When President Donald Trump talks about “patriots” – and he does, a lot – he probably doesn’t have in mind a fictional Black American sailor sitting in a cafe in Wales, listening to locals sing folks songs.
But in Ralph Ellison’s short story “In a Strange Country,” the protagonist, Mr. Parker, listens to Welsh songs that simultaneously express loyalty to the queen and defiance of England, and sees something of his own situation and conflicting feelings to the land of his birth. When the locals begin to sing “The Star Spangled Banner,” Mr. Parker finds himself singing along. Thousands of miles away from his homeland and fighting back tears, he sings his national anthem for the first time without irony.
It is a form of patriotism echoed by another Black American, this time the very nonfictional author and thinker James Baldwin. In 1963, Baldwin wrote: “I love America more than any other country in the world, and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”