The list goes on and on. I didn't buy into this faux patriotism, I always wanted to feel authentic. A lot of my generation grew up without honing their mannerisms, now we live in an era of entitlement. But alas, Christopher Columbus was entitled too. America was founded on Entitlement.

Fast forward and today we see what the seeds of going all in on patriotism for a personality has wrought, haven't we? Where are the gentlemen of my generation? So many men now are focused on flexing wealth, status, driving dangerously, being mean on the internet, partaking in misogyny.

In those formative years trying to make sense in the post 9/11 world, it saddened me to see so many in my class go all in on patriotism for a personality. With the War on Terror in full swing, I began phoning in the morning Pledge of Allegiance. I saw through it.

There was an ugly underbelly of racism in the fabrics of the red white and blue that I came to find. In my school's history book, scribbled over the atlas in the back, someone had wrote "SUCKS" over Afghanistan. The first friend I made that year just happened to be from Afghanistan.