For too long, the American flag has been undefended by travelers unwilling to bear the brunt of foreign scorn. Natalie Grant believes it’s time Americans show the world they are better.
Photo: seagull productions
At the time of the last Presidential election, I was living and working at a backpacker’s hostel in Scotland.
One of the only other Americans there at the time helped me celebrate what she and I christened ‘Obama Day’ by baking a massive cake and frosting states red or blue accordingly as the ballots came in.
When the cake was just over half-frosted, the room, which was riddled with mostly Spanish, Canadian and Australian onlookers, gazed in awkward amusement as we burst into tears, held hands and shrieked the Star Spangled Banner at the top of our lungs.
Since then, I have never been able to think of that day – that moment, erupting with unadulterated national pride – without feeling guilty about how rare those moments are for me.
After all, I travel with a Scottish luggage tag on my backpack.
According to TIME magazine, the number of American flags sold by Wal-Mart on September 11th 2000 was around 6400. September 11th 2001? 116,000. And it doubled the next day.
Patriotism comes in unpredictable waves, and too often, the icon of the American flag carries negative connotations – like excessive consumerism, for example. Recently some new stigmas have popped up: one might misconstrue flag-flying as condoning the war in Iraq, a judgmental religious fanaticism, or worse, a feeling of superiority over other nations.
This last one is what really kills it for me. As a traveler, it’s in my nature to feel quite the opposite.
Diminished At The Edges
Every so often, though, “Old Glory” (as the flag was nicknamed by William Driver, an early nineteenth century American sea captain) can be a poignant reminder of the principles on which our country was founded.
“A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.” – Benjamin Franklin
Post 9/11 flag-flying is a classic example of how our country’s emblem can suddenly dump all those unfortunate legacies of our cultural and international wrongdoings and be re-conquered by the compelling and inspirational ethos of our founding fathers – if only temporarily.
Sam Adams wasn’t just a future mediocre-tasting lager. He was a visionary who called for citizens to take individual responsibility for themselves, to carry out their civic duties. And Thomas Jefferson did more than seduce his slaves. He insisted that “the cement of this union is in the heart-blood of every American.”
That’s us, even when we’re haggling in Peru or paddling up the Yangtze.
In fact, Benjamin Franklin had a tasty little metaphor: “A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.” Our country’s reputation is easier to nibble at abroad, where there are fewer people to stick up for it.
That is, expat Yanks worldwide are America’s fondant and sprinkles. The jaded trail-bums, the naïve Kumbaya-ers, and especially everyone in between… we are all the edges of Obama’s cake. Unfortunately, we are the edges of the Iraq-Halliburton-Enron cake, too.
This is a call to put more responsibility on our shoulders than we bargained for when we flew, starry-eyed, across our first ocean.
Missing Out
I’m guilty of hiding behind the Scottish flag. And it seems many Americans play it safe with the Canadian flag too.
In Egypt, I was told to pretend to be Australian as we entered a Mosque. Even a friend once recommended a city to me and added, “But you’ll have to say you’re from Canada if you want people to be nice to you.”
To be honest, it’s not entirely our fault that so few of us are willing to expose Old Glory while traveling. Travelers and expats bear the heaviest burden – much heavier than that of everyone at home.
We are the faces and voices of our nation’s past mistakes. We are the messenger, the tangible entity at which resentments can be aimed, the minimum-wage single mom who happens to be on the other line of a 1-800 complaint number. We are the ones who repeatedly and involuntarily must defend, apologize, and explain.
This, the constant risk of verbal judgment or attack, is why many become too shy, tired, over it, or embarrassed to bring a tangible form of Old Glory along for the ride.
At our hostel, everyone had their national pride on display somewhere. Aussie boxers, a South African flag hung above a bed, a Kiwi beach towel. At one point the few Americans congregated and realized we didn’t have much in the way of insignia.
We admitted we don’t usually bring Old Glory with us. And, looking around, we realized what we might be missing out on.
Reclaiming the Flag
The way I see it, travelers are citizens of the world – we shouldn’t bear the burdens of our government everywhere we go, especially if we travel to escape or to forget a stigma we did not choose for ourselves.
At the same time, if we are open-minded, considerate, adventurous, and passionate, isn’t it more important to carry the flag with us? After all, how else are we to change people’s opinions about our country; if we let the intolerant and the corrupt carry the flag alone?
Sam, Tom, and Benji would be ashamed of those of us who play pretend when we don’t have to. Representing the U.S. in a positive light should be a welcomed civic duty.
Every traveler has the right to decide whether they want to blend in or say it loud and proud. Both choices come with a sacrifice. Bringing Old Glory with you when you travel can highly influence how you’re treated.
Yet whether you choose to put it on your keychain, your hat, or nowhere at all, you can’t change where you come from. You can only change whether or not you have a positive attitude about it – quietly or otherwise.
If we’re brave enough pack our national identity with us, we can start to change people’s discriminatory attitudes by setting a positive example.
Rescuing our most meaningful and remarkable icon… Benji Franklin would be proud.
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32 Comments... join the discussion!
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I’m not inclined to hide who I am or where I’m from. After all, this is my country, and I am very proud of it, in a way that maybe only people who depend on free speech for work can be. Living under an incompetent government was never enough to make me feel otherwise.
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Flags are just but pieces of cloth painted with meaning… a meaning only truly positive to those under it. Amplify and feed that meaning, distort it and cover everything with it and fascism is born. So if you are glad to pledge your allegiance, good for you – that puts us on different sides you see… I have burned flags and with them bigotry and ethnocentrism. As I am not under the American flag the only meaning it resonates in me is the empire of an economic and military industrial complex, waging multiple wars and occupations seeking hegemony over the world. A million people have been slaughtered in Iraq but that will never be news. Hollywood was invaded by military propaganda subsided by the Pentagon. Killer drones fly over villages in Pakistan blasting villages. While I write, someone in Guantanamo is being waterboarded to near-death. Obama is the PR face of a much more cruel political agenda that endorses torture, rendition and internal espionage. If we ever met chatting over in some backpacker hostel none of that should ever weight on my judgment of you Natalie, unless you actually believe that none of what I say is true. That there was ever such a thing as a “good war”, a “just invasion” or a “necessary” torture. Or else, there may still be some some hope for your battered, blood-stained flag… PEACE!
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@cronick – Thanks for your comments, much of which is true. The American flag has represented those things to the rest of the world for too long… Natalie’s point is that she believes it’s high time to make the flag mean something else. It starts with conscious travelers, and continues over into changing unjust policies of the government. It’s hope that the flag can be a symbol of inspiration again someday.
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Point taken Ian. And I do agree that a more conscious attitude is important in changing this general impression. My point is that even before changing government policies Americans need to change the way they perceive politics and see their role in the world – it’s a matter of accountability. I was much more inspired by great conversations with enlightened Americans than by the badge they carried on their backpacks. I truly hope that someday no flags will come between us!
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@cronick – “I was much more inspired by great conversations with enlightened Americans…” Aha! If they had a Canadian flag on their packs, you probably would have assumed they’re Canadian
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You know what amazes me the most? Is that until today we are talking about the meaning of a piece of cloth. I was born from a women’s womb not from a flag…
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Thanks for this great piece Natalie! I have often struggled with “coming out” as American while overseas but I believe that the only to change people’s minds about America is to represent our country in a positive way.
When I was in Lebanon, people would often comment that they did not like Americans but I was changing their perception of America & Americans! Many people assume that individual Americans are representatives of EVERYTHING in America but it in reality it is much more nuanced than that. Negative images of America will continue to prevail if ex-pats and travelers hide their nationality and do not take the opportunity to present a different side of America and her citizens.
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“there may still be some some hope for your battered, blood-stained flag”… I appreciate your viewpoint here, Cronick, because what you’re saying is true – there is hope. However, I feel sad that you think our flag is so blood-stained, especially compared to many other governments around the world.
A little research will reveal that many governments are corrupt, many foreign citizens are a thousand times more oppressed, and many rights we (and you) take for granted are constantly violated in other parts of the world – for women and minorities especially. Just because our elected government employs controversial political tactics (and what government doesn’t?) doesn’t mean we owe some huge debt to the world.
Consider Somalia, consider Burma. The U.S. has a larger spotlight because our media reaches worldwide – so when we do something wrong, even if it’s something trivial (the Monica Lewinski thing, for example), it gets ten times the publicity as when another country does the same. Was Bill Clinton really as scandalous as Jacob Zuma? Of course not. But people seem to pay more attention to the U.S.’s drama because people expect us to be a perfect role-model. We should be a good one, yes, and often times we are a poor one. But I don’t think our ‘blood-stained’ flag is a rarity among flags, internationally speaking, or historically speaking.
You, I think, are trying to say that we have a lot to be ashamed of. If we do, so does everyone in the world. The point of this article is to encourage people to NOT be ashamed. Not to be scared away from honesty.
‘Accountability,’ as you call it, has nothing to do with anything, in my opinion. But you do make a good point – we could be a much better role model than we are now.
Flags should not define people, people should define flags.
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“But I don’t think our ‘blood-stained’ flag is a rarity among flags, internationally speaking, or historically speaking.” – I can’t help but agree with you on that Natalie, and thats exactly my point. When I said I burned flags I didn’t mean only the United States flag, but also the flags of my two nationalities. Hey, why don’t we burn each other’s flag and reclaim something much more important in the heat of the fire? Prepare yourself for the radical concept of humanism, it means a lot more freedom and democracy than your stained cloth. But it was really a disappointment to read an article appealing to the nationalistic pride of American travelers in my favorite travel forum. It’s not that I think Americans should be stigmatized for their nationality, but they shouldn’t boast it as a privilege either. The “old glory” is, well, ‘old’, and looks only glorious in history books (except in Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”). This is the last place we should be promoting that sort of mentality. When you travel the world long enough Natalie you will probably discover that more things unite us than divide us. Nationality is but an abstraction that divides us, puts a versus (‘x’) between you and me instead of plus (‘+’). I have been with natives of the Brazilian Amazon to whom flags are meaningless as their nation spreads over the borders with Peru and Bolivia. I have been with separatists in Kashmir and Banda Aceh willing to die for these silly pieces of cloth. I have been with nomad backpackers that gave up on belonging to any flag, and thus made the whole world belong to them. There are only two flags that I would like to raise here in Matador: one is the white flag, universally symbolizing peace, and the other is the black flag, known to anarchists all over the planet.
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I wholeheartedly agree with Cronick, especially because most US citizens I talked to were fanatic supporters of their troops! I by all means know that not all Americans support the military agenda of their country, but I do think they can do better to show their opposition.
In London I happened in a debate where everybody was criticising an American young woman due to the actions of her government and, although I agreed with that criticism, I pushed her to counter-debate and to explain us that not all Americans were like this. The best thing she could say was that the US is exceptional and that they need to bring democracy to other countries.
I think we all know that for too long human rights have been used to sell war, and that “bringing democracy” means invading and dividing a country to sell it to big corporations, exactly what’s happening in Iraq now.
I’m very aware that many governments are unfair and oppressive, and I’m also aware that European governments have caused irreversible damages to former colonies, but we can’t deny that the United States have a very sad record of covert actions throughout the world, and that their scope has always been to establish “friendly” governments, willing to transform their own country into US colonies. Italy is one of those, economically and politically controlled by anglo-american banks and militarily occupied, while the whole political class is doing the exact opposite of working for the sake of the country.
Of course I know many Americans who speak up against these policies, actually most of the academic work that shows the evidence of such activities comes from the US, but it’s not enough.
Nobody around the world hates American or European “people”, what they hate is our governments’ foreign policies, but they know they have nothing to do with the population. Raising consciousness around these issues and put pressure on our governments to stop carrying out these criminal activities is truly what we need to do. The more we are the less they can ignore us.
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Right on Angela. Reading your comment already makes me feel hopeful for more awareness in the struggle for human rights and liberty in the face of imperialism. The exchange you mention and the person to person effort of widening the perspective is our best chance, since the media is almost completely biased. I hope I don’t sound too hysterical when I point out the appalling death toll and misery that the USA has promoted in the latest decades. I’d like to ask Natalie if she knows about any country ever having used weapons of mass destruction against civilian population in the same way that the United States pulverized Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But frankly these issues are much more close to home for me you see: my mentor in journalism was tortured by military interrogators trained in the USA in these barbaric techniques (the world-renown center for leaning such things: The School of the Americas, in Columbus, Georgia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Americas_Watch). They fried one of his eyes with electroshock for opposing the military junta supported by the USA here in South America during the 60’s. This is not just one case but the story of our continent… repeated around many places of the world.
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Fair-weather Patriotism: Defined.
I never stopped carrying the American flag with pride. No president, past or present, has lead me to stop being proud of defending my country. Because the flag isn’t about a country currently under control of one man.
The flag is about the values it represents. It’s about the men and women who died defending those values. It’s about pride in our overall history of promoting freedom.
And I will never stop proudly displaying that flag because someone might be rude to me at a tourist trap in Egypt. I’m not willing to hide my national colors, hide the sacrifice of those men and women, to be more comfortable while traveling. That would be selfish and petty.
I’m not a non-partisan, Kumbaya individual removed from the wings of domestic politics. I have opinions on the issues of the day, and I vote regularly. And I’m not so idealistic to believe patriotism means no criticism.
If I want to criticize my president’s policies, I’ll do so. If I want to criticize my national policy, I’ll do so. Maybe I’ll even put a bumper sticker on my backpack. But you can bet your @ss it’ll be right next to Old Glory. Because I’m proud of what that flag stands for, who that flag stands for, and I’ll gladly defend it anywhere.
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My standard response when challenged with “so what do you think of American’s?” when I’m on the road is “you have a passport – and that makes you different”. The anti-us feeling is not towards individuals, but rather towards that collective nation that in my view comes across as being superior and an attitude that their way is the only way. Shawn wrote about being welcomed into the occupied territories – how many American’s will actually leave their backyards (there is some scary statistic about how many Americans have never left their state!) and investigate what is in the real world. They will find a completely different reality to the propaganda that they are force-fed back home.
It is also the attitude of American tourists to local culture that causes grief. My personal favourites are 2 cruise-ship passengers standing in the middle of the road during morning rush hour “we’re american’s on holiday – we can do what we damn well please”. Then on a trip to North Korea we had 1 American on the tour who kept on goading the tour-guide into a discussion as to why the US system was best. Unfortunately that is what I remember from the trip – not the other American’s who were polite and well behaved.
Yes, there are also times when I decide to change nationality when a fellow traveler starts spouting forth. Its just that I come from a small country that means that I don’ t meet these people too often.
FYI America isn’t judged by the actions of Bill Clinton – that propaganda was for local consumption. The rest of the world just tuned in.↵ -
Angela: “I pushed her to counter-debate and to explain to us that not all Americans were like this.”
THIS is why Americans feel like a 1-800 complaint number, as Natalie says.
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Thank you for bringing this up.
To me, people are just people. Age, gender, and other aspects do not matter. How a person conducts themself is all that matters. We all bleed the same and feel the same joys and sorrows. If someone asks my nationality, I will tell them, but I will not announce it just for the sake of flag waving. The point of traveling to me is to enjoy other cultures and see new sights – not to proselytize.
I do wonder how many real Canadians actually wear a Canadian flag when traveling, or are they all just United Statsians in “disguise”?
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During trips to Europe and South America in the past five years I’ve never thought once to label myself a Canadian. I’ve even met other travelers who agreed and joked about it — the entire idea and concept is ridiculous.
It’s also insulting to think that someone doesn’t know the different between the government and the people living under that government. Folks outside the US also know that the 00 and 04 election were practically 50/50, and even within one of those 50 percents people have vastly different views and politics.
While they may not care for the government of the past eight years, I still meet people that tell me “I want to go to New York….” or similar dream – which makes me happy to share and proud to represent my country. My opinion anyway.
James Van Dellen |
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As a Hispanic-American I enjoy wearing my U.S. flag pin on my backpack throughout my travels. I enjoy explaining to people that I’m American even though I don’t fit their stereotype of what an American is supposed to look like. My family emigrated from El Salvador. If I would’ve been raised in El Salvador, I would not have been able to attend a major university, or plan to attend grad school, and become an architect as I’m planning on doing now. Or travel the world as I do now. This would have only been possible if I was born into an ultra wealthy family in El Salvador. I truly enjoy and respect all the opportunities that this country has given me. I also understand its history, faults and errors, and I don’t mean to minimize them, and by no means is it perfect. I am proud to call myself an American and display the flag.
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I agree with verdegrrl for the most part. I would never display a flag of any sort during travel, unless it were part of military service. It also never occurred to me that people wouldn’t know I was an American, and have experienced that often without saying a word or displaying any ostentatious clue. Flag displays are meaningless and while traveling are just tacky, tasteless, even rude, and that goes for the Canadian flag as well.
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I was in New Zealand last year and hiked a long way to a beautiful secluded beach. There were a few tourists and one woman wore a tee that said “God help save us from U.S.” . I asked her why she wore it and she apologetically said that she was from Austria and her brother made a lot of money selling these t-shirts. I posted a photo of it here: http://spunkbrophy.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/dont-hate-me-because-im-american/
It’s always been upsetting to me, as a world traveler, to be disliked because I’m American. Come on, people. America might have it’s problems, but it’s not all bad! It’s just fashionable to hate us. And I really resent that.
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@Cronick:
I agree that the flag can connote the vast number of atrocities that America has perpetrated, but I don’t think the point of this article is to proselytize blind nationalism via New Balance shoes, fannypacks, and American Flag emblazoned polos. When I was in Argentina in 2002, I had a small American and Argentinean flag pin to show my recognition of where I had come from as well as my respect for the country I was in at the moment. I had several people tell me that their ideas of what Americans were like had changed as a result of meeting me… probably because I was pretty outspoken in my distaste for Bush’s politics (and the military/industrial complex, while we’re at it). I think it’s important to illustrate that Americans can be vehemently at odds with the damaging foreign policy we have – that the flag can symbolize something beyond blind patriotism and ethnocentrism. The flag also represents people who are against Guantanamo, the Global Gag rule, Hiroshima, and the war in Iraq/Afghanistan. The people that represent the flag, especially the ones that are traveling in the first place, are a good place to start transforming the meaning of what it means to be American. Like Natalie says, “After all, how else are we to change people’s opinions about our country; if we let the intolerant and the corrupt carry the flag alone?”.
And while I agree that the Howard Zinn should be required reading for every American (!), I don’t think that the flag, in and of itself, should be considered as something embarrassing or shameful. Especially on this travel forum, where people of all nationalities mingle together, where there are more things that unite us than divide us, it shouldn’t be shameful to claim your native soil. It’s a starting point for the dialogues crucial to cross-cultural understanding, since we still live in a world marked by borders.
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I travel and frequently. I also rock an American flag on my pack. A flag is not intrinisically political, religous, dogmatic, or anything. If I really want to get philosophical (my education background) I can argue that a flag isn’t even intrinsically fabric (thank you, mereological nihilism!). But I don’t put it on for any of those reasons anyhow. Surely, I have reasons, but as we are certainly only talking about beliefs and conventions and no amount of unassailable truthhood there is no immediate message that a flag gives except the one to the observer; although a semiotician may say that there is still an overwhelming popular sentiment attached to flags. But an American flag does not have the stability of, say, an exit sign (of the red or green variety) or a toilet marker in its message. Anyone (at the cost of making sweeping generalizations) who ties their ethics, values, etc. to their flag or how they perceive another’s is miserable in their philosophical outlook, anyhow, hence the terminus of an exchange.
I rock a flag because I earned it in the military (btw, Cronick, I was a contingency of those flying drones over Pakistan dropping bombs. You’re welcome!); because I had the good fortune of being born in a country that, for all its problems, allows me to pursue an education, to dissent from the majority or mock the minority, to freely proclaim my atheism or to keep it quiet but secure from tyranny – and in exchange I listen to fools because that is their right,And if I went somewhere that a person wasn’t nice to me because I am American (regardless if this is part of an identity de se), then I probably wouldn’t want their friendship no matter my country of origin.
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“Sieg und heil!”
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Cronick,
I am not sure, unless I have lost all sense of what makes an intelligent comment or riposte, how “Sieg und heil” is appropriate as a reply to what I wrote.
Perhaps you are one of those people who compares the U.S. to fascism because it is in vogue in some circles or has the ability to make a dramatic statement with very little depth and that is all you care about. I don’t know.
But writing “Sieg und heil” really has no argumentative substance. Its only value is for the fool who has nothing left to say, but still wants to talk…So keep talking, fool.
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@Benjamin: Hey c’mon Ben, lighten up, if I get all smeared up in colors fooling around during Nepalese Holi you think I’d take myself too seriously? From one fool to another: German language may sound fascist to you, but it is just a language, one that has enlightened the world with a wonderful culture in literature and philosophy. In your language “victory and health” (“Sieg und heil”) is something we are supposed to wish for someone who’s a soldier, while already knowing that he won’t find either in the battlefield. So can we then conclude that none of these wars have made the US more victorious, or more healthy?
“Perhaps you are one of those people who compares the U.S. to fascism because it is in vogue in some circles” – these “circles” are quite numerous lately and they make circles around the globe. This has been going on since your Domestic Security became “Homeland” Security and the “Patriot Act” took away the freedoms you are so proud of. Read the history books and you’ll know how we get this strange idea.
“btw, Cronick, I was a contingency of those flying drones over Pakistan dropping bombs. You’re welcome!” – is this your definition of ‘argumentative substance’? We could at least agree that dropping bombs is a debate gone bad in reasoning. Or maybe in your reasoning they where all fools…
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Nat.. you are wonderful! i am your biggest fan.
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Natalie I really enjoyed this essay, and am completely in-line with your point, of NOT being ashamed-not gloating or feeling superior or even being showy with pride-just simply not being ashamed and having a symbol or token of where you came from.
To address some things: I think Americans are often hounded for things that they should be given more slack on. I don’t think it’s rude to display your flag when in another country, and certainly I would think if I did, living in America and being and American, that I would be the one considered rude: most people display some sort of heritage pride (even if they have lived here all their lives) or recently came over and we certainly do not force them to hide it, we would be consindered bullies and it is wrong anyway.
Secondly, I know it’s a little weird to think of some people actually never having left their STATES! I mean…get out a little bit (easy for me to say, I take a walk and I’m in Rhode Island, drive up the street i’m in Connecticut). But I have to say we often scorn ourselves or are scorned by others for not being well-travelled and wordly enough as a general population, but really, many of the folks in the world, many of those Amazonian men and women, or those villagers in Cambodia, or Slovakia, those ordinary people, are often times what allow the travellers to travel, or at least make the experience worthwhile, so why look down upon those who choose to remain in a place with those things and people they care about when many of the people we encounter who are so interesting–you know, locals–make the travel experience so great.The American flag is not fought and died for, what it stands for is fought and died for. The flag just happens to be a strong part of identity in our society (even if a flag is not important in others). It is not iron-fisted and not meant to be a supremacist representation, but more of a piece of the family quilt you carry with you every where you go.
I am not ashamed of the flag and no one else should be, because the flag does not STAND for certain Bush policies, or the war in Iraq, or Guantanamo Bay. It STANDS for freedom and certain values of the Republic–of the family–that is the USA. It stands for each individual person and their families who happen to grow up in America, and who are more than happy to live among its citizenry. What is wrong is when this flag FLYS over the war in Iraq, or Guantanamo, or such, and is mistaken as standing for killing and torture. I know there may be “lopholes” and you may not be able to grasp this quite completely and I’m sorry for that. but the point is to carry it around proudly, maybe not always but once and while break it out to remind yourself, if no one else, that you at that present moment are standing for it in a decent way, not a shameful way, and being a bastion of good for those people and freedoms still in America
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Natalie I really enjoyed this essay, and am completely in-line with your point, of NOT being ashamed-not gloating or feeling superior or even being showy with pride-just simply not being ashamed and having a symbol or token of where you came from.
To address some things: I think Americans are often hounded for things that they should be given more slack on. I don’t think it’s rude to display your flag when in another country, and certainly I would think if I did, living in America and being and American, that I would be the one considered rude: most people display some sort of heritage pride (even if they have lived here all their lives) or recently came over and we certainly do not force them to hide it, we would be consindered bullies and it is wrong anyway.
Secondly, I know it’s a little weird to think of some people actually never having left their STATES! I mean…get out a little bit (easy for me to say, I take a walk and I’m in Rhode Island, drive up the street i’m in Connecticut). But I have to say we often scorn ourselves or are scorned by others for not being well-travelled and wordly enough as a general population, but really, many of the folks in the world, many of those Amazonian men and women, or those villagers in Cambodia, or Slovakia, those ordinary people, are often times what allow the travellers to travel, or at least make the experience worthwhile, so why look down upon those who choose to remain in a place with those things and people they care about when many of the people we encounter who are so interesting–you know, locals–make the travel experience so great.↵ -
The American flag is not fought and died for, what it stands for is fought and died for. The flag just happens to be a strong part of identity in our society (even if a flag is not important in others). It is not iron-fisted and not meant to be a supremacist representation, but more of a piece of the family quilt you carry with you every where you go.
I am not ashamed of the flag and no one else should be, because the flag does not STAND for certain Bush policies, or the war in Iraq, or Guantanamo Bay. It STANDS for freedom and certain values of the Republic–of the family–that is the USA. It stands for each individual person and their families who happen to grow up in America, and who are more than happy to live among its citizenry. What is wrong is when this flag FLYS over the war in Iraq, or Guantanamo, or such, and is mistaken as standing for killing and torture. I know there may be “lopholes” and you may not be able to grasp this quite completely and I’m sorry for that. but the point is to carry it around proudly, maybe not always but once and while break it out to remind yourself, if no one else, that you at that present moment are standing for it in a decent way, not a shameful way, and being a bastion of good for those people and freedoms still in America
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You know what amazes me the most? Is that until today we are talking about the meaning of a piece of cloth. I was born from a women’s womb not from a flag
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Very well written Natalie and great spark to the ensuing conversation…which was almost as entertaining as the article. There is a lot I agree with Cronick (not to say I disagree with your stance at all) especially the fact that there is a lot more that unites us than divides us, and that “Nationality is but an abstraction that divides us”.
Then again, I was quite proud to be wearing the red and white when Canada beat the US for the men’s gold in Olympic hockey
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It’s a shame that anyone would be ashamed to be American, though our freedoms are slowly slipping away everyday it’s the ability that the people, the citizens have to change through a civilized democratic process. I don’t think any other country in the world could say the same. The problem with a lot of Americans, mostly those who don’t pay taxes or contribute to society is that they all want a handout, they have lost touch with the American dream, the freedom to become anything you want. These people don’t have the ambition to go achieve something so they go out and protest and want to make everyone who works hard for what they have to feel ashamed about it. Because I made something of my life others feel like I owe them something. I for one feel I don’t owe anyone anything and am damn proud to wear the colors of a nation that gave me the opportunity to achieve my dreams on my own. No handout can ever give you that, the feeling of self reliance and freedom to express myself without repression from a government. Not even Canada can give you that. And yes they do ban speech in Canada, and yes they do banned books in Europe that do not agree with their government or agenda’s. Be proud my fellow Americans.
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