Which Flag Do You Salute?
Happy 249th Birthday, America. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Note: This is a revised version of a post I made on social media a year ago today.
Walking around my neighborhood near downtown Phoenix at sunset in early July, I notice that many Progress Pride flags still wave in the desert sun. Despite being “out” since the day after the wheel was invented, I don't identify with that flag or the political movements it represents. Those movements have strayed far from gay acceptance and assimilation, but no matter how garish or offensive I find these flags I still respect people's rights to fly them.
Continuing my walk, I pass by homes displaying the flags of Palestine and Ukraine. While I wish for an end to these conflicts and the safety of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, I don't relate to these flags or what they stand for. These are not my battles to fight, but I appreciate the freedom people have to display these flags as symbols of their political beliefs and concerns.
It strikes me that the one flag I don't see in my neighborhood is the one that matters to me—the one that my relatives have fought under in its evolving forms during conflicts from Iraq to Vietnam, Korea, the War of 1812, and the revolution from England.
The American Flag, the red white and blue, the one we use to say a pledge of allegiance to at the start of every morning in school. The only variation of that flag I spot is the black-and-blue variation, symbolizing support for law enforcement, which emerged in 2020. While I support the police and our military, I don't pledge allegiance to this flag either.
Like many who came of age in the Bush/Cheney era, I became too comfortable with criticizing the American Empire. There was, after all, much to be critical of during a period of endless wars, bank bailouts, surveillance, uni-party control, and the erosion of civil liberties that continues to this day.
When I became a college professor, I used my classroom as a pulpit, and although I'd like to believe I presented viewpoint diversity in my classroom, looking back, I realize that I, like most college educators in the US today, taught from a leftist perspective. I had become accustomed to criticizing the nation that had given me so much, and without realizing it, I passed down that cynical view to the impressionable young minds in front of me.
America is far from perfect. Volumes have been written about the mistakes made over the past 249 years. This past year I’ve taken some dives into the deep history of our country, reading books about our founding and the brave and imperfect men and women who struck out in the wilderness and forged a civilization. The story is, as stories always are, vastly more nuanced and complex than the meta-narratives that dominate the adderall riddled minds of those who like to rant most online.
We have never been a perfect union, but that was never the vision. The vision was that each generation would renew the contract with liberty, ground themselves in the inalienable rights laid down in those sacred founding documents, and strive to create a "more perfect union" with each passing generation. We have fallen short of this goal many times, but we have also persevered. We were liberators of the world in the mid-20th century, and our progress and innovation spread across the globe, transforming it in our image for better and worse. We worked, we fought, and we rectified the mistakes of our forefathers because they were wise enough to give us the framework to do so.
With these thoughts swirling in my mind, I finish my walk and drive to the Home Depot in the working class part of town. There, Americans of all different races, faiths, nationalities, and beliefs, crowd the store on the eve of Independence Day to buy supplies for their day-off projects. I spot an American Flag near the door for sale and put it in my cart.
Today, on this 4th of July, that flag is mounted on my house, waving in the breeze for anyone who passes by to see on this unbearably hot 4th of July. I have never been particularly patriotic, but today, I feel pride standing under the first US Flag I've ever owned. Our nation is far from perfect, but at some point you have to believe in something and America is a better bet than the alternatives. Tomorrow, there will be one more flag waving in my neighborhood.
It's a flag worthy of pledging allegiance to.
