I didn't much care for the brash, party-style patriotism of most July 4th celebrations and pop songs. I didn't slight them particularly, but it felt overdone, like people who suddenly claim to be Irish and wear green and drink too much beer for St. Patrick's Day. I grew up with quieter patriotic celebrations, like watching good war movies on Memorial Day, and attending lesser-known events such as Defender's Day* at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.
My first encounter with a different style of 'Flagism' was during a summer I spent in Denmark. Like here, many homes display their flag, usually as a pennant, and in a park in north Denmark is the largest outside-the-States U.S. Independence Day celebration. This country's history dates to before the Vikings, which made me feel like my own barely-over-two-hundred-years history was rather adolescent. The patriotism I experienced was warm, sincere, and dignified but relaxed, with no chip-on-the-shoulder defiance.
When September 11, 2001 happened, I was working in a religious retail store. We carried flags as part of church supplies and sold out over and over, selling even old merchandise and expensive options bc the demand was so insistent. I myself chose to wear a typical lapel pin with a small black ribbon behind it, attempting to honor both the situation and how I felt about it. But in general it seemed the bigger, the better. Anything, I mean ANYTHING even remotely red-white-and-blue was getting snatched up the day it came in. We could get in 200 lapel pins and 4 customers later be sold out. Flag fever I had never experienced before. Everywhere I looked there were lapel pins, flags on houses, flags on vehicles, bumperstickers, lawn ornaments, signs and various cheap paraphernalia. 'God Bless America' heralded me from every source audible, readable, and implicated.
I watched with mixed reactions. Many displays were in violation of flag etiquette, many cheap and flashy, many carried a tone I felt was pushy, arrogant, and nationalist. I remember how relieved I felt the first time I noticed a display on the drive home of a properly protected flag with the words 'America Bless God' attached to it. I think it was because I felt that here was someone who could recognize an alternative perspective to the obsessive circling-the-wagons disdain aimed at anyone deemed not patriotic enough. I remember a news anchor remarking that they had received hate mail for not wearing a flag pin or something on the news. I remember a lot of heat thrown back and forth over who was patriotic 'enough' and what it meant to be patriotic. I certainly agreed with those who declared patriotism was more than a simple show, though I do find it reasonable to ask why a patriot would choose to show nothing.
I have a somewhat altered sense of flag-waving these days. I no longer think of America as the saviour nation, nor that she is above reproach. I still warmly applaud the father and son I heard tell of who respectfully picked up and folded a flag laid as a carpet in a museum exhibit, but I no longer feel incredulous disgust at the people who thought up the exhibit. I still don't find large doses of flag decor or bawdy in-your-face attitudes to be considerate or in the best taste, but I am alarmed of reports where veterans are pressured to withdraw their patriotic displays that they most definitely and personally earned a right to have. I hope patriotism is not another lost cause, buried under the fall-out of fights between two excesses.
*Defender's Day is an annual weekend event in early September, celebrating the anniversary of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner and events surrounding. A truly educational and interesting event, with top-notch live bands, speakers and fireworks, including a short reenactment of the guns and mortars and the raising of the enormous flag that inspired the poem. Absolutely thrilling moment. I believe the events are free, though the usual (small) park fees apply for the actual Fort access.
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