Flag represents us all
Protests take aim at words of president
Donald Trump has done a masterful job of using all kinds of winks, nods, and symbols — hello, there, Jefferson Davis! — to fan the flames of racial division in this country.
This isn’t a knock; it’s high praise. It catapulted him to the presidency.
Strom Thurmond and George Wallace may have carried states in their own racially charged bids for the White House, but Donald Trump carried the Electoral College. If the BBWAA were casting ballots last year for Most Valuable Politician, Trump would have been a nearunanimous winner. (The two voters from the New York chapter would have voted for Derek Jeter.)
But now our president is using professional football players in his latest attempt to build a virtual wall that separates White America from Black America. To be more precise, and as if anyone needs the disclaimer, he is using professional football players.
Except the black professional football players aren’t having it. And as we all take our sides in this messy argument over when and why and how we observe the playing of the national anthem at sporting events, it’s important to remember that Trump called these guys out in such a way that some of them felt compelled to take a knee during Sunday’s NFL games.
And it’s not just the football players.
LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers went after the president yesterday, saying, “The thing that frustrated me, pissed me off, he was using the sports platform to divide us. Sports is so amazing, what sports can do for everyone, no matter shape, size, race. It brings people together like no other. I’m not going to let one individual, no matter the power, the impact he should have, ever use sport as a platform to divide us.”
LeBron was speaking in defense of Stephen Curry of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors, whose invitation to visit to the White House has been rescinded by the president, this after Curry already had said he wouldn’t be attending.
Perhaps, as has been suggested, the whole idea is to provoke the black athletes, waiting for them to take a knee as national anthems are being crooned from sea to shining sea and then howl with indignation.
For those who feel deeply about the importance of standing for the national anthem, nobody should try to change how you feel about that. But we need to separate ourselves from the notion that saluting the flag and standing for the national anthem are solely about honoring the men and women who have served in the military.
Veteran sportscaster Bob Costas, appearing yesterday on CNN, put it this way: “Part of what’s happened is that sports and patriotism and the flag have been conflated to such an extent that people can’t separate out any nuance.” He added that “. . . wrapping yourself in the flag and honoring the military is something which no one is going to object to. But Martin Luther King was a patriot. Susan B. Anthony was a patriot. Dissidents are patriots. School teachers and social workers are patriots. Patriotism comes in many forms, and what has happened is that it’s been conflated with kind of a bumper sticker kind of flag waving and with the military only.”
The flag, as a symbol, is not limited to the brave fighting men and women of this country. That will come across as sacrilege to a lot of you, so allow me to pause to defend my position this way. For more than 25 years I’ve been writing essays and columns about the squares, playgrounds and traffic circles dedicated in memory to American soldiers killed fighting for our country. In each case I’ve tracked down family members and friends and asked them to share letters, photos, stories.
And then I’ve attempted to tell simple stories about these young men, such as how Reggie Wilder of Cambridge, killed in Italy during World War II, was once challenged by his buddies to swim across the Charles River and back. So he did. Twice. Or how Paul Reid of West Roxbury, killed in Vietnam, kept pigeons in the back yard of the family home on Elgin Street and made many a trip to Brook Farm to gather turtles by the bank of the Charles and take them home to care for them. As a little kid he wanted to be a veterinarian. Or how George Gottwald of Roslindale, also killed in Vietnam, once rebuilt an entire 1955 Chevy.
I don’t write about them as soldiers. I write about them as plain folks, kids, really, who were killed in the service of our country.
This is why I was so moved Sunday afternoon as I listened to Patriots receiver Brandin Cooks delicately and respectfully explain his reasons for taking a knee during the national anthem.
“I have the utmost respect for the men and women that fight for our freedom,” said the man who minutes earlier caught a 25-yard Tom Brady pass to propel the Patriots to victory over the Houston Texans. He said his late father was a Marine, that an uncle fought in Vietnam.
We can debate the merits of Cooks’ decision to take a knee, but it’s unfair to dismiss him as someone who’d show a lack of respect for anyone who has fought for our country. Cooks, like the others who took a knee, was addressing Trump’s bullying with solidarity and determination. Their point, I believe, is that the flag represents them, too.
You don’t have to agree with them.
But you should listen to them.