As a youth, I remember putting my hand over my chest and saying the pledge of allegiance. I said it because I was taught to say it. As a child, I saw nothing wrong with it. However, as I grew in my faith and in my Blackness, I stopped saying the pledge; my allegiance was to my Lord and my pledge was to my people.
Once in high school, I stopped saying it. In fact, I stayed seated, much to the chagrin of my teachers. When I was a teacher, I never made my homeroom say it, much to the chagrin of my administration.
Absent a sense of history, the flag means nothing. Schools typical indoctrinate young people with a false sense of history, directly or indirectly — providing a sense of pride for young people, only for reality to smack them in the face one way or another.