June 14 is Flag Day and the commemoration should remind us that we need a unifying symbol now more than ever.
The American flag design, with its 13 stripes and (originally) 13 stars, was adopted on June 14, 1777, expressly as a symbol of 13 disparate colonies unifying as one, under a banner that stood for the Declaration of Independence’s celebration of liberty and universal rights. That declaration and that flag, along with the national anthem written in 1814, always stood for the aspirational best in this nation. They asked us, and ask us still, to point above and beyond any current flaws or divisions, in celebration of unalienable rights with a sense of sacred honor.
A nation that was founded to promote the best in human nature, even while itself being less than perfect, could work to be “more perfect,” with flag flying high and proudly in the knowledge that no other nation’s aspirations were as lofty. Nor, frankly, have most other nations come as close, as often, to realizing those ideals.
It’s unfortunate that New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees was forced to apologize for making perfectly acceptable comments about what the national anthem and the flag meant to him. But his comments are worth highlighting.
The flag, he said, reminds us we should “try to make our country and this world a better place. So every time I stand with my hand over my heart looking at that flag and singing the national anthem, that’s what I think about. And in many cases, it brings me to tears thinking about all that’s been sacrificed.”
He continued: “Not just those in the military, but for that matter, those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point. And is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not. We still have a long way to go. But I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together, we can all do better, and that we are all part of the solution.”
What Brees said in those sentences was a wonderful combination of thought and sentiment. It was a sentiment similar to that expressed in a 1798 play called Basil, a Tragedy, where a speaker says, “I’ll shape myself a way to higher things,/And who will say ‘tis wrong?”
That is what the United States always has done: Work for higher things. Higher things, such as liberty. Equality under the law. Procedural guarantees in the course of justice. And, not less, unity of basic purpose: Out of many, one.
The reason the American flag merits respect and honor is that it represents that call to unified purpose in pursuit of better things, in addition to a celebration of all the ways we, as a nation, already have led the advancement of human rights and freedom. In that light, all of us can and should embrace the flag as a unifying symbol. In that light, we all can fly it high, and proudly so.
