My ex from Norway mentioned how unusual it was that so many places and people here fly our flag (USA), so I was curious to hear what it’s like for others here on the fediverse.
My ex from Norway mentioned how unusual it was that so many places and people here fly our flag (USA), so I was curious to hear what it’s like for others here on the fediverse.
You’re proving my point about how hate groups only have their symbols because we let them.
To change what it implies, to change what it’s associated with, to change what it symbolizes. These things imply, are associated with and symbolize only what we let them; it’s not an inherent quality of them, it’s an assigned quality and letting hate groups have and define their symbols allows them to identify and organize more easily and it emboldens them, especially in regards to national flags because they can point to it and say “That’s ours, we own it and it represents our values. See it flying everywhere? That’s because we own this nation, we’re the one’s in charge here, not you”. How could that not enable their hate?
The phenomena I describe is much broader than the US and the current time period. It has existed across time and cultures, implying that there are broader factors at play than the opinions and behaviors of contemporary US culture. Flag waving nationalism is damn near universal. Americans only differ by how universally people feel the need to wave the flag.
My greater point is that you can’t change what the flag symbolizes by having different opinions and flying the flag. Symbols are just that: symbols. To change what the flag means you must either change what the US does or change the flag. Embracing national symbols only emboldens nationalism if your nation isn’t diametrically opposed to nationalism.
This is quite literally true and always has been. You don’t see flags representing the Lakota or Seneca nations anywhere, and the 13 stripes are a direct hat nod to the European colonization wiped them out. The state will not stop systematically repressing indigenous, black, or other marginalized peoples if progressives suddenly start identifying with the flag. It will just make progressives look supporters or useful idiots to that state oppression.
Why would I want to prevent right-wingers from taking sole ownership of something intended to represent a state with long history of right-wing violence, slavery, and military interventionism? They can have it. It’s as perfect of a symbol for right-wingers as any other. Should we fly the swastika to reclaim it too?