It’s a Shame

Scrolling through social media the other day, a photo and a comment caught my attention. The photo was of a pride flag flying in honor of Pride Month. The comment:

“It’s a shame we can’t just have one flag that represents liberty and justice for all.”

It was meant, of course, to be a sarcastic jab at the pride flag; at the idea that any group of people would have the audacity to suggest that there’s a need for anything beyond the stars and stripes.

The thing of it is — they were right.

I was tempted, for a moment, to respond by pointing out that such a comment is absolutely correct. I could imagine the various reactions: confusion on the part of those who know me casually, concern that I’d been hacked from people who know me well, and the smug satisfaction from those who haven’t been paying attention for the last decade or so.

Even she agrees with me!

I do. It is a shame we can’t have just one flag that represents liberty and justice for all.

It is a shame that members of various communities have been so marginalized that the US flag doesn’t represent them.

It is a shame that we can’t have just one flag that represents liberty and justice for all.

I mean, obviously, the arrangement of red, white, and blue isn’t sufficient to represent liberty and justice for all, or there wouldn’t be a need for those confederate battle flags, right? The ones that “represent your heritage”? Because the heritage of what you otherwise claim as “one nation under God” and the flag that you claim represents it doesn’t quite display enough of your white nationalism.

It is a shame that we can’t have just one flag that represents liberty and justice for all.

American evangelicalism stopped representing the love and humility of a middle-eastern refugee and started representing the lowest values this country has ever had to offer. White Christian America, with flag-waving fervor whipped up into a frenzied fever pitch, has embraced as their representative not the Jesus they claim to love, but the golden calf of nationalism.

It is a shame that we can’t have just one flag that represents liberty and justice for all.

It’s been statistically proven over and over again that people of color are vastly more likely to be arrested, charged, prosecuted, and jailed than their white peers. Crystal Mason was sentenced to five years in prison for a voting ballot mishap — in which witnesses readily admitted they had no reason to believe her inaccuracy was intentional or even realized. Brock Turner was sentenced to six months (serving only three) for a sexual assault on an intoxicated, unconscious young woman — in which witnesses caught him in the act and physically intervened in the attack.

It is a shame that we can’t have just one flag that represents liberty and justice for all.

Breonna Taylor. Say her name. Justice for all? Where is the justice for one? Where are the criminal charges in the murder of one black woman, a public servant, who perished in a volley of 32 rounds from law enforcement service weapons?

So, yes.

It is a shame.