The American Flag
Written by: Lenny O’Mahony
This article was inspired by the ending of the new film BlacKKKlansman. I enjoyed this movie a lot, and it was very thought provoking. The film was about white nationalism, with suggestions of it existing today in politics. I of course do not support white supremacy, and agree that it was set in a time when many police departments had racists administrations. I do not believe that any group racism exists in modern policing, but only in individual cases. But thats not what I’m talking about. I want to talk about the final scene. The last image of the film was a upside down American flag which faded from red stripes to black.
I found this highly offensive. I’m sure many others did. It was a act of rebellion, and of defiance. To America. It made the film seem anti-American. I was complaining about this to my friend who said, “I think they’re just trying to say that they oppose white nationalism.” And that was exactly the point I was trying to make. When you associate the American flag with white nationalism, you are making the flag racist. In recent years the liberals have rejected our flag, and conservatives have adopted it.
I’m going to explain this without involving my own politics. (kinda) The American flag should represent all of us, every American. But when the left rejects the flag they push themselves away, they divide the country. The right adopts the flag because they feel patriotic, and the more the liberals hate it the more everyone else loves it. Not all conservatives are white supremacists, or even racist. But they'll still hold up our flag. When liberals associate the flag with the bad guy, they make everyone who has the flag a bad guy. In fact, a liberal man in Portland carried a American flag to protest facism, and Antifa beat him with a metal rod, calling the flag a fascist symbol.* This is a major problem. The hatred of the flag is dividing the nation.
We should all stand under the one flag, conservatives and liberals, democrats and republicans. Because we are all American and we are fighting for how we believe America should be run. If you see the flag as a fascist symbol, then you are the one making it fascist. It is our flag, the one of the United States. Yes, we have violent, racist, and shameful parts of history. We also have amazing, wonderful, American moments. Moments that have defined what it is to be American to this day. To fight for freedom, to be a proud democratic nation. No matter what happens, who is elected, who is shot, we should all be proud to be American and to fly the American flag. Even if you disagree with where this country is going, you should still be fighting for this nation's future as a proud American.
I wanted to quickly go over the whole “kneeling during the anthem” situation. In my personal opinion, I wouldn’t do it. Even as a form as protest. If you feel like that's necessary, go ahead. But I feel like kneeling to the anthem and the flag is just dividing us and causing another problem instead of fixing things. And yes, it is disrespectful to veterans and police officers, and other similar positions. Because they feel like you are disrespecting them and just being rude and ungrateful. They feel like they fought for that flag because it doesn't represent a political party, or a position, it represent America and the people who live here. And that's what they fought for. I personally don’t really care what you do, I just wouldn’t do it myself.
Link to article about Paul Welch being attacked by Antifa. I personally have a special dislike and anger towards Antifa. But that's for another article.
*https://reason.com/blog/2018/08/21/antifa-portland-evan-welch-violence