Every four years the country unites to watch the Olympics. Americans from every race, creed and religion stand together to cheer for our athletes simply because they represent the good ole USA. It doesn’t matter if it’s swimming, diving, track and field, basketball or skate boarding. Americans are cheering and supporting America at the Olympic Games. It’s a beautiful thing isn’t it?
However, once the athletes of color come back to the United States, just like their ancestors did after World War I and II, they are no longer considered the Americans that EVERYONE supported and cheered for while defending America’s honor. They become instead, African-Americans that are subject to the same racism and police brutality that the rest of the black America has to deal with.
Those same people that were supporting and cheering for them to win the Gold during the Olympics turn a blind eye to the abuse that these people, their family and friends experience daily. Why? Because they didn’t really care about them in the first place. They just wanted to scream “USA” when it benefits them the most. They wanted bragging rights just to say that the USA is better.
All we ever hear about is why folks should be patriotic to this country. But isn’t part of being patriotic supporting your fellow Americans through the good and bad times. Isn’t being patriotic about doing what’s right for ALL Americans regardless of the color of our skin?
The exact opposite of patriotism is supporting folks or agendas that don’t have America’s best interest at heart. You can’t be patriotic while supporting the January 6 insurrection. You can’t be patriotic while supporting racism or even acting like it doesn’t exist. You can’t be patriotic if you won’t put a mask on to help prevent the spread of a deadly disease that’s killing your fellow Americans either.
So going forward, let’s check ourselves on being true American patriots by simply supporting all Americans all of the time.
You can’t cheer for Allison Felix to win the 400 meters or the hoop team to win the Gold and completely ignore the injustice of racism and police brutality at the same time. Stop me when I start lyin’!