WHAT I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO

WE AS ONE
GILBERT YOUNG

On my first day in the neighborhood, all the green afro flags made me think my white neighbors were what my family called “them good white folk.” Before I found out the Magnolia flag was actually Mississippi’s flag of secession, I imagined these particular good white folk as courageous Mississippians wholly prepared to confront the layered traditions of white power and black suffering that were violently stitched into our nation, our state, and today’s prevailing Mississippi flag.

For me, the American flag is no better. 

Kiese Laymon 

http://www.thefader.com/2016/09/19/my-mississippi-pledge-kiese-laymon