Shame

shame **"Picture a young girl, age eight. She is wearing flowing red pants, a red and white rhinestone patterned shirt, and blue rhinestone-decked shoes. Tying her hair back into a ponytail is a red scrunchie, along with about a dozen red, white, and blue ribbons, some of which reach down to her waist. Pushed into this ponytail are two small American flags and one larger on. This young girl is the picture of hope and American pride, not afraid to stick out in a crowd and show her true colors. That girl used to be me. What happened, you ask? I woke up. I grew up. I looked around me and saw America for what it really was. I saw American women willing to kill animals to have a certain kind of makeup of a 'fashionable' coat. I saw Americans pigging out at fast-food restaurants, spending the day in front of their televisions, contracting terrible diseases, and then blaming the healthcare system and suing fast-food restaurants. I saw giant American factories ruining the ozone layer and no one bringing them to task. I saw an inexcusable number of homeless cats and dogs in America. I did not want to be a part of that. I did not want to call myself an American. I was too ashamed of what my birth-country had done to be affiliated with it. I took the flags out of my hair, stuffed the ribbons in my closet and made sure I never again wore red, white, and blue anything on the same day." ****-Kaitlin Pettit (an excerpt of a piece from) //21st Statement: A Call to Action// **



Stella: "Haven't you ever ridden on that street-car? Blanche: "It brought me here. -- Where I'm not wanted and where I'm ashamed to be." -Tennessee Williams, //A Streetcar Named Desire//  

**"I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody." ** **-Scott F. Fitzgerald, //The Great Gatsby// ** 