Two people had sex and I was born. Am I obligated to pledge allegiance to where the event took place?”Pride for heritage” is a concept with which I struggle. I’m expected to have “Southern pride” because I was born in Tennessee, but I’ve always felt that defining yourself as a member of one specific place instead of a member of the world at large hinders empathy and implies those born elsewhere have something of which to be ashamed.

In allying ourselves with symbols intended to describe boundaries, we are categorizing ourselves as a species incapable of celebrating that our birthplace has no effect on our individual value as human beings.

I recently discussed the use of the Confederate flag during a class discussion on “The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963.”

Several students expressed a nonchalant attitude toward the symbol that primarily invokes bigotry, defending the flag as a symbol of their own volition or as a symbol of good, clean rebellion. After all, racist sports mascots and swastikas have been around for centuries, so why not let the Confederate flag fly as well?

I feel there is a form of selfishness involved among those willing to alienate people in order to express a point of view that is both unimpressive and unbalanced.

There is nothing so important to me that I can apply it to a symbol that already has a meaning capable of harming someone. No number of ancestors who fought and killed in any war will inspire me to change my mind, and there is really nothing so special about being squeezed out of a vagina in any part of the world that justifies machining a symbol that remains to be used as a weapon for racism.

People have a tendency to overrate personal meaning and underrate the potency of a symbol. There seems to be a stance that rebelling against the Rebel Flag is unpatriotic, that questioning “pride for heritage” is pompous.

Is it really so insane of me to find it socially and aesthetically repulsive when I see someone wearing a symbol that I have seen in pictures of people tortured and murdered in its honor?

Protecting the planet and fighting for equality are the only effective functions of pride for heritage; everything else is capitalistic nostalgia that strengthens stereotypes and political tensions.

I’m a human being, you’re a human being and where we were born in any part of the globe is irrelevant to our ability to love and understand each other.

People should not be treated or valued differently based on their birthplace. Those who adopt the methods of their society without question are the ones responsible for the lack of positive change and the presence of intolerance and apathy.

There is a difference between glorifying our mistakes and learning from them. Instead of limiting our responsibility to finding pride for a town, state, region or country, we should aim to expand on the preservation of our humanity.

There are many symbols and even more meanings, but there will never be another who can replace those we have lost to ignorance, fear and the assumption that our own interpretations are more significant than reality.

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