(Thursday PO) We asked Americans how they feel about the U.S. flag. It got interesting

[GuideToACrazyWorld]

On a fall afternoon, Mark Hurley, a retired Army and Marine veteran, was doing chores in his yard in Bennington, Vt. Hurley has two American flags flying in front of his home.

"It means tons to me," he said. "Regardless of what your opinion is on life, we are Americans we should be proud of that over everything."

"Let's talk slavery first. That happened two or three hundred years ago," Hurley said. "We should forget that, be beyond that. To me, as long as people are calling themselves African Americans or Jewish Americans, they're allowing the racism. They should be saying they're Americans, period."

This summer, the country's long struggle with systemic racism erupted, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets. When NPR asked Americans to share their thoughts about the U.S. flag and what it means to them right now, questions of race and identity came up again and again.

Many white Americans who described themselves as more conservative said they still see the U.S. flag as fairly simple and unifying.

"I think it's a symbol of the shared values and ideals of the United States," said Erin Doughtie, a white woman who works for a seed company in Clovis, Calif.

Denise and Kevin Lopez took their U.S. flag down for a time but after a family discussion put it up again outside their home.
Courtesy of Denise and Kevin Lopez

Like Hurley, she voiced impatience with people who see the flag as a symbol burdened by racism: "The United States is still pretty much the most equal place you could have for people of different backgrounds. For people to compare the U.S. to an ideal is unfair."

But many of the roughly 1,800 people who responded to NPR's call out, especially people of color and those who lean more liberal, said it's not that simple. They told us the American flag comes with baggage that can't be ignored.

"With all the protests and the Black Lives Matter stuff happening, we took the flag down for a little bit," said Kevin Lopez, who works for Microsoft in San Pedro, Calif.

This summer, Lopez said, events like George Floyd's death in police custody shook their family. Kevin has Mexican and Irish heritage, his wife Denise is Black.

"It was pretty disheartening for a little while, with the way our people we're being treated," he said, explaining their decision to pull down the flag.

"And then Denise was the one who brought it up and said I want to revisit this. We had a family discussion about it."

After some soul-searching, the Lopez's decided to raise the flag again. But for them questions of racial justice aren't ancient history. They're a defining part of being American right now.
The Code Switch Podcast, Episode 7: You're A Grand Old Flag
Code Switch
The Code Switch Podcast, Episode 7: You're A Grand Old Flag

Denise Lopez, an artist and designer, said for her the decision to reclaim the flag felt like part of that struggle.

"It was like a pit in my stomach," she said. "It was almost like, is it now like what the Confederate flag felt like for my parents? And I was like no, I'm not going to feel that way every time I see an American flag."

We heard a lot from people who shared this worry the U.S. flag has been weaponized, deliberately redefined as a more conservative symbol owned by some Americans more than others.

"We had a Black Lives Matter rally in our town and there were a lot of people driving by with American flags on the back of their pickup trucks as a counter-protest," said Ben Eagleson, a car mechanic who lives in Olney, Ill. "It was like those of us supporting Black Lives Matter were somehow un-American or something."

Eagleson, who is white, said he took his American flag down for a time, but it's flying again now on a pole outside him home.

An Vu, the son of Vietnamese immigrants, sent NPR a photo of the U.S. flag he flies next to his garage. He says he misses the time after the Sept. 11 attacks when the country felt more unified.
Courtesy of An Vu

"I'd let something that had always been for me a positive symbol take on a negative meaning and I guess I just decided to reclaim it," he said.

Regardless of race or political persuasion, a lot of Americans we heard from say they do see the U.S. flag as a hopeful and beautiful symbol, even in a time of deep national division when it has different meanings for different people.

An Vu told NPR he flies the flag over his front porch in Dearborn, Mich. Vu is a business analyst, the son of immigrants from Vietnam who first flew the U.S. flag when he was a kid after the terror attacks in 2001.

"I hope that flying the flag can return to what we felt like after [Sept. 11]," he said. "The sense of unity, the way were able to grow together after that was really amazing."

A lot of people told NPR that kind of national unity and shared meaning feels elusive now. For that reason, many have chosen to fly the flag next to other symbols to give it more personal context.

For some, that means raising the Stars and Stripes along with a "Make American Great Again" banner. For others, the American flag is flying alongside a gay pride banner or Black Lives Matter sign.

[GuideToACrazyWorld]

To me the American flag is a symbol of an ideal. The thing about ideals is that humanity always falls short of them. That doesn't diminish the value of striving for that ideal.

[Slip Shod]

Can we get REAL here? These proceedings and head hunting of Trump, this is what it's really been all about -keeping him out of office, keeping him from running for President.
* 'Maddow: Trump could do a plea deal vowing not to run for President again to avoid jail time'. (MSNBC)
That was the headline and you could look it up from various sources because it's out there on the internet. I've known for that from the beginning and if you're honest you'd admit it too
The left of this country are scared stiff of this guy, they're soiling their panties over him

[GuideToACrazyWorld]

Can we get REAL here? These proceedings and head hunting of Trump, this is what it's really been all about -keeping him out of office, keeping him from running for President.

I was having this conversation with a buddy, and he made a really interesting point. Two things can be true at the same time. I have no doubt that people are pushing this harder than they might otherwise to keep Trump out of office, but at the same time this situation is more serious than Trump supporters seem to think. Some of the material that Trump had was so classified the FBI agents were not authorized to see it. A lot of it included DOD information. We aren't likely to know exactly what this information was any time soon, but it's clear that it wasn't something that should have been removed from the archives. Why would the most hated man in politics put himself in this situation to begin with? To me the answer is simple, he's a narcissist and thinks he's untouchable.