Oh Say Can You Protest?

When I taught college history, I’d often suggest that the entire history of our country could be framed as a history of dissent. The Pilgrims and the Puritans were dissenters. Many of the New England towns broke off to form new ones because of dissent (usually within the church), and of course our founding documents are filled with dissenting arguments.

So when someone says that people should not be protesting – individually and/or collectively – it strikes me as downright un-American. Whether it’s a football player taking a knee, people marching in the streets, the Standing Rock Sioux trying to protect their water, or the cast of Broadway’s Hamilton addressing Mike Pence, protest is inherently American, and it’s one of the best things about America. It’s one of the ways we know we’re still us.

Sure, there are times that protests have annoyed me – maybe because they inconvenienced me or maybe because I disagreed with (or didn’t understand) the object of the protest. But it is so intrinsic to what America is, especially America at its best, that honoring dissent is even more patriotic than honoring the flag. More importantly, it is very much like the flag in Francis Scott Key’s poem.*

When Key wrote it, he was imprisoned during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812, and was searching for sight of the flag to know if the United States was still a country, still alive as an independent nation. “The rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there …”

Those protests – those people on the streets who are loudly and publicly airing their grievances with a president-elect who has threatened so many of us in so many ways – they are the proof that our nation, our “land of the free” is still there. When they disappear, there will be nothing left but the flag, and it will have nothing left to represent.

So whether or not you agree with the protests, perhaps you should stand and salute when they go by. Maybe you should pledge allegiance to American dissent, write songs about its colors, and ask for God’s blessings upon it. It is inherent to who we are.

It is, after all, the words and actions of the brave which will ensure we remain the land of the free.

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*-- As a footnote, I am not glorifying Francis Scott Key, who was not only a slave owner, but was an anti-abolitionist and held very racist views. While we're protesting, maybe we can also change the national anthem .... Just asking.