With July 4th in mind, fights over Trump’s deportation plans show there are many ways to be a patriot

For those of us who grew up in the turbulent 1950s and ’60s, one of the most disturbing aspects of America as it approaches its 249th birthday is the ascension of the belief that there is only one type of patriotism.

That “love it or leave it” attitude did not prevail in the 1970s, but I fear it will succeed now. I also believe we can still fix what’s wrong with America, but at age 72, I no longer believe it will happen in my lifetime.

I grew up in Alabama, but have also lived in Kansas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and now Texas, where a measure that will further divide people by class, if not ethnicity, fits the very definition of un-American. Instead of investing more money in public schools, Gov. Greg Abbott, in his third term, has finally enacted a school voucher program that will siphon tax dollars to private institutions.

Nationally, President Donald Trump has decided he won’t even try to fix the long-recognized flaws in America’s immigration system. Instead, he treats any undocumented resident of this country like a dangerous criminal who must be hunted down at gunpoint by masked men and shipped somewhere — anywhere — so long as it’s not in the United States.

Would that Trump be as coldhearted about criminals whose actions hurt this country much more than an undocumented woman butchering chickens who genuinely wants to be in this country legally, but has not succeeded.

Trump is spending billions to beef up border security while emasculating the federal agency protecting the nation from tax cheats. His defunding of the Internal Revenue Service favors the rich over the poor; it’s as simple as that.

How does Trump get away with it? By promoting the same attitude exhibited by troops who go into battle and shoot people: by no longer seeing anyone designated as the enemy as a human being.

When Border Fence Barbie (oops, I meant to type “Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem”) gets on TV with images of detained alleged gang members in the background, she wants people to think of all undocumented residents of this country as being just as dangerous as those mostly muscle-bound, tattooed, and supposed miscreants.

That’s the job Trump gave Noem: to depict all undocumented migrants as criminals to be apprehended and deported.

I can’t say such behavior is un-American. This country, which has long pretended to be a melting pot, never really treated everyone the same. Beyond class distinctions linked to wealth, America established social borders based on ethnicity and color. The Irish, Italians, other Europeans, and Asians have all experienced some prejudice in America, but none have suffered as much as people of African descent.

As if 250 years of enslavement weren’t enough subjugation, this country then allowed a system of segregation to exist by law in the former Confederate states and by policy in the North for nearly another hundred years.

This country that has long pretended to be a melting pot never really treated everyone the same.

Now, Trump and his supporters say, diversity, equity, and inclusion policies enacted only since the late 1960s to overcome past prejudice against African Americans and other victims of discrimination are no longer needed.

Against that backdrop, it’s understandable that many African Americans and others question whether it’s even worth it to vote. An American Presidency Project study showed the number of voting-age Americans who cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election declined to 58%, compared with 63% in 2020. Black voter turnout dropped from 63% in 2020 to 60% in 2024, and 15% of Black people voted for Trump in 2024, compared with 8% in 2020.

Many of Trump’s Black supporters seem to have bought into his Make America Great Again theology that promotes the belief that this country is broken and can’t be fixed without expelling all undocumented immigrants and ending any program designed to even the playing field for those impacted by this country’s past discriminatory practices.

It’s a theology that says forgetting about your neighbor is the patriotic thing to do.

I can’t subscribe to that. Especially as an African American who experienced prejudice as a child, I believe true patriotism requires some concern for everyone who claims this country as their home, whether they are properly documented or not.

And if they are not, let’s find a just way to get them documented. That’s the attitude this country has seemed to always have for Europeans; it should be the standard it has for everyone.

I am reminded of a song we learned as children in the all-Black elementary school in Birmingham, Ala., I attended in the 1960s. The lyrics to “This Is My Country,” written in 1940 by Don Raye and Al Jacobs for the band Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, speak to both native-born Americans and those who live here as immigrants:

This is my country

Land of my birth

This is my country

Grandest on Earth

This is my country

Land of my choice

This is my country

Hear my proud voice.

I pledge thee my allegiance

America the bold

For this is my country

To have and to hold

Harold Jackson spent two decades at The Inquirer and served as editorial page editor from 2007 to 2017. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1991 and retired from the Houston Chronicle in 2020. His memoir, “Under the Sun: A Black Journalist’s Journey,” was published in April by the University of Alabama Press.