Blind Patriotism or Justice Patroitism?

Blind patriotism or justice patriotism; soldiers blood or black blood; freedom to own slaves (Washington and Jefferson) or freedom to do justice (Martin Luther King and John Perkins).  White patriots killed blacks and Indians.

Donald Trump demands blind patriotism; Colin Kapernick demands justice patriotism.  I side with Colin, not Donald.

Blind patriotism is unethical patriotism; it says. America---right or wrong.  Even the Pledge ends with an ethical statement---"with liberty and justice for all."

On the surface, America appears to have done well with freedom, but terrible with justice, terrible at combining freedom with justice.  Actually, there is no real freedom without justice---except for the white oppressors who enjoy the freedom to do injustice.

Jesus was a Jew, but he wasn't a blind Jew.  Jesus was a justice Jew.  Jesus severely criticized the Pharisees as Jews who "neglected justice and the love of God."  See Luke 11:42.

The typical white American Christian is a blind white American Christian; the large majority neglect justice and the love of God.  They enjoy their white privilege so they won't repent and restitute, then do justice that releases the oppressed and rebuilds poor communities.  Why do they not obey Matthew 6:33 (NEB)?

Fannie Lou Hamer points to the vast injustices in America when she declares "The flag is drenched in [with] OUR blood."  Charles Blow documents Hamer's statement with historical facts in his recent New York Times op-ed titled "The flag is drenched in our blood."  Blow states:

"Many black people see themselves simultaneously as part of America and separate from it, under attack by it, and it has always been thus.  W.E.B. Du Bois wrote over a century ago about this sensation:

'It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.  One ever feels his two-ness---an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.'

"It is through that haze of hurt that black people see the flag."

Most of the U.S. slave trade was done under the Stars and Stripes, not the Confederate flag.  So why is the Northern flag evil largely ignored while the Confederate flag evil is highlighted?

Blow writes:  "The overall slave trade in North and South America caused about 1.8 million deaths.  There was so much flesh being tossed over the sides of those boats---or jumping---that sharks learned to trail the boats to feast on it."

Then Blow discusses the extremely high infant mortality rates as well as the extremely high child mortality rates among American slaves.  Next he mentions the 4,743 lynchings and "the disastrous effects of mass incarceration" among black young men.

A final quotation from Charles Blow:

"So those football players should take a knee if they so choose.  If America demands your respect it must grant you respect and the first order of that respect is equality [justice] and eradicating the ominous threat of state violence."