Marquette professor says American flag is source of fear and anxiety
Luke Gentile
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A professor at Marquette University said he feels “anxious” whenever he sees the American flag.
“I also get a little bit anxious around the excessive imagery of the flag in part because in my experience, patriotism quickly slips into nationalism,” associate professor of philosophy at Marquette Dr. Grant Silva said in an interview published on Flag Day.
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“Especially the simplistic version of patriotism, the flag waving, my country love it or leave it kind of attitude. That is just a hop, skip and a jump away from becoming nationalism,” he said.
The American flag signifies something different for people of color, according to Silva, who recalled traveling with his family and encountering a more intense and brutal sense of patriotism.
“I remember seeing stickers that said something similar to like ‘Immigrant Hunting License,’ and it had like a target and the image of people crossing — like the sign, the signage that they use to signify that people may be crossing a border like family, a family crossing,” he said. “That kind of imagery, pointing a gun at these individuals, and I remember thinking as a Mexican American, how safe am I in this particular gas station when this signage like this — these are stickers being sold, right?
Experiences like his have shaped a view of the American flag for many nonwhite people that transforms a symbol of hope and freedom into a banner of fear and loathing, Silva argued.
“As much as I would like to see the flag displayed in a proud manner, it all too quickly takes on the stakes that, as a non-white person, can mean a lot, right? It can mean a sense of inclusion or exclusion,” he said.
“A sense of belonging or the ascription of perpetual foreigner, perpetual outsider status; that that flag is not for me unless I’m willing to abide by the assimilatory paradigm that some of these individuals that you’re talking about tend to put forward.”
Teran Powell, the author of the article featuring Silva’s interview, shared his sentiments and used her experience as a black woman to bolster them.
“I’m Black American, and over the past few years, I’ve continued to analyze what the American Flag means to me. Especially considering the growth in extremism post-Trump-presidency and those extremists using the American Flag against people of color to say they’re the real Americans,” Powell wrote.
While on a road trip to a friend’s wedding in Illinois, Powell and her friend were apparently taken aback when they stopped for gas in a town decorated with American flags.
“And both of us were like, ‘Yeah, we need to hurry up and leave.'” She said. “And I thought about it like, ‘Why did we feel like that?'”
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Ultimately, the experiences and feelings of herself and Silva concerning the flag are nothing new.
People of color “often have to assimilate and give up some part of their racial or ethnic heritage to be seen as true Americans,” Powell wrote.