I don’t care why you fly your American flag. Let’s love it together | Opinion

It’s this time of the year when I see beauty in the American flag unlike in any other moment.

I appreciate it more.

I stop and think about what “for which it stands” really means in ways I normally don’t.

It’s a reminder that I’m an American, something for which I should be unapologetically proud.

It hits me harder as a black man in the South where a different red, white and blue continues flying in too many places. That red, white and blue was removed from South Carolina State House grounds after Dylann Roof committed a massacre in a historically-black Charleston church. But that didn’t convince some of my neighbors to rethink their allegiance to it. A huge and popular Myrtle Beach T-shirt and beachwear store still has it prominently displayed out front. The owners of a property at the border of North Carolina and South Carolina I frequently drive by when GPS recommends that route so I could avoid heavy traffic are still flying the biggest Confederate flag I’ve ever seen. It’s still flapping in the wind.

If the Confederate flag is a spirit dampener – and it is – the American flag is a kind of a cleanser, a nod towards our common humanity. This time of year, I am heartened to see the 29 small American flags planted at the entrance of my neighborhood, glad to see medium-sized American flags flying from more flag poles. Every year, I see a huge display of small and over-sized American flags – dozens in all – in the front yard of a house a five-minute-drive from my own and less than a mile from the sandy beaches of Surfside Beach. Every year, I think about knocking on the door to thank the homeowners.

But I resist the urge.

Because I don’t want to know their politics.

I don’t want to know if they are black or white or Latino, Asian-American or Indigenous.

I don’t want to know if they have kids like mine, or are retired.

I don’t want to know if they are fans of the Dallas Cowboys and Carolina Panthers the way I am, or the dreadful Washington Commanders.

I don’t want to know if I might like them, or find it awkward to share a laugh with them over a large cup of sweet tea and Southern-style gossip.

I don’t know want to know what God they serve – if they believe in a god at all – who they have their eyes on for the 2024 presidential cycle, if they listen to NPR or watch Sean Hannity. Don’t tell me what they posted on Facebook or Nextdoor neighbor or said at the packed school board meeting.

I don’t want to know their thoughts about Donald Trump, if they find “Let’s go Brandon” funny or offensive or whether they sympathize with those who stormed the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021.

Don’t tell me what they think of what the Supreme Court did this past week; it might depress me.

For this moment, this one time of the year, I’d rather be blissfully ignorant except for this one thing: knowledge of our shared love of a flag that has stood for many good and great things over the past few centuries in a nation unlike any in the history of the world.

It doesn’t mean I’ll be memory-holing this country’s faults, past and present, doesn’t mean I’ll pretend inequality isn’t at an outrageous high, that systemic problems don’t still exist. I know slavery persisted even as iconic songs were being made in honor of that flag, and so did a long list of other horrible acts.

It just means that this Fourth of July I’ll probably be heading to rural Georgetown County, South Carolina near where I married my sweetheart 25 years ago this August and eat a hamburger or three at my in-laws well-regarded annual Independence Day cookout.

And smile a little.

And laugh a lot.

And remember that flag is just a symbol of something greater, a long line of people who will never stop trying to perfect this place.

Issac Bailey is a McClatchy opinion writer.