What the United States Flag Stands For

Half-Mast Massacres

A girl is dead. A freshman at my high school and her entire family were shot and killed a few weeks ago. The perpetrator set their apartment building on fire to cover up the evidence, and in the process, displaced multiple other families.

I help organize freshman orientation every year. This was one of my students. Someone from my high school.

The one day of the year we did not say the pledge of allegiance was when they announced her death on the loudspeakers. For once, we prioritized the life of a child over that of a cultish hymn. 

The flag was half-mast.

My mother was a kindergarten teacher in Boston. Most of her student's parents worked either in the Logan International Airport or traveled through it frequently for business. 

9/11 took most of their lives. 

Explaining to a kindergartener that the planes their parents were on were thrown into the Twin Towers like toys in a classroom is nearly impossible.

I still have the pin American Airlines gave us. They gave one to everyone who lost a family member on those flights.

The flag was half-mast.

As a student myself, I fear for my safety when I go to school. Each week I see different schools across the country wheeling out wounded students on stretchers, their clothes bullet-grazed. Will I be next?

The flags are half-mast.

We watched in horror as the flag we used to honor our dead was appropriated by domestic terrorists who attempted to trample our democracy. Thousands of flags covered the backs of terrorists as they climbed walls, broke windows, and tore apart documents that are used to protect the lives of American citizens. The word ‘patriotism’ has been disgraced. The flag is a holy symbol; terrorists overturned all it stands for by using it to camouflage themselves. They threatened to kill our officials (both Democratic and Republican). Armed, they attempted to and did kill numerous police officers. They removed our flag and put up their own, like a stereotypical cartoon capture. 

Return our flag. Return our hope.