I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America …
Prayer had ended and now began a new exercise in mindless recitation. My eyes darted from kid to kid, primed to pledge at a moment’s notice without knowing what the words meant or the weight they carried.
While most of my classmates had begun there the year prior, first grade was also my first year at a Catholic school in Whitehall. I timidly refrained from participating in these morning recitations simply because no one had taught me the words. For this — ignorance perceived as rebellion — I was reprimanded.
I learned to face the flag, hand to heart, as soon as the pledge began. It became second nature. Muscle memory. I learned what to say, but it was years before I learned what I was actually saying.
And to the republic for which it stands …
In “The Republic,” Plato wrote a plan for what he believed to be a perfect society. He wanted youth to be exposed to specific censored material so as to ensure they would favor their society and never go against the wishes of those in control.
Reading “The Republic,” it was immediately clear to me and critics that the censorship Plato proposed is unjust. But many fail to realize how similar our society is to the one “The Republic” advocates.
Never not working
As soon as we made it home from my bus stop in Carrick, my grandmother would retreat to her bedroom, which for a period consisted of not much else than a mattress-less bed frame and laundry scattered across the floor. My grandma liked to talk about all the places she would someday take me, but there was rarely follow through. She never had the car or spare money for frivolous outings.
My grandfather took their shared car to work where he spent a large percentage of his time, and to the grocery store where he saved money in any way he could. This often meant I was left alone to rewatch shows recorded on the DVR until my parents got off work.
I watched my grandpa and others in my family devoting their time to work with little return. I saw the sacrifices families must make, and I understood. I understood that the white picket fence “American dream” isn’t true for everyone. And I understood that I would need to make my own money, so I started as soon as I could.
I jumped into creating my own business plans and executing them from a very young age. From lemonade stands to dog walking to selling handmade jewelry to babysitting to getting my first real job, I can’t remember ever not working.
It’s not paying off
Americans live to work while other countries work to live. I had heard that phrase before but never had any frame of reference to test it until last summer when I spent a month studying French language and culture in Rennes.
Looking back, it is shocking how little work was mentioned by my host family. I lived with the family for at least a week before I knew what both parents did for a living, and I heard nothing about their kids’ future career aspirations throughout my whole stay.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, I hear people being defined by their job every day. I consider my career goals a big part of who I am too. Always have — even when the goal was simply to find a better location for my lemonade stand. But in France it seems more emphasis is placed on recreational activities such as instrument playing.
So why, if we work so hard, do the working poor most often remain poor? Why is upward mobility gradually declining, and income inequality staggering?
Income inequality is so great in the U.S. that in the most recent collected data, the richest 1% of households make an average of 139 times as much as the bottom 20% before taxes and government transfers such as Social Security. Even after taxes and transfers, the top 1% earns 45 times more than the bottom 20%.
Meanwhile the federal minimum wage is poverty wage. That’s not something you’ll hear in most classrooms. Plato would be proud.
Free to pay
My dad started a new job recently that led to a gap in our health care coverage during the transition period. My mom told me not to get hurt until the new health insurance kicked in. She said it in a joking manner, but with the national average cost of an overnight hospital stay being $3,025, I knew it wasn’t a joking matter.
I also knew that others in my family have regularly avoided hospital visits and prescriptions due to high costs.
When I see people in my family putting off necessary health care because they can’t afford it, when I hear stories of people stealing just to get what they need to survive, and when I read about America’s growing homeless rates, rebounding incarceration rates and associated recidivism rates I can’t help but question our nation’s nickname “Land of the Free.”
How can this be the land of the free when it takes the average American 384 hours of work to cover the cost of a typical hospital stay? And when housing isn’t affordable but “public” spaces are designed to keep homeless people from getting good sleep? And how free is it when most people are stuck in the same cycle they were born into?
I decided at 13 that I wanted to be a journalist, so, like everything else, I jumped into it right away. I spent the last four years interning, job shadowing, researching the job, reading the work of other journalists, interviewing and writing my own pieces. This work taught me that journalism is about making connections, not only with people, but within your own mind.
Building a journalistic mindset has made it easier for me to see connections between seemingly unlinked things like the Pledge of Allegiance and lack of freedom — or ants and censorship.
When I was young, I learned that if you set an ant on a piece of paper and draw a box around it, the ant will think it’s trapped; it won’t cross the lines. The ant confines itself though no laws of physics are preventing it from leaving the box. Similarly, censorship usually confines us not through laws, but through ignorance.
Our nation of “no common religion” is taught to worship its freedom. American schooling taught me year after year not only that our country’s freedom makes us different, but better than other countries. This faulty thinking does make us different from other countries — in lack of global awareness rather than in purported freedom.
Teaching kids to pledge to their country before even learning the values of their country is exactly the kind of propaganda Plato proposed.
Many remain blissfully unaware of censorship as it is not written into law. The press is often self-censored due to fear of government retaliation, lawsuits or pressure from corporate owners. While the press writes a censored version of the first draft of history, some in our government try to erase history and further censor our society while calling it an American agenda.
I’m even self-censoring as I write this, wondering if my words could be viewed in an anti-patriotic light. Considering America’s founding ideals, I’d argue that societal scrutiny is the most patriotic thing I can do. Writing for change is my way of showing appreciation for my country.
The hum of censorship
Sometimes, I like to listen to the hum of the earth often referred to as silence. I like to taste the air often called tasteless. We often tune out the earth, the air and other constants of our lives until someone reminds us of them. An ethical journalist seeks out sounds and tastes often unnoticed, and allows the public to feel them by reminding them they are there.
Unfortunately, I also hear the hum of censorship. I taste the tastelessness of the freedom we have lost. Despite these issues — or maybe because of them— I persist in my field so I can help others use their senses to their full capacity.
Instead of pledging my allegiance to the republic as it stands, I pledge allegiance to the journalistic code of ethics like it is my Hippocratic Oath. I pledge allegiance to our flag of the United States of America and to the republic that it is supposed to represent. I pledge allegiance with all those who can hear the hum of the earth to our country, but not to what it has become.
Kalilah Stein is a senior at SciTech, committed to Pitt with a communications major and can be reached at firstperson@publicsource.org.
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