Robert Longo’s Untitled(American Flag), from the Brooklyn Museum
Categorized, isolated and divided. The nation of the free has fallen to chaos. I was born and raised in this country. I was taught to believe in equality and encouraged to use my freedoms. There was a constant affirmation in the notion that America was made up of all the different people within it, and stronger because of their differences.
Now this country that is vast and beautiful in so many different ways, expects its people to be all the same. The once colorful flag that streamed brightly, its color a point of pride, has now been dinged to black and white. It is not just the want for us all to look the same but is the effort to make this country something it never was. They shout, “make America great again”, but how would we do that? This country was great because of its immigrants, how can they expect to be great again by removing all the people that build this nation up?
I am growing up in a time of conflict and insanity. I have dreams to do great things for this nation and this world, but quite frankly I don’t know if it’s possible. I see all that goes on around us, the violence and the immaturity of the people who hold our lives in their hands. They all look similar, old white men. And they say I’ll get my chance to change things. But will I? Will I ever be an old white man? Will this country ever be ready to see a brown woman in power? People tell me it will be 2036, that times will have changed. But weren’t they saying that 20 years ago too?
It’s 2017 and what do we have now. We all thought we were headed in the right direction. I remember watching the Obama inauguration in my fourth-grade class. A grainy black and white screen, on a giant TV monitor, the ones they used to roll in on carts and stick VCR tapes into. We all thought we were going forward. When he won again against another wealthy white man, I thought damn were only going up from here. And then we came to this. All night I stayed up and watched our country go from color to black and white. State by state, each time she lost one my heart sank. We are bleeding our red, white and blue. And each one of us drains as our flag does. Losing our color, losing our pride, and losing our differences. The things that once made us so great.
I still hold on to my dreams to change this nation. I am scared and know it will be hard but I’m going to bring the color back! Not just the reds, whites and blues to the flag. But the color of our people, and their pride of their color.
A black and white world isn’t realistic, and even if it was, it isn’t one I’d want to live in. I want the clash of the yellows and the greens. The shouts of the reds and purples. And the vivacious energy that blue and pink bring the table. I want a country that pops off the wall. I want a flag, a nation rather, filled to the brim with colorful life.
I don’t think it will be easy, but I know that slowly we will get our color back.
