I had to think long and hard about taking on this issue. I chose to put on a uniform and, like so many other patriotic veterans, wrote a blank check on my life to defend my country and its principles. So, at first, I was taken aback by football players not standing for the national anthem. In fact, I was a little angry. But I elected to wear the uniform to defend my country— from all enemies foreign and domestic—to support a system that allows others their freedom of expression, even if it is a dissenting or an uncomfortable opinion.
Taking a knee is not about disrespect for the national anthem or the flag of our country—but a personal statement to highlight that some feel differently about how they might be treated as Americans. It is a cry for social justice. And as we know, because there are cellphone cameras everywhere, some young men of color are treated poorly in the United States. I never would have dreamed that these kinds of actions against some citizens of my country still occur.
In 1943, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote an opinion about kids who were expelled from school for not saluting the U.S. flag because they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Justice Jackson’s words and those of additional justices resonate with our times and are the ones that you should carry with you and use to guide you when people discuss this issue.
“The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.”
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.” (Emphasis added.)
“Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self-interest,” wrote Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas in a concurring opinion. “Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds, inspired by a fair administration of wise laws enacted by the people’s elected representatives within the bounds of express constitutional prohibitions.” (Emphasis added.)
These were wise men, and they speak for all right-minded Americans. I always will stand for my national anthem and face the flag. But a part of me also will take a knee in solidarity with those brave enough to risk their jobs and livelihoods to point out our social justice issues so we can make this nation the one that we truly aspire it to be.
Listen to a Proceedings Podcast interview with this author about this article below: