The other day I saw one of those trucks with the flags on it. You know the one. It’s a giant pedestrian-killing machine, proudly waving one oversized American flag and one “Blue Lives Matter” flag. When I see those trucks I automatically assume that person is racist, homophobic, xenophobic. Not good people. Am I the only one? Our flag has begun to become associated with hate.
I am a liberal. And guess what- I also love my country. I’m proud to be an American. That doesn’t mean that I love my government. That doesn’t mean that I am proud of the atrocities my country has committed. What I love is the people. My family and friends. I love jazz music. I love BBQ. I love our national parks. I love cheering for our Olympic athletes. Who else should I cheer for? To me, that’s patriotism. When I go camping I bring a miniature flag for my campsite because in the woods, in our beautiful parks and lands, that’s what my country means to me.
I want to take back the flag. I want to see a USA where a flag can be waved and there is no association with racism. Where the flag means “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” I’ve had it in my mind that if Trump ever goes to prison, that is that day I am going to get one of those giant flags. I am going to proudly wave it to celebrate my country for standing up to fascism. For protecting my right to have my vote count. Who is with me? Let’s take back the flag!
There was an effort in the 1970s/1980s by white supremacists to make the British flag a symbol of their ideology/movement (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Front_(UK) example). It didn’t last. One cannot take control of a nation’s flag like that.
The best you can do is fly the flag, but fly an LGBTQ+ flag or other obviously-not-fascist flag next to it. The attempt to subvert the American flag as a far-right symbol is real. It’s solved by watering down it’s use. For a hot-minute, the hashtag “Proud Boy” was overwhelmed by LGBTQ images on twitter, and caused them to stop using that name. That needs to be done by everyone.
I love that use of Proud Boy! That’s hilarious.
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Do they have a thin rainbow line flag?
I love this energy. The thing I tell people is that it’s more patriotic to recognize that your country needs work and work towards making it better than it is to just pretend.
There is no taking back the flag in the short term. I don’t think it’s possible to wave the flag without implicitly excusing all the atrocities our country is perpetrating. Until we stop passing anti-trans, anti-woman legislation, correct our horribly gerrymandered congressional districts, stop electing a plurality of racist politicians that are able to enact oppressive, even if not explicitly racist policies (like redlining and cutting funding to public schools), allowing homeless populations to expand, and on and on…
That said, I’m not sure there are many (if any) countries that have clean flags. I think nationalism and patriotism in general are ignorant. Nothing wrong with being proud of your community, but the community you describe is small; very local. That can’t be called patriotism.
Outside the West, the American flag is the flag of death and genocide. Hell, to most indigenous folks within the US, it’s a flag of hatred and death. Fuck America, and fuck the flag. Death to the West.
Not an article.
Does it have to be a published article? It’s an opinion piece that I wrote. Why can’t we have political discussion here?
It’s rule 1 on the sidebar. Not that I think your post is worth objecting to but some people just fucking love rules.
If it gets taken down, there will be other communities that would welcome the discussion.
