Seeing Flags
Day to Day Ventures in Viewing
Whenever I see the American flag hanging from a private household, I wonder which kind of patriotism the flag represents. Which America? I wonder about the people within. Is the flag a display of patriotism for the country we all share or is it a tacit signal that the people within believe only in their America, the one that celebrates one history, clannish and exclusionary? I don’t have the same sentiment about commercial space. But hanging an American flag is a particular and purposeful act and seeing the American flag hanging from a private residence makes me nervous. I should explain that I am an African American and further, though I am proud of my American roots, I have never felt compelled to display this pride. It’s not as if I had anything to do with where I was born and frankly pride ought to rest on something of one’s own making. The times that I’ve felt extremely patriotic or acted in defense of my country have been while living in a foreign one. Or the most recent time, which was long ago, at a dinner party in Washington DC with nonnative friends. It was difficult for me to hear without comment pejorative rants about a country whose benefits my friends were enjoying while despising.
Patriotism ought to be a quiet kind of devotion, worn like a girdle, not to be seen but supportive. Never to be displayed if in insult to another. For me, hanging a flag is like undressing for someone who doesn’t want to see you naked. And for the flag hanger, my question is: What exactly is it that you want to show? What meaning does the flag impart? What winking patriotism is important enough to put on one’s house?
Yet, the broader and more meaningful question for which I seek a response is, what history do we see every day and what effect does it have upon us. This is where I find myself, quite frankly, growing curious. And perhaps this may not be a natural segue for all, but it is for me. I want to know what the history around us means to us.
What does the Confederate flag, statue or named general in a park mean to the white people who resist their dismantling? Is it a kind of comfort for what once was, a nostalgic arm around the shoulders? I also want to tell you that I am not in favor of dismantling these monuments. In fact, I’ve been thinking that there ought to be a kind of museum graveyard for white supremacist figures that have been removed from public spaces for the public good. These figures should stand as totems, reminders of history at its most painful, even shameful. And it might be interesting to collect information on all visitors to these new sites, perhaps a questionnaire can be created to further our understanding of ourselves. History ought to be learned and preserved, not worshipped, yet certainly displayed.
A few years back, I had an exchange with the President of Princeton University, Christopher Eisgruber. Their celebrated school was then named Woodrow Wilson. It was a most prestigious feather to add to the resume that one had graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School, which required additional qualifications for entry after becoming a Princeton matriculant. African American students were in protest because of Woodrow Wilson’s racist past, and he indeed was bad for all African American civil servants who before him worked for the government. One of his first acts as President was to rid the workforce of all negroes. My suggestion to President Eisgruber was to keep the name but to open the Mary Bowser Café within the building or to rename a hall for Ms. Bowser. She was a spy for the Union Army and did most of her work in the office of Jefferson Davis where she was the maid. No one could imagine an intelligent slave woman capable of reading and her information was instrumental in helping the Union win the war. Of course, my suggestion might seem frivolous, but my wager is that if you were to walk through the Woodrow Wilson School and see the Mary Bowser Hall, you’d be curious enough to learn something about Mary Bowser. “Learning something” is the optimal phrase and obviously, the entire point.
What I believe would be far more advantageous to the public is for history to be fully displayed, all encompassing, and embraced. Whatever comfort public history in a garden gives us should be shared. It does not only belong in museums. History can and ought to be freely available in public spaces. Where there used to be only a confederate gentleman upon a horse, the park should include a series of the cylinders which represent the African Americans who were lynched nearby. All the relics in the park would illustrate that “This too happened here.” Along with the cylinders of lynching, should be added Native American symbols. More representation of the rest of our American story. For the others who once lived, loved, worked, contributed, and died in this particular town for this “America?”
The cylinder for lynching is not my idea. I borrowed it from The Legacy Museum. Truth is when I first heard about a “museum to lynching,” I was dumbfounded. Who in the world would want to visit such a museum? Fortunately, information was and is available for all who seek it. Visiting The Legacy Museum is now high on my list of priorities for 2022. However, what if getting to the museum is an impossibility. Alabama is not that close to New York. The museum may not be accessible for many who live far away. But what it represents ought to be available to all.
I don’t want to sully the monuments, what I want to do is expand the story they purport to tell, to make the parks honest by not letting them live with omission. A passerby will then understand that General So and So lived and warred here and so did these other people, along with their culture and history. What was once a small park that some of us tried our best to ignore and pass with blinking eyes and averted gazes might become a memorial to “our shared history.” And if not in celebration, in unity, we can all experience together the knowledge that some of the past remains difficult to remember. The park now contains a little something for everyone. Maybe the gentleman who hangs his flag with unconcern to celebrate “his America” will drive through his city and come across the park with cylinders and Native American signs and symbols and share in the experience of blinking his eyes in wonder.
And perhaps all these conversations that the media labels too difficult and discomfiting for us to have might be a little easier to broach while we are standing together in the grass looking at the relics of a shared history.