The Flag is Still There

"And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there."

These lyrics hit a little differently this morning.

I used to hear this lyric as a statement of the steadfastness of America: the land of the free and the home of the brave. And listen, I can't be the only one who needs reaffirmation of our country's steadfastness after four years of battering pseudo-fascism, the shameful abandonment of our country's humanity, and the death of our international moral leadership. After the literal siege on our democracy, I can't be the only one who needed to know that our flag is still there.

Maybe four years ago I would have heard "gave proof through the night that our flag was still there," and felt only comfort.

Yet over the past four years, my relationship with that flag has changed profoundly. So has my understanding of what the rockets are, what the bombs are, and perhaps why our country's steadfastness is not the comfort it once was.

Yes, the Trump administration's attacks on our democracy were something we needed to survive.

But there have been other challenges to our country's legacy that we needed to LOSE: challenges to our self-mythologizing, challenges to the long-unquestioned fictions of our national freedoms, challenges to the very notion that America is "the greatest country on earth." With liberty and justice for all? Really?

After the protests of this summer, after the centuries-long struggles for racial justice and equity... our flag is still there.

Don't get me wrong, I am moved by the survival of our democracy. But today I am also inspired to remember that the flag that comforts some of us menaces others. The symbol of my freedom is also the symbol of someone else’s oppression. The symbol of my homeland is also the symbol of the egregious, violent theft of Native land.

The symbol of America's promise of liberty and justice for all is also a symbol of our repeated, devastating failure to keep that promise.

Our flag is still there, for better and for worse. We have the America we've settled for, for better and for worse.

All this to say, we have ten miles behind us and ten thousand more to go. A new President does not mean a new country.

Stay in it.

You have never been more important than you are right now.