Flags, freedom, and Wakefield’s polar problem

First published in the Wakefield Daily Item, June 30, 2023.

What happens when a community and its leaders give up on finding ways to come together to solve problems in favor of aggravating and leveraging our differences? Sadly, in recent years the town of Wakefield has been going through the process of finding out.

The recent skirmish over town Flag Day rights provides an unfortunate case in point. During the Town Council meeting a couple of weeks ago, a request from the Wakefield Veterans Advisory Board was put forward, to lower the Pride flag on Flag Day so that only the American flag and the POW/MIA flag would fly on town flagpoles on the holiday. Two Councilors, Ed Dombroski and Bob Vincent, presented the proposal and were in favor of approving it. But the other four Councilors felt differently and after some discussion the vote was 4-2 to decline the request.

The front-page headline the following day (6/13/23) in the Wakefield Daily Item was: "Veterans’ flag request denied." Though this was a reported piece, it was hard to miss the critique, the note of grievance, in the headline and article written by Mark Sardella. He pleaded the modesty of the VAB’s request, that it was “for one day only” and “for a single day.” He noted Councilor Michael McLane saying he wouldn’t support the “motion to honor the veterans’ request,” subtly hinting McLane was not honoring veterans. He reported Town Council Chair Jonathan Chines “claimed” to have spoken to veterans who opposed taking down the Pride flag on Flag Day, insinuating skepticism about whether he actually did hear from such veterans.

The gloves came off in Sardella’s opinion column last week (“Flagging allegiance,” 6/22/23), warning that the community was “desert[ing] its wounded warriors in favor of social justice warriors,” accusing the Town Council of “voting to hang [veterans] out to dry,” and suggesting that any elected official who might have a different view on this issue was part of a “small, but well-organized and highly motivated minority of woke activists.”

Really? Of course I support and respect veterans; I’m a Marine veteran, myself. It’s worth noting that an equally factual headline for the reported piece might have been “Council denies request to lower Pride flag on Flag Day.” As Wakefield resident and fellow veteran Greg McIntosh pointed out in his excellent letter in the Item on June 16, “the American flag is not just a symbol of the Nation’s veterans but is the physical representation of all Americans and our never-ending struggle, in the words of our U.S. Constitution, ‘to form a more perfect Union….’” I stand with McIntosh in supporting the Town Council’s decision, and in feeling that my military service “was appropriately honored by continuing to fly the Pride flag alongside the American flag in the continuing struggle for equality.”

But whereas McIntosh said he “understand[s] the sentiment behind…the [VAB’s] request,” I have found a question rising in my mind: Why? Why, in order to feel right and “appropriately honored,” do many veterans and supporters of veterans see the need to remove another flag, representing people who have long struggled for equal rights?

It’s clearly not a matter of the actual amount of time the American and POW/MIA flags fly alone. After all, they’ve got the poles to themselves on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, July 4^th, and perhaps 300-plus remaining days of the year. 

So then, why? I realize people feel strongly about flags. I do too. But there are those who seem to feel that one’s patriotism is in proportion to the number of American flags they display, or the prominence and vigor of the waving. I think of the car or truck driving down Main Street or North Ave with a flag or two streaming behind, as if to dispel any doubt about the occupant’s Americanness – or to assert they’re somehow more American.

But it’s not how many flags are planted on your front lawn or how many Stars and Stripes emojis you post after your Facebook comment that’s important – it’s what the flag stands for. What were we veterans serving and fighting for?

Freedom and democracy. We live in a country that established as its core idea that all people are created equal and that we all have an equal voice and vote in determining how we are governed. And we live in a country where we are guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press.

But the most basic human freedom is the freedom to be who you are. My oldest son is gay. He came out as a senior at Wakefield Memorial High School and the response was overwhelming love and support from his friends, classmates, and the people of Wakefield. There was no prouder day for me as a dad and as a Wakefieldian. And while I am grateful for that loving, local response, the sad reality is that there is still, here and around the country, hatred of and prejudice against the LGBTQ community, people of color, immigrants, Muslims, and others struggling to realize the promise of American equality – a promise worth fighting for. This ongoing struggle is why the Pride flag matters to those whom it represents, and likely why the Town Council decided not to lower it on Flag Day.

These kinds of differences of opinion on issues and history and symbols will always be a part of the challenge of democracy. How can we make progress in dealing with them more constructively, as Americans? It’s not easy, with Fox News and CNN, with demagogic political leaders and culture warrior columnists and social media trolls all around us. When someone expresses an opinion or identifies a challenge, we’re too ready to pick a side and yell and shake our fists. We’ve all been so conditioned by the polarized world we’re living in that we begin to believe there is no other way. We’ve developed a kind of polar predisposition.

This needs to change. To start, we need public leaders who see themselves as problem solvers and as resolutionists, not as issue leveragers. That goes for journalists of conscience too. In the current case, upon hearing of the VAB’s request, rather than simply acceding to it and presenting it, the two favorably disposed Councilors might have encouraged a conversation between the VAB and Wakefield Human Rights Commission, to discuss the idea of the American flag and POW/MIA flag flying alone on Flag Day in future years, but perhaps skipping this year since Pride Month was already upon us. And from a journalistic standpoint, at the very least in reported pieces, taking care not to frame the issue in a deliberately provocative way, as somehow being an insult that dishonors and disrespects veterans. Every Town Councilor respects and honors our veterans. And every veteran should respect and honor the freedom that the Pride flag represents for LGBTQ folks.

This goes for all of us Americans. It’s up to each of us to take a step back from the din of divisiveness, and to change our polar predisposition into an impulse toward making progress, together.

© Jeff Kehoe