Entering my junior year at St. Joseph Catholic High School, I thought I had life figured out. My goals included losing my virginity, convincing my parents to purchase a car for their son to assist in the loss of said virginity, and maintaining decent grades so I could get accepted to a four-year university.
Unfortunately, my junior year was riddled with failure, as my virginity was still alive and well, and I continued hitching rides with friends whose parents clearly supported the death of their son's virginity. However, my junior year shouldn't be classified as a complete failure. I may have entered my senior year a car-less virgin, but I did obtain some semblance of patriotism. Like previous generations witnessing Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination, my generation's "A date that will live in infamy" event occurred during my junior year on September 11, 2001.
When people recall the events of 9/11, they generally view it as a day of immense tragedy. Yes, heroic actions took place that no billion-dollar comic-book movie will ever be able to emulate, but 9/11 is judged as a day rife with death, paranoia and fear. However, the days following 9/11 will always be looked upon as days of unity—as long as you were not "A-RAB," "Muzzlim" or displayed "foreign" features, of course.
Those were days that made me proud to be an American and wave the American flag, and they made me forget my skin was black. When suffering from short-term amnesia that short-term patriotism caused, I grew comfortable.
I quickly forgot the civil-rights books my pro-virgin parents encouraged (more like forced) me to read growing up, or the subtle racism I personally endured growing up in 1990s- and early 2000s-era Mississippi, or the fact that the very high school I was attending arguably chose to conduct a white-flight initiative by relocating from Jackson to Madison.
Fifteen years ago, my deaf-tone singing voice was loud with American pride, as I recited the words to "America the Beautiful" or "God Bless America" on command, wondering to myself, "Wow, is this what white people feel like every day?!" The feeling of unity was like finally being accepted into a club I never thought I would be able to get into. Post-9/11 patriotism foolishly led me to believe that this short-term American unity was here to stay, and it would march us down a red, white and blue road to a post-racial utopia, filled with equity and tiny American flags. Fifteen years later, the euphoria of short-term patriotism seems impossible to duplicate.
Presently, many argue that a faction of American citizens around the country are sabotaging patriotism birthed from American propaganda by screaming "black lives matter," kneeling during the national anthem, attacking nationalism by protesting xenophobia and challenging the male-privilege status quo that has occupied the highest office in our land since America's inception.
However, said faction can counter-argue that the actions of those fighting for inclusivity and equality are not sabotaging patriotism, but attempting to promote it by proudly exercising constitutional liberties that were promised to them at birth. Therefore, if the criterion of American patriotism includes loving America blindly without challenging her faults, then post-9/11 patriotism may have not been applicable to all American citizens, including 16-year-old black virgins from Mississippi.
Now that the post-9/11 patriotism has worn off, hindsight allows some of us to view the unity of Sept. 12, 2001, as an ad hoc hypothesis or illusion. Years of American propaganda, including reciting the "Pledge of Allegiance" every morning and reading textbooks in history class that promoted America's valor but hardly ever got around to explaining the country's injustices, created this illusion. Many may argue that post-9/11 unity was the single greatest moment in American history; however, some may contend that it made a faction of us forget our true place in American society, while simultaneously viewing those who were "Middle Eastern-lookin'" with disdain and paranoia. Simply put, we forgot where we came from.
In 2016, American ad hoc patriotism, like my 2001 virginity status, is alive and well. People still give "A-RABs" and "Muzzlims" the side eye in airports, Mexicans are rapist-murders who are stealing our jobs—hence why a great wall funded by Mexico must be built—and All Lives Matter was created in response to groups protesting that black lives matter. This is the America post-9/11 patriotism was attempting to promote. Not the America full of unity and equality I foolishly thought it was promoting.
What caused such foolish thinking? The virginity, of course.
Leslie McLemore II is a Jackson native, now in Washington, D.C. He is a proud graduate of Jackson State, North Carolina Central University School of Law (J.D.) and American University Washington College of Law.
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