“Be good to this country, and this country will be good to you.”
Matthew Davis remembered the day his father told him this. They were at the park, under an oak tree near the playground. It was the first day of autumn and the tree’s foliage a brilliant orange, though none of its leaves had fallen yet. His father knelt down, planting his large, calloused hands firmly on Matt’s shoulders. In his ten years of life, it was the most serious he had ever seen him.The exact details of what had led to this escaped him. In retrospect, Matt saw it as the arrival of an inevitable revelation. Maybe he was questioning why his older brother had to leave home after graduation, or why the white parents at the playground gave them looks when they approached. Either way, his father decided it was time to deliver the harsh truth, trying to prepare him for the world ahead. If he simply obeyed and went along with everything, he’d be okay.
He took this advice to heart.
He was good to his country.
While most kids were terrified when they learned about compulsory military service, Matt decided that he was just going to grin and bear it. At first, he planned to enlist in the infantry, like his older siblings. But as he grew up and got queasy at the sight of blood, Matt opted to go into the sciences instead. He’d become an army engineer, one degree away from violence and carnage. His friends and sisters mocked him, called him a coward, but his mother knew he was being smart.Maybe she was just hesitant to see another Davis head to the front lines.
He was good to his country.
Matt learned early on that if he wanted to simply exist in society, he had to pay lip service. Even with his head down, people targeted him for his wiry hair and dark skin, pelting him with insults and slurs. In 6th grade, a group of white boys threw rocks at him while he was biking home from school. He memorized their names and faces and ran home to his mother, though she warned him not to report the offense. In her experience, she said, nobody would do anything about it. Instead, Matt hoped to deter belittlement by becoming what his parents called a model minority. He dutifully said the Pledge of Allegiance, and stood for the national anthem. He buried any dissent he had under the polished facade of a proud patriot. He made sure to be polite in the face of even the most vile bully, knowing that baring fangs in return would spell his undoing. Eventually, they left him alone. In high school, most of his friends were white.They called him one of the good ones.
He was good to his country.
Matt loved his country. He loved barbecue and the fireworks on the Fourth of July, he loved the turkey and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving dinner, he loved the fervorous cheer of rallies and parades. He loved it when white people spit in his face, he loved his mother’s cries when his brother was gunned down in South America. He loved the United States even when it tried to beat every ounce of patriotism out of him, hoping that if he loved it hard enough, it’d let him be.And what did he get, after seventeen years spent being a good little patriot?
He was taken from his family and sentenced to death for the misfortune of being a teenager.
...
Seventeen years wasted.