The American Flag

I love my country and my flag. But at the same time, I didn't like them. Far too often, I saw people who wrapped themselves in the American Flag as the ones who would quickly negate me of my rights to this country. My vision was of white Americans wrapping themselves in the flag and shouting "Go Back to Africa".

Starting this summer with my realization that Barack Obama would win the election to the presidency, I began looking at the U.S. Flag with a different eye. I understood completely what Michelle Obama meant when she mentioned about feeling proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

I found myself finally feeling like a "REAL" American for the first time in my life. Many whites don't understand the concept of blacks who are a part of this country but have always felt like an outsider to it. Now in black and white, we see that the America we thought we knew is now the America we actually know and that a lot of us were so wrong about this country and all the potential in it.

This summer after having lived in this country for 54 years, I BOUGHT AND DISPLAYED MY FIRST U.S. FLAG. Not only did I display the flag, I was actually proud of it. For it was saying to me that the America of the past has been replaced by a new, smarter America full of hope and potential and one that I hope to know better in the future.