I stopped saying the pledge of allegiance years ago

Nevermind those who tell me that I'm disrespecting

Those who fight for our country

Because how can this be the land of the free

Or the home of the brave, when we are a country full of hate

We hate those different than us, we hate them because we are uneducated and scared

Our police engage in racial profiling and turn the victims into their own persecutors

We pull a gun on a person of color because they were reaching into their coat pocket

We assume they have a weapon because they are black

We threaten to deport immigrants because any country whose name is hard to pronounce

is clearly a dangerous one

We threaten to ban Muslims,

Because the actions from one individual clearly speak for an entire religion

We threaten to put the gays back into conversion therapy

Because anything other than heterosexual love is unnatural

We threaten to reclaim reserved cultural land as our own

For as something as unimportant as an oil pipeline

We took their land and culture away from them centuries ago

We restricted them to the very land that still remains

And now we want it back, because

An oil pipeline contributes more to the economy than a sacred culture

We deny that the earth is dying and that it is our own fault

We blame everything on others and nothing on ourselves

We care more about profiting from capitalism than pursuing our dreams

Making a difference, or helping those in need

We criticize the poor for not working hard enough and for being lazy

But then grumble when they take our jobs

We say killing is wrong, no exceptions

Unless it was "self-defense"

Or unless it's a soldier fighting in a meaningless war

Or unless it's an animal

Or if the person committed a crime

Then that's okay

I haven't said the pledge for years

Because America is not a place of freedom

People are still enslaved in sex-trafficking and illegal labor

People of color will never be free of their history of oppression

People are discriminated against through hate crimes and no one gives a damn

But yet everyone gives a damn when a gorilla is killed in a zoo

I haven't said the pledge in forever and I won't for the next four years

I am not going to live in a candy-coated America under a candy-coated administration 

Because you can't make America great again 

It was always flawed

It was never great

It never will be unless we turn ourselves around.