Views
I Was A Gay High School Student
Proud To Be An American
Proud To Be An American
Name withheld by request of the author
Mr. Joel Arthur Nichols wrote an article in your April issue. It seems laced with anger, prejudices and hostility that can only come from too little education in a protected socio-economic environment and not enough life-experience. He states in his article that “To me, the American flag signals a loss of safety. Its red, white and blue are slavery, oppression and poverty.” Perhaps he should try writing this letter in China, Afghanistan, Yemen, Israel or Palestine, Pakistan or India. His words would not be taken kindly if written about their flag or their country, and perhaps then he would begin to understand what oppression is.
My dad just came back from Tel Aviv, Israel, where a friend and member of his Shul opened a children’s hospital. This doctor’s daughter’s fourteenth birthday was the weekend they were there, and they had dropped the girls – twelve in total – off at a mall. A suicide bomber came into the mall where the girls were with a plastic explosive and about twenty pounds of roofing nails taped to his body and exploded himself. The men had been across the street and heard the explosion and ran to the mall to find five of the girls were critical, two of the girls died, and one of the girls had roofing nails imbedded in her skull. And this is daily life. In Shul oftentimes the men have guns under their prayer robes in the back of their pants and this is daily life.
Everything in life comes down to individualized perception and life experience. Usually opinions reflect the experience of that individual stating them.
I am in my mid-forties, six feet, two inches and weigh about 190 pounds. I am also gay and have been for as long as I can remember. I am also an Orthodox Jew. None of these factors defines me as an individual, but collectively they speak to my essence as an individual. To attempt to draw parallels between others and myself based on these factors and characteristics would be limiting my options as an individual. It seems to me that Mr. Nichols’ attempt to draw underliningly inferred experiential alliances between being gay and minorities and 911 and the qualities embraced by being American or showing patriotism is seriously flawed.
America and especially the American flag represent safety, choice, prosperity and hope. It also offers any individual a chance to become the most they can. My grandparents came to this country after being in the camps. They were taken from their homes in Czechoslovakia in the middle of the night by the Nazis and put into trucks, trains and then delivered to the camps. When they were finally sponsored to come to this country they came with nothing except what was on their backs, and they were very proud to do so. Rosey, my grandmother, worked in a coat factory in lower Manhattan sewing buttons on coats for $3 a week. Growing up we were taught to ‘negotiate’ or ‘Jew-down’ prices because our parents and their parents didn’t have money or oftentimes enough food. And because things were tight we learned to value, to do without, and to work against the odds to have a better life. We learned early on life has no guarantees.
The pride in America and being American represented a chance that all who sought refuge could work toward the dream of a better life. It is only through self-limitation and affixing labels to oneself and others that the individual lessens their level of opportunity, making their life journey more difficult for themselves.
Being patriotic and American is a darn wonderful thing, and showing that pride by putting a flag on your pick-up truck (straight, lesbian or gay) is an individual’s right. A chance to be safe, regardless of gender-preference is guaranteed to all Americans, especially those who worked in the twin towers!
And for one I think it is highly acceptable that anyone who could be affiliated with such an act could and should be called into question. I personally think that we as Americans are suffering from over-liberalization.
Life has become all too easy, as has access to the American dream and everyone thinks they are due equality without having to work to earn and maintain it.
Mr. Nichol’s anger at his choice of disenfranchisement due perhaps to how he has chosen to define himself comes through too loud and clear. Anyone can say it’s because I’m gay, it’s because I’m a Jew or a minority ... but what it really comes down to is respecting yourself and allowing yourself to believe you are capable and taking the opportunity to excel against adversity.
Life isn’t always fair or easy. But it is a life worth the journey and worth the chance taking. The litany of disparaging citations Mr. Nichols listed speaks to his youth and perhaps his own unhappiness within himself. He manages to cover most minorities from African Americans to the Native American genocide and detainment of the Japanese and actually is outraged (to use his verbiage) about the Arab-America and Muslim detentions and stigmatization, drawing parallels with being gay. There are no reasonable parallels to be drawn from his concerns. His reasoning is flawed at best, as is his shock over seeing: “...cars displaying American flags and rainbow color simultaneously. It completely ruined my day to see two lesbians proclaiming their American and pride simultaneously on their car.” The labels Mr. Nichols affixes to everyone else defines how he has been taught to view himself, by being inside the metaphoric box.
Pride in yourself and who you are is a start, a positive quality which unites people and draws them together under a solidarity of ‘caring through awareness.’ Each of us is a highly unique aspect of creation that reflects that very perfection. Our efforts should be better put to the task of pulling humanity together.
We started a memorial wall in Connecticut where I also have a home. Before long the entire town and community as a whole gathered to place candles, signs, cards, flags and prayers. Mothers whose sons were being taken to Afghanistan put up their photos, firemen who had been down to clear the tower rubble gathered for a service and prayer session. Children came and drew chalk pictures on the sidewalk. We started this wall the day of what I will call ‘the American tragedy’ 9/11 and it is still up and being lovingly cared for. Mr. Nichol’s outrage would have been better placed at the compassion and effort to seek a positive resolution over what occurred that morning when we as Americans, including the minorities Mr. Nichols cited, were invaded without warning and without just cause on our own soil.
America and the American flag represent all that is right and good in the world. We export our education, we open our doors and provide sanctuary to all who seek it. And some of us, including myself, might not care for Mr. Nichols’s article, but the very flag and country he criticizes gives him the opportunity to express his views in an open forum.