Columns
Coming In Loud and Queer
| Coming In Loud The True Colors of the American Fag |  |
by Joel Nichols
The Word “pride” gets tossed around in the world. Queers are so proud, their yearly holiday is actually called a “Pride Festival.” You can also be proud to be an American, like so many people became after September. Pride can cover a multitude of characteristics, but for gays, it has its roots in the Civil Rights movement, when “Black is Beautiful” and “Gay is Good” were affirming calls to action. The Pride festivals and parades are actually reminders of the Stonewall Rebellion, a militant and powerful action that had everything to do with fighting back and not giving in.
When I see an American flag image on a car, I assume that it was placed in the aftermath of terrorism to make someone feel better about the disaster. Whether the colors express “These Colors Don’t Run,” “Proud to be an American,” or “Nuke the Arabs,” the presence of the flag overwhelms me.
To me, the American flag signals a loss of safety. Its red, white, and blue are slavery, oppression and poverty. Its stars and stripes are guns and bombs. The flag has no place being displayed on every car and from every house, especially when the “proud” Americans flying it proclaim its connection to liberty and freedom, peace and prosperity.
There is too much American history that prevents me from feeling the same way. This country was built by African and African American slaves, whose descendants continue to suffer at the hands of a racist criminal justice system and urban poverty. We killed off Native Americans in mass campaigns of genocide and continue to isolate them, forming reservations to all but tie them in place. America is also the proud land that locked its citizens of Japanese descent in concentration campus just fifty years ago.
And the situation has barely improved, especially for the poor, racial or ethnic minorities, and queers. Think about being Arab-American or Muslim today. Talking about queers specifically, another bumper sticker jumps to mind: “If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention.” No matter what we think about marriage, we deserve the right to the same benefits and special rights as heteros. Even now, when the country has allegedly come together to fight for the American way of life, the families of queer victims of the attacks are being ignored by the victims’ fund, which does not recognize gay relationships outside of the marriage laws.
Imagine my shock when, recently, I saw several cars displaying American flags and rainbow colors simultaneously. It completely ruined my day to see two lesbians proclaiming their American and gay pride simultaneously on their car. My horror at how they display the symbol of their own inequality under American law has stayed with me.
If you have put a flag decal on your car and left it there until now, nearly seven months after the attacks, and if you still wear a red, white, and blue lapel pin, you show your enthusiasm for death, destruction, war, and oppression. It’s one thing to be pleased to see the flag and hear the anthem when Americans won medals at the Winter Olympics and another to sport a jingoistic symbol while an endless war rages overseas.
The war in Afghanistan looks as if it might never end. The Bush administration has pledged to continue this unwinnable war all over the world. By the time this column is printed, we may have already invaded Iraq or dropped nuclear weapons on China or Russia, if you believe what the papers are saying.
Urban Blacks and Latinos inhabit a precarious situation in America’s cities while the rural poor are imprisoned in low-paying jobs, and both groups, rural and urban, lack opportunities to community-build and advance. The war on queers at home continues, too. Not only are we too far from ever receiving federal marriage benefits, we cannot even count on being safe when we walk around the streets. Today is not the time to abandon queer struggle for the cause of American big business.
Rip that American flag off your car and call our Senators and Representative Sanders to urge them to try and stop the war. Take your queerness and fight back against everything you know “America” should not stand for.
Joel Nichols grew up in Brandon, VT and is about to graduate from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.