# Does the display of American flags have some "hidden meaning" these days? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 17, 2023, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270 "2023-09-17T17:52:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/221 "2023-09-25T21:22:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Many racists eat food- does that make it racist? [https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2021/03/04/white\_supremacists\_pride\_in\_drinking\_milk\_reveals\_their\_ignorance\_685744.html](https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2021/03/04/white_supremacists_pride_in_drinking_milk_reveals_their_ignorance_685744.html) > [@](#): > > They wear shoes- racist? > **[Boots and Laces](https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/boots-and-laces)** > > Racist skinheads prefer wearing steel-toed workboots, typically with red or white shoelaces laced a certain way. > [@](#): > > They get haircuts racist? > **[White power skinhead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_power_skinhead)** > > White power skinheads, also known as racist skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads, are members of a neo-Nazi, white supremacist and antisemitic offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations and some of them are members of prison gangs. The movement emerged in the United Kingdom between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, before spreading across Eurasia and North America in the 1980–1990s. > Scholar Timothy S. Brown defines the skinheads as a "style... > [@](#): > > They get married- racist? > **[14 Words](https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/14-words)** > > 14 Words is a reference to the popular white supremacist slogan: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/222 "2023-09-25T23:37:50Z")
Okay you have convinced me, anyone who wear shoes, or gets a haircut, or shows the American flag, or wears a hawaiian shirt, or does the okay sign or gets married, or whatever is a racist. 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/223 "2023-09-25T23:41:06Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Okay you have convinced me, anyone who wear shoes, or gets a haircut, or shows the American flag, or wears a hawaiian shirt, or does the okay sign or gets married, or whatever is a racist. This is an incoherent muddle of general categories of things (_all_ shoes) and specific things (the okay sign). Obvious _all_ shoes are not racist. Certain types of shoes & laces in certain contexts are racist. Obviously _all_ signs are not racist. Certain signs in certain contexts are racist. … Presumably what you’re trying to say is that _some_ people _sometimes_ display the US flag or use the okay sign with non-racist intent. Of course they do. That’s hardly a new point, I suggest you read the thread. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/224 "2023-09-25T23:49:06Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Obvious _all_ shoes are not racist. Certain types of shoes & laces in certain contexts are racist. > > Obviously _all_ signs are not racist. Certain signs in certain contexts are racist. And, who is the arbiter? You? See, I dont consider any of those things to be racist. You know what is racist? _Racists._ Know them by their actions and words, not by their shirts. You can fly the Gadsden flag, wear a hawaiian shirt, wear steel toed boots and all that- and still be totally woke and a worker for civil rights. You can wear a nice suit and be a total racist- as exemplified by 90% of the GOP lawmakers. _“By their deeds you will know them.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2023, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/225 "2023-09-25T23:56:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > And, who is the arbiter? You? Again, you’re just going over ground that has been discussed extensively in the thread. None of us get to choose our own meaning for symbols. The meaning is determined by cultural consensus, whether we as individuals like it or not. > [@DrDeth](#): > > See, I dont consider any of those things to be racist. The meaning that is communicated by the use of a symbol that you use is not determined by your individual subjective intentions. If we could read your mind to determine your intentions, we wouldn’t need symbols to communicate. And if there were no consensus on the meaning of a symbol, then a symbol would communicate nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/226 "2023-09-26T00:26:23Z")
And if their deed is an OK sign flashed on the hip or thigh, they are a racist. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/227 "2023-09-26T11:13:43Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Okay you have convinced me, anyone who wear shoes, or gets a haircut, or shows the American flag, or wears a hawaiian shirt, or does the okay sign or gets married, or whatever is a racist. Do you realize that certain words and phrases are racist but people who “speak” are not necessarily racist? That it is the specific words and context that makes a spoken phrase racist, and not simply that words were spoken. Some phrases are brazenly racist, some are subtly racist, some intentionally disguised as innocuous phrases but known to racists as words of support, and a great many are genuinely non-racist speech. It’s the same with non-verbal displays. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/228 "2023-09-26T11:53:47Z")
We had an employee who thought it was funny or edgy to post as a comment on one of the inclusion events announcements by our company on LinkedIn a “nonsense poem” in which the first words of each line were The Fourteen Words. Now we have thousands of employees, maybe tens of thousands, on LinkedIn. That one of them decided to self-immolate is not the surprising. The number of people who decided to defend this “martyr” on internal forums WAS surprising. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/229 "2023-09-26T12:06:46Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > The Fourteen Words. Look, just because “_We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children_” is an idea that is at the root of militant white nationalism doesn’t mean the sentence is, by definition, racist. _White ~~Lives~~ Children Matter!_ AmIRight Doc? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/230 "2023-09-26T12:28:36Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > See, I dont consider any of those things to be racist. You know what is racist? _Racists._ Know them by their actions and words, not by their shirts. Sigh. This is obstinate willful naivete deeper than Indiana topsoil. Surely a moment’s thought should make it clear that wearing shirts, and flying flags, and making hand gestures, are all among the actions that individuals choose to take. There are actions of that nature that are clearly explicitly racist, and there are other actions of that nature that have no racist associations whatsoever in present-day culture. And there are yet other actions that are ambiguous in their implication because a lot of people deliberately use them to symbolize racist ideology while a lot of other people still use them without any intent of racist symbolism. Trying to pretend that that sort of semiotic ambiguity is impossible—that any action that isn’t incontrovertibly a racist symbol must by default be assumed to be completely free of racist intent—is a stupid endeavor to impose a simplistic binary upon a complicated reality. Hey, I personally feel sympathy with your evident frustration with the fact that the actual world around you is more complex and difficult to interpret than you want it to be. But pretending that the realities of life are more neat and simple than they actually are doesn’t accomplish anything except promoting ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![slicedalone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slicedalone/32/12515_2.png) [@slicedalone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slicedalone)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/231 "2023-09-26T12:44:48Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > the existence of our people and a future for white children I can support this wholeheartedly. I’d like “their” people to exist, most of them behind bars, and I foresee a future in which white children get progressively beiger. Right on!! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/232 "2023-09-26T17:17:26Z")
This is a perfect example of how the denial of context can be weaponized. You can’t point out how certain things have associations without it being jumped on by people who insist you aren’t allowed to notice what’s right in front of your eyes. Just yelling “STOP NOTICING THINGS!” is a bit obvious, even for them, but the ones who are better at it can drag in a whole list of irrelevancies in much the same way a squid can shoot ink. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/233 "2023-09-26T19:45:46Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Do you realize that certain words and phrases are racist but people who “speak” are not necessarily racist? I do not think so. For example- the Nword- pretty damn offensive in many contexts. But not racist in Huckleberry Finn or hell even Blazing Saddles. Context is all. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Surely a moment’s thought should make it clear that wearing shirts, and flying flags, and making hand gestures, are all among the actions that individuals choose to take. > > There are actions of that nature that are clearly explicitly racist, Sure they are. Actions. Not the symbols themselves. The actions give the symbols the needed _context._ So yeah, waving the Gadsden flag while wearing a MAGA hat= right wing trumpist, very likely a racist, at least a racist sympathizer. Displaying the Gadsden Flag along with the Betsy Ross flag, the Star spangled banner flag, the 48 stars flag- not racist at all, just a show of historical American flags. Wearing a hawaiian shirt while wearing that same MAGA hat, and carrying a AR15- racist, white power asshat Just Wearing a hawaiian shirt- not racist. Flying the thin blue line flag as your LEO son died in the line of service- not racist. Flying the American flag- not racist. Making the okay sign is also not racist, as the white supremacist dont actually use the standard Okay sign. Just like the V for Victory or Peace sign- palm out means a Good thing, palm in is an insult (Winston Churchill had to be reminded of this quite often, so an occasional oops is not to be taken automatically as an insult. ) It’s all context. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Trying to pretend that that sort of semiotic ambiguity is impossible—that any action that isn’t incontrovertibly a racist symbol But see here you are arguing actions, not symbols. At a white power rally, waving an American flag is the action that show they are displaying that symbol in a racist way. Flying over a house on Memorial day or used to cover a veterans coffin- it is not and anyone who think so has a diseased sick mind. The swastika is a BAD symbol. Yes, here taken out of context you can assume people displaying it are racists. But it is also used in native American and East Indian art, and of course worn as a WW2 movie prop, So even a symbol as steeped in evil as the swastika needs the context. Of course, I think one issue here is that a number of posters think the American flag is of itself a racists symbol, ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/234 "2023-09-26T19:56:46Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > AmIRight Doc? No, you are not right. This does continue a trend, however. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/235 "2023-09-26T20:14:19Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > But not racist in Huckleberry Finn or hell even Blazing Saddles No, racist there too. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/236 "2023-09-26T20:16:41Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, racist there too. There’s always someone who wants to Ban Huckleberry Finn. That says more about them, than it does the book. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/237 "2023-09-26T20:17:46Z")
I didn’t say anything about banning anything. Doesn’t make the word “nigger” used in it any less racist. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/238 "2023-09-26T20:49:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The swastika is a BAD symbol. Yes, here taken out of context you can assume people displaying it are racists. But it is also used in native American and East Indian art, _Was_ used in Native American art, at least where the Navajo are concerned. > **[Sacred Navajo symbols on art often confused for swastikas](https://apnews.com/general-news-6ed35e0b1d734190be066ef4ffe3c7a9)** > > DENVER (AP) — The rug had several columns, with bright red squares down the center and a few lining the edges of a neutral-colored background. > The symbol all but disappeared from Navajo artists’ wares after the 1930s, making it extremely rare these days. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/239 "2023-09-26T20:56:30Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > _Was_ used in Native American art, at least where the Navajo are concerned. Sure. But you can still see it. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2023, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270/240 "2023-09-26T21:00:37Z")
Surely you’re not claiming that the disappearance during WWII was just a coincidence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-display-of-american-flags-have-some-hidden-meaning-these-days/990270.md?page=13)