonerating those who drive into a crowd of protesters
Too many still don’t have health care because they can’t afford it
Profit rather than environmental conservation guides corporate policies
And it is risky to openly share your identity
(if you are anything other than straight and cisgender).
And yet . . .
And yet . . .
And yet . . .
I have another flag waving on my porch. It says, “In this house: Love is Love, No Human is Illegal, Black Lives Matter, Science is Real, Women’s Rights are Human Rights, Kindness is Everything.” Last night, that flag disappeared. I assumed it had been torn down, and stolen – there’s been a rash of that on our island. But on closer inspection, it had simply blown down in the wind. All that was needed was for someone to pick it up, dust it off, and try again.
The incident reminded me that flags are not just a symbol of what is, but also of what can be. A testament to hope that we may yet pick up our nation, dust it off, and try, again, to become a beacon of light to the world.
So today I am preparing to celebrate Periwinkle Day. A day that recognizes that if we individual, independent stripes of red, white, and blue work together toward the common good, we can be strong while also being gentle, we can be brave while also being compassionate, we can allow each person to be themselves, wholly unique and yet a valued and integral part of the whole.
On Sunday, I’ll wave my American flag and my Love is Love flag, and wish you all:
Happy Periwinkle Day
. . . We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it
(Excerpt of Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb, https://www.theamandagorman.com/)
Postscript
There are, of course, hundreds or even thousands of other writers detailing our nation’s shortcomings in a call for change, as we approach Independence Day. Here are just a few other articles, posts, and references to check out:
· BLM activist Natalie Jenning shared this 5/27/2021 post by Elly Hancock, “10 Reasons You Should Support Black Lives Matter.” https://www.dnaweekly.com/blog/support-black-lives-matter-reasons/ (“The bottom line is that racism is wrong. Full stop. By supporting BLM, you are supporting members of the Black community in a fight against oppression, injustice, and systemic racism that rots society to its core. It’s a fight that is morally right. One that places a responsibility upon governments, institutions, and individuals to look inwards to identify patterns of racist behavior. It’s a movement that is inspiring real change in countries across the world, and the movement achieves this through a mantra of peaceful protest.” The post ends with a list of ways to support BLM.)
· NPR’s 7/2/2021 story about Ari Shapiro’s interview with Professor Donald Grinde Jr., member of the Yamassee Nation and University of Buffalo professor, “Examining a Racist Passage in the Declaration of Independence.” https://www.npr.org/2021/07/02/1012680822/examining-a-racist-passage-in-the-declaration-of-independence (“I teach American history . . . [a]nd I . . . jokingly talk about the original intent of the Founding Fathers was that Blacks would be slaves and three-fifths of a person, women can't vote, and Native Americans are merciless savages. . . . And people mistakenly talk about the democracy as if these brilliant Founding Fathers created this perfect union, and I teach it as that this was very imperfect. And it’s been evolving, and it will continue to evolve and probably go on because I can't imagine what my grandchildren will be dealing with in terms of political issues.”)
· John J. Barone’s 7/3/2018 opinion piece in The Morning Call, “America should remain a 'shining beacon' to world, “ https://www.mcall.com/opinion/readers-react/mc-barone-national-pride-holiday-20180703-story.html (“National pride has its place, wealth is something to strive for, and border security should be maintained, but let us not devolve from a shining beacon visible to a struggling world into a whites-only country club.”)
· Statistics about the growing number of Black people and people of color killed by police – more than one each week, which is far more, as a percentage of the specific population, than white people. https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
· 6/8/2021 NBC story “’More than 2,100 Children Separated at the Border Have not yet been Reunified,’ Biden Task Force says.” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/more-2-100-children-separated-border-have-not-yet-been-n1269918
6/2/2021 Brookings story, “Will 2021 be the year governments commit to quality climate education?”https://www.brookings.edu/blog/education-plus-development/2021/06/02/will-2021-be-the-year-governments-commit-to-quality-climate-education-a-growing-call-for-action-ahead-of-the-g-20/ (“[A recent G-20 statement] recognizes the importance of efforts by governments focused on renewable energies and the electrification of transportation systems—these efforts, along with smarter more efficient buildings and the greening of financial flows, will be crucial to realizing the aims of the Paris Agreement. But . . . without the behavioral and cultural change made possible through climate education and environmental literacy, the long-term goal of “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050 (a target widely regarded as the safety line) will be tough to realize . . . “)
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Image by Koshu Kunii @koshuuu (American flag with No Justice No Peace); Titus Wincentsen @twincentsen (American flag on a mountain top); rainbow image is my own.
