Why I'm letting my American flag fly
Felt patriotic, might delete later
Teahouse is a newsletter by Teresa Wu about home, travel, and gathering.
Earlier this summer, I ordered a baseball cap in a classic red with white embroidery, thinking maybe I could be a cool girl:
When it arrived, I felt cute for a minute… before realizing that I’d inadvertently purchased what could be mistaken as a MAGA accessory.
Then the other day, I laughed when I saw
alerting us to retire our red hats for the season.
It got me been wondering: When did red baseball caps become something that belonged exclusively to Trump supporters?
Flipping the script on camo
Kamala’s latest merch—a camouflage hat with orange block letters—sent the internet into a euphoric tizzy. In releasing a camo cap, the campaign dared to take up space in way that wasn’t entirely unlike what Trump had done with red hats.
Where previously *rural hunter military camo* vibes seemed like they belonged squarely to conservative white guys, the Harris campaign moved in on that turf and claimed them—changing the meaning of a camo cap to something totally different. (According to Teen Vogue, as of August 8, the Harris campaign had sold 47,0728 camo hats, totaling $1,878,524 since launch.)
This reclamation is worth noting because until recently, it felt like most of America had given up a little. Our love of country was lost. We’d come to accept that this, whatever this is—*gesticulates wildly*—was just going to be our America now. We couldn’t allow ourselves to be patriotic, because our country’s brand of so-called patriotism had evolved into more of a rah-rah, racist nationalism.
So when my husband first suggested hanging a flag at our lake house—located in a tiny, conservative-leaning mountain town—I protested. In our current climate, I worried that flying our star-spangled banner would signal things about us that were untrue. It felt like the American flag didn’t exactly announce that inside this home was a LBGTQ loving / reproductive rights advocating / gun control supporting / daughter of immigrants.
Rarely did I see a flag in a context that represented unity and freedom and democracy. The more recent images seared into my brain of the American flag were ones of it rippling behind trucks at a Newport Beach MAGA rally or flying alongside Confederate flags at the Capitol attack.
When it comes to the brand of the American flag, perception is reality. Regardless of what the flag is supposed to represent, the perception of a symbol is created by our interactions with and exposure to that symbol. The above were mine—and what I imagine many others’ to be.
Pattern recognition
Last week, I watched as our US women’s gymnastics team leapt across the Olympic stage with a triumphant American flag. You guys, it made me feel things. Seeing our star-spangled banner displayed in their context—fluttering between our bold, beautiful Golden Girls—filled me with reverence.
That these Black, white, Asian, and Latina women could grow up to be celebrated on this world stage together? I was reminded of America’s greatness. My heart swelled as the national anthem played. A foreign feeling bubbled to the surface. Was I feeling… proud to be an American?
In that moment, I realized: We need more moments like these to be visible in order change the perception of the flag. We need more contexts where it means something beautiful instead of something divisive.
When the majority of images we see of the American flag are from alt-right rallies, its meaning slides into dangerous territory. It starts to become a symbol of exclusionary nationalism instead one of freedom, of opportunity. Even if it feels like Old Glory has been co-opted, the flag isn’t any one group’s to claim. The meaning of the flag has always shifted over time. It’s our responsibility to create new meaning and to shift it to where we want it to go.
By shying away from flying our flag and by shoving our red baseball caps to the backs of our closets, we’re letting someone else claim what should be all of ours. So instead of giving up our sartorial symbols, our stars, and our stripes, I dare you to take up space. Let’s wear our red caps (and the camo ones, too). Let’s all let our American flags fly again, shall we?
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Love this. Petition for everyone to start wearing red hats with different sayings on them to drown out the maga messaging and de-symbolize the image. Fashion as protest.
Completely agree! It's so important to stay in the conversation instead of tapping out. Those with malicious intentions should not be able to "own" a symbol or energy, so it's up to us to counter it