“I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me- they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could.”
- Veronica Roth
Since I’ve been in college, my sense of what loyalty means has changed. Experiencing the things that I have forces me to put people under even more scrutiny than I had before. Loyalty is a trait that should remain unchanged, and one should remain loyal to those people that are close to them. Sometimes it becomes tough because relationships and commonalities can determine how loyal one person is to another. Generally, people become loyal to things or people that support them. Once a person feels that they have lost support, then they can change their allegiance. One cannot forget to be loyal to oneself because that is the most important person. So, decisions that you make must always positively reflect your character or views, and you cannot compromise yourself for anyone else. Loyalty weighs a lot with me, and those who can’t be trusted to be loyal to me in dire situations won’t be associated with me.
I learned what loyalty is at a young age from all types of people. My friends in the streets and my family gave me different views of what loyalty might mean, but they are defining similar things. My friends in the streets only have loyalty and trust, because without that they find themselves behind bars. They have their own way of dealing with disloyalty, and it typically isn’t removing that person from their life gently. My parents and family just taught me to protect myself and my family. It’s all that you have at the end of the day. They have done a better job of showing me what loyalty is rather than telling me. For this I will always love and respect them, because it has helped to make me a man of great character and integrity.
A dictionary definition of loyalty is: “unswerving in allegiance: such as faithful to a private person to whom faithfulness is due” (Merriam-Webster, b). My definition is very similar to that. To me, loyalty is a strong bond with a person or group that you have unfaltering faith in regardless of circumstance. It is something that you are born with a vague understanding of.
When you are young your family grooms a sense of trust or faith with the simplest of things, and these are the first people that we become loyal to. We will always be loyal to people that we feel like we can trust. For example, a child sees his dad raise his hand and responds by slapping his hand. After that trust is created, so is the loyalty because they go hand in hand. It’s not until the dad moves his hand and responds, “Ha! Too slow”, does the child learn to expect anything different. The dad then explains that it is a game and that his son should still trust him. That familial loyalty is the reason that a little brother will help his older brother in a fight even though his older brother picks on him. It’s the loyalty to protect your own.
During my brief time here at Wesleyan, my definition has not changed, yet I learned to view people’s loyalty different. I have seen lovers cheat on each other, issues with distrust, and even cases when people have been loyal when they shouldn’t have.
It feels like every week there is a new instance of disloyalty. From the beginning of my time here, I have been careful of who I let get close to me. I came here with a group of five other friends that I am loyal to regardless of who or what challenges us. Within the five, I am the most loyal to Kenny Lewis because we have been together every day for about five years now; he’s since become a brother to me. People have already tried to create separation between us two, and in those times, we have remained steadfast. People have created rumors about us that would cause tension in weaker relationships. For example, someone started a rumor that we were sharing girls on the weekends, which is false. Together we talked about how to halt the problem and prevent similar rumors from occurring. I also had another friend, Jaylin, get his wallet stolen by one of our teammates. The problem that I had to deal with was being close to both of them, but I had to take Jaylin’s side because we came here from Baltimore together and we have to stick together. So when Jaylin approached Brubeck, and a fight ensued, I rode with Jaylin to the end not because he was in the right, but because you ALWAYS protect your own.
Within intimate relationships, I have seen many things go wrong. Personally, I had a girl cheat on me while away at college, even though she swore to be loyal to me. On campus, the weekend tends to decimate relationships because partners often cheat on each other. When Monday comes, they act as if nothing ever happened and pray their partner doesn’t find out. I had a friend who liked a girl, and she told him that she wanted to be his girlfriend, yet she was telling me the same. To make matters worse, she knew that we were friends and begged us not to tell each other, but we did because that’s what loyal friends do.
At the beginning of football camp, Coach Smith made it known that younger players of equal or greater ability to upperclassmen would always play first. Since then, I have not seen that put into action. The statement makes it seem that he will not be loyal to upperclassmen just because of seniority, which is what I expected in a college program. Producers should always play, and when that doesn’t happen there is usually dissent within the program. On the team, we have freshmen that can contribute, yet they won’t see the field until their sophomore year. The players in front of them have not been producing that much, and that’s reflected in our record. Watching us over the course of the season, one might’ve seen continual mistakes made by a single player. Typically, coaches feel that a player that continues to make the same errors should be replaced, but we don’t have that. So I feel that in some ways coaches have been loyal to players that they shouldn’t have been.
As I look back on the events that happened through this three-month period, I would like to think that I have remained unchanged. I learned that you can’t always take a person’s word because their beliefs aren’t always the same as yours. I learned that you can’t always trust the person that makes bad decisions. I learned that you shouldn’t always trust people that have a questionable past. I believe my word to be my bond, because it’s all that I have. I know that you always protect your own, and that’s no matter what. The events that have tested my opinions about loyalty just help me to think that college will be hard in some ways, having to suppress rumors and thinking twice before trusting a person is never fun. It just helps to know who those people are beforehand because it’s just easier to stay away.
One of my favorite athletes is Muhammad Ali, not because of what he did in the ring, but because of what he did outside of the ring. Being an activist, you must defend your beliefs no matter how controversial they might be. I hold one of Ali’s most hated reactions dear to my heart when he defends his loyalty to himself:
I ain't draft dodging. I ain't burning no flag. I ain't running to Canada. I'm staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I've been in jail for 400 years. I could be there for four or five more, but I ain't going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. If I want to die, I'll die right here, right now, fightin' you, if I want to die. YOU my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. YOU my opposer when I want freedom. YOU my opposer when I want justice. YOU my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? YOU won't even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. YOU won't even stand up for my right here at home! (Ali)
Even though he might have been in the face of conflict, he gave one of the grittiest responses ever. People didn’t agree with him when he said it, but later had to respect it. There will be times that you are loyal to conflicting forces, and in the face of conflict, who will you support? Will you fight for your respect? Will you fight to protect your own?