Our American flag has long been a complex symbol. First created in 1777, it has inspired patriotic unity in times of war and it has flown proudly over a nation that denied slaves their very humanity and women their full rights of citizenship. It has unblinkingly blended these disparate traditions when African American soldiers fought for the Stars and Stripes in segregated military units in World War II, during which it also flew over the internment camps in which Japanese Americans were incarcerated.
Today, long past the eradication of slavery and the extension of citizenship rights to women and minorities of color, the flag still registers the nation’s deep cultural and political divides. Its power as a unifying symbol of national values is regularly demonstrated in Fourth of July parades in towns both red and blue across the country. But presently it is also used as a political cudgel by the American president to condemn African American football players who take a knee at the national anthem to protest the denial of basic civil rights by racial inequality and police brutality. And refugee children forcibly separated from their families at the country’s southern border are required to stand and pledge allegiance to the flag while incarcerated in Texas.
Like all symbols, the flag does not impart meaning. It is not a source of values or beliefs. Instead, it reflects the meanings attributed to it by those gathered under its wave. It unfurls most powerfully when Americans unite under its banner in times of crisis: the Revolution, the War of 1812, the World Wars. Perhaps no more patriotic images exist than those of the firefighters raising the flag above the rubble of the Twin Towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, and of the U.S. Marines raising it atop Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima in February 1945. At such times almost all Americans see the flag as a proud symbol of national unity, democracy and liberty.
But other national crises produce not American unity but division, and the flag’s symbolism is fragmented. This has occurred even in wartime, the most noteworthy example being the Vietnam War. In the 1960s the flag was hoisted by civil rights activists as a symbol of the nation’s commitment to equality and justice, while it was being publicly torched by antiwar demonstrators as a symbol of the nation’s hypocrisy in violently pursuing empire on behalf of the country’s elite interests. In 1968 the Congress passed legislation to protect the banner’s sacred standing, making such acts of flag desecration a federal crime. But 21 years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this and similar state laws violated the First Amendment’s right to free speech and therefore were unconstitutional. The flag has long represented Americans’ commitment to such individual liberties as well.
And so the wheel of the American flag’s varying resonance has turned through time. Therefore it should not surprise that the president’s current use of the flag to separate ‘them’ from ‘us’ has a sort of complementary precedent in the nation’s history. A movement developed in the late-19th century to put the flag in public schools and to require a spoken salute that students would recite to show reverence for the nation’s major symbol. Thus was born the Pledge of Allegiance and its use in the schools to reinforce the national identity and to ‘Americanize’ the children of new waves of immigrants, who were greatly diversifying the nation’s religious and ethnic composition in those years, threatening the political and cultural domination of the white Anglo-Saxon protestant population.
Our flag has long stood for the nation’s enduring values: liberty, equality of opportunity, democracy. Few Americans would dispute this. Under the supreme law of the land, the Constitution, it even stands for the right to destroy it. As robust a symbol as it is of these things, at certain times of national crisis it has also been seen to undermine those very values.
At a time when a record-low of only 47 percent of Americans report that they are extremely proud to be Americans–down from 70 percent in 2003–the country needs the flag to reflect our most fundamental values rather than our nativist anxieties. The national anthem celebrates that ‘our flag was still there’ following a night of horrific bombing. May it remain ‘still there’ through our current conflicts to represent the nation’s highest ideals to ourselves and to the world.
Your essay helps me to see the divisiveness that the flag creates in this current moment of history. What can we do to transform the divisiveness to a unity grounded in the values on which our democracy was founded? Civil discourse, as some call it, seems essential. Being willing and capable of listening to opposing points of view long enough to establish a rapport that leads to reflection, learning, and shifting points of view.
Excellent – very thoughtfully written!
This essay demonstrates well how perception of the flag varies greatly in reference to flux and flow of history. Far from ‘static,’ our vision of the flag moves across a spectrum. Great reference to the historical past. Very well done, Peter.