In the summer of 1988 I was in the delayed entry program slated to leave for Marine Corps bootcamp in December and I was enjoying my last summer of freedom. It was an Olympic year and I bought a deep blue hat with USA emblazoned in white with red trim on the front. I was a true patriot having put my life on the line in order to protect this nation from the threat of the Soviet Union in order to defend the American way of life. I felt true love for this country and felt that it was my duty to do my part to serve in the armed forces just like my uncles and my brother before me.
The US, having been born with great rhetoric but an abysmal record of human rights as pertained to ethnic minorities and women, was coming into its own and, little by little, starting to embrace all its people within the fold of the in-group deserving of rights. Our Olympic teams were dominating in the medals count which I viewed as evidence of our strength in embracing multiculturalism as we had athletes of all races and creeds within one nationality. To me, the USA and the American flag meant progresss.
I was just eighteen and thus too young to go to a bar but my middle-aged next door neighbor got it into his head that he could get me in to Starr's Black and Tan so, dubious about my prospects, I went along and, to my surprise I was allowed in for my first time in a bar and I headed directly for the pool table.
The Black and Tan was overwhelmingly African-American in clientele but, for some reason, I ended up playing against a middle-aged white man in pool. Apparently he appreciated my patriotism because he smiled and told me he liked my hat. I thanked him and then got down to the business of playing the game,
Not expert by any means, I had nonetheless been learning pool by being beaten countless times by my Laotian coworker whose name I will not attempt to spell here. At some point in the game it was my shot and I had one ball left to make before I could shoot at the eight ball for the win. The problem was that my solid ball was mostly occluded by one of my opponent's stripe balls. Looking carefully at the shot, I mentally calculated the trajectory my ball would take if I clipped it on the only edge where it was available.
"Two ball cross corner" I announced.
I leaned down for the shot and carefully clipped the ball at medium speed and it hit the rail and sailed directly into the cross corner exactly as I predicted setting me up for the win. My opponent, rather than being upset, congratulated me. "That was amazing! How did you do that??"
"I don't know. I just hit it in the only place that was available and I saw where it was going to go if I did that. I didn't know it was going to go in. I guess I just got lucky."
"I think it was the hat!" he said and we both laughed at that.
The point of this essay is that the American flag did not always represent racial animus against people of color and foreigners as it seems to now. Also, in today's political climate where white supremacists and xenophobes have co-opted the American flag for which they are not worthy, those of us who no longer fly it are not unpatriotic, we simply do not want to be lumped in with the racists who currently wrap themselves in the stars and stripes. I am American and I stand for America's promise of liberty and justice for all. I will fly the flag when we once again are led by a government who represents that promise.
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