"Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge...I'm tryin not to lose my head..."

What price is loyalty? At what point is it not worth your own integrity? Where do you draw the line? I can't seem to find the exit. It's as if life is an interstate system of absurdity punctuated by roadside attractions of folly. The "great flag flap" has grown into the proverbial fucking elephant in the middle of the room. I signed a ticket with "go fuck yourself" that was my choice...I took responsibility, I accepted the consequence of my actions. My choice cost me $500 dollars....not much else. I didn't get made into a community pariah nor did I think my opinion was the only one worth acknowledging. I never told the officer that "you're just giving me this because I'm black" but some suspended their belief and accepted this as fact. I must believe their gospel or I am disloyal, supporting the wrong people, accepting others false perceptions which they use as proof of their persecution. Life is rarely that simple, rarely that dogmatic...at least it should not be. I don't think you should clothespin flags to a bridge, I feel that it is tacky. That being said there are bigger things for me to lose sleep over.....cancer, poverty,the weight of parenthood, the suffering of people in Darfur, the inequities of life. Cheap flags on a bridge do not rate in the bigger picture. What does rate? Not browbeating others into a comprised sense of loyalty by taking on a sense of martyrdom due to an inability to accept personal responsibility. Was the removal of those flags a plot to undermine the patriotism of others or a anti-war rebuke? No....that would have had a purpose. That would have had meaning, a sentiment backed by conviction, passion, and ethics.Would that have been my vehicle to affect change? No. What would I have done? Kept driving. Why? Because a woman who rednecks accuse of looking like a terrorist knows better. I don't get the benefit of the doubt. I am always guilty even when surrounded by the truth. My extra melanin casts shadow over others ability to look at me fairly in a lot of instances. I do not accept this in so much that I have learned to cope with it. It has given me a gift in someways.....the gift of seeing what is worth fighting for, and what is worth ignoring. I use to think that the key to life was tolerance. I know after enduring many struggles that this is not enough. We must accept and respect the beliefs of others, if we do not how can we expect the same in return? Even if we do not always receive it we can not abandon these integrity's even when our anger beckons us to. If we do we become no better than what we abhor.