Hands off GABBY !
Four years ago, they couldn't say enough good things about our daughter, 16 at the time. Now, they trash her name, her gestures, and mostly because she did not put her hand over her heart during the playing of their national anthem at the gold medal ceremony.
It's not good enough for them that she said she didn't intentionally try to dis them; no, they want to drag her through the mud. (See Washington Post story below)
The Post even published a citation from the US Code (below) ostensibly buttressing their case against her:
"36 USC 301-(C)
all other persons
should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, and men not in uniform, if applicable, should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart
"Sounds like a slam dunk case against her, right? WRONG! I didn't work 30 years in DC writing laws, regulations, Instructions, etc, for the federal government, not paying attention to the legalese of those edicts. And it basically comes down to this: when a law mandates an action, it typically uses SHALL, not should.
Black's Law Dictionary (8th Ed, p. 1407), says this of the preposition SHALL: "has a duty to; more broadly, is required to; this is the mandatory sense that drafters typically mean, and the courts typically uphold"
So, when this law says should, not shall, it is not mandatory to do the action spoken of, and that's the path our daughter took, but not with any malice in her heart. But these pale hypocrites want to rake her over the hot coals for doing so.
Get real pale America! Your Supreme Court has ruled in 1969 that it is NOT illegal to burn the US flag, citing freedom of speech laws. So if one can legally burn that rag (aka Dr Welsing), one can also legally not salute the damn thing. Moreover, we as Black people have even less reason to honor a symbol that has historically trashed us. That flag was flying over George Washington's farm, when as the first prez, he enslaved over 300 of our ancestors. Maybe some of us have forgiven and forgotten, but Dr Clarke told us not to do either. And as we have taught so often in the past, their flag is a symbol of a Republic (US Pledge) in the Platonic sense of limited rule of the few over the many. Why should we honor a symbol of a system that has historically EXCLUDED us in more ways than one?
But, Gabrielle wasn't being mean spirited, and did not have a political motive in mind by her own admission. She simply did not bow down to a symbol of white supremacy and for that, she gets burned in the press.
Back up pale faces! She is only 20 years old, despite what she has accomplished, and she's still our daughter, and some of us don't take kindly you f---ing with our daughters! Kwasi
