Red flag rules: A different kind of identity theft prevention
“They shouldn’t be waving Mexican flags. They should be waving the [U.S.-]American Flag.”
“Why do they have to shove their sexuality in my face with a flag and rainbows everywhere?”
“It’s disrespectful.”
“They’re demanding we cater to them in our country.”
“I don’t think it is helping their cause.”
I have heard and read iterations of the above commentary from conservatives and progressives alike, from friends, family, community members, social media, and the news. Sometimes it is posed as a question, sometimes as “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts.”
“Shoulds” are beliefs that there is a certain way–one way to be, to speak, to act, to identify. These are common thoughts for all of us, but when they are extreme or frequent they can be harmful. We are should-ing ourselves away from democracy, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and liberty towards white supremacy, heteronormativity, patriarchy, fascism, oligarchy, isolation, economic collapse, and violence and death for the most vulnerable.
The “should” quotes I’ve listed above, are about whiteness, heteronormativity, and gender binaries—the normalizing and centering of white, heterosexual, and cisgender identities above all others, and that is what makes them harmful.
Let’s focus on whiteness, knowing that normalizing one identity over others is a parallel process for gender, sexuality, disability, neurodiversity, country of origin, socio-economic status, and all manner of identity markers.
Whiteness, whether you are white yourself or not, can make it hard to understand that other people have multiple, intersecting identities (e.g.: U.S.-American + Mexican + nonbinary + lesbian) and naturally people will fight for their identities and communities when they are under threat.
In a country founded on white supremacy, we all suffer from whiteness—ways of thinking, speaking, and acting where we center white identity of self or others above every other type of identity and cultural way of being.
No one seems to complain when the Irish flag is flown on St. Patrick’s Day or above an Irish pub. It feels “authentic” to roam the streets of any city’s Little Italy under Italian flags. Flying a Ukrainian blue and yellow yard flag draws little ire. Some elected officials have even posted Israeli flags above their office nameplates to little response. White people flags are permitted and celebrated, whether on homes, businesses, or in the streets—whether directly or indirectly for political purposes.
But wave a Mexican flag on the streets of a Spanish-named city of Los Angeles, on land that was actually Mexico until it was seized by the U.S. in 1848, a mere 177 years ago, just two-to-three lifetimes ago, that is what is disrespectful?
The green, white, and red colors of the Mexican flag were first adopted by Mexico during the War of Independence, when Mexico became independent from colonizing Spain. The flag is a way to remember, honor, and celebrate identities, plural. And also, those identities include ancestors, families separated by borders, migratory professions that follow harvest seasons, cultures that mix and mingle across national borders bringing communities together in ways that came well before the “birth” of the United States of America. And there are also communities evolving and coming together in new ways as we meet new people, and continue to cocreate communities of diversity. That’s on an average day.
Today, in this season of life together, the Mexican, El Salvadoran, Venezuelan, and so many other flags are symbols of existence and resistance. When the U.S. flag is a symbol of white supremacy and fascism, the flags of predominantly brown-skinned countries are a symbol of diversity, inclusion, and liberty. They are a message to this regime, its colluders, its followers, and the indifferent, that the people this regime is trying to eradicate refuse to accept such inhumanity. Refuse to accept being abducted from their homes, places of work, school, and off the street by masked, unidentified thugs and ferried away in unmarked vehicles, transported across state lines to intentionally make it harder for families and lawyers to find them, flown across national borders to modern-day U.S. gulags, concentration camps, and gas chambers built for erasure and drawn out deaths.
That Mexican flag means they refuse to accept children torn from hospital beds, parents torn from their babies, communities ripped apart with scars as wide as the trauma of the loss of any member. And it is not just any community member, this regime is also specifically targeting community leaders, labor union leaders, activists, people who are public figures of morality; who are building one another up; working for what is right, just, and equitable; and seeking freedom for all, especially those who have it the hardest in our society—who are mistreated the most.
This regime is abducting Christ, deporting the Spirit of God, condemning Jesus to death—separated from their family, alone, without enough food, water, nor adequate medical care.
Harvey Milk commissioned the first pride flag from Gilbert Baker, which flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978. Gilbert Baker is quoted as saying, “A true flag is not something you can really design. A true flag is torn from the soul of the people. A flag is something that everyone owns, and that’s why they work. The Rainbow Flag is like other flags in that sense: it belongs to the people.” Milk was assassinated that November of 1978, in City Hall by a colleague. In response, demand for the flag grew, and over time the flag has been updated to be more inclusive, and different flags for each type of gender identity and sexuality have emerged creating an ongoing galaxy of flag identifiers of belonging and pride. It’s only been 47 years since 1978, one a short lifetime.
The first version of the Juneteenth flag was created by activist “Boston Ben” Haith in 1997, just 28 years ago. The Juneteenth flag was created to recognize the date June 19, 1865, when General Order No. 3 was issued in Galveston, Texas, enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation to the people of Texas, freeing all those remaining enslaved 2.5 years after they should have been freed at the end of the U.S. Civil War.
The flag of the United States first came to symbolize the Union in the American Civil War, and went viral in 1861 as a symbol of opposition to the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, by the South Carolina militia. The U.S. Army had to surrender the fort, marking the beginning of the U.S.-American Civil War. One week later the Pratt Street Massacre of 1861, drew the first major bloodshed of the Civil War. On a Friday in April, 240 soldiers of the 6th Massachusetts Militia were in transit through the pro-Southern city of Baltimore in the slave state of Maryland as part of the 75,000 soldiers President Lincoln called up. These units from Northern states started moving south to protect Washington, D.C. Anticipating resistance, Colonel Edward F. Jones ordered soldiers to march through Baltimore and resist insults, abuse, and assault. Their orders were to ignore the mob, even if they threw bricks. Soldiers were only permitted to fire if fired upon, and not to fire into crowds, but to select the person aiming at them. As the soldiers marched through the streets of Baltimore the rear companies were attacked by a mob with bricks, pavers, and pistols. In response, soldiers fired into the mob. In the end, 5 soldiers were killed and 36 were wounded, and 12 civilians were killed with an unknown number of wounded civilians. Later that day the mob damaged the office of the Baltimore Wecker, a Union-supporting German-language newspaper, and the lives of the newspaper publisher and editor were threatened forcing them to leave town. The “first blood shed,” tipping the country from decades of conflict over slavery into Civil War.
The “first blood shed,” that’s what we are all waiting for now, right? The tipping point into another civil war. Are we there yet? Will it be this weekend? When will we know how bad it is going to get?
What is as true about the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War, as it is today, is that the “first blood shed” means white peoples’ blood.
We even know the name of the first Union soldier killed in action during the Civil War at the Pratt Street Massacre, Private Luther C. Ladd, 17 years old, born in Bristol, New Hampshire, who left his job at the Lowell Machine Shop in Lowell, Massachusetts, to enlist in the 6th Massachusetts Militia in response to President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 men. Ladd died of a fractured skull and a severed artery in his thigh from a bullet wound. He is buried at the Ladd & Whitney monument obelisk in Lowell, MA.
Some will argue that the meaning of “first blood shed” is related to soldierhood. Private Ladd, at just 17 years old, signed up to be a soldier in April 1861, and was killed in action that same month on April 19, 1861, while marching; they hadn’t even reached their destination for service. Maybe he had a few days, a week or two, from signup until his death—that is a tragedy.
And at the same time, how many enslaved people died violently: nameless save for the name of those that bought them, bred them like farm animals, and raped them? Their public record of life and death erased, except for sales ledgers and the legacy they built for their white enslavers? Murdered by slave owners, worked to death, whipped to death, suicide, enslaved until death, killing one’s own children to protect them from the horrors of slavery, to protect little girls from rape, to protect their children from being sold into the hands of another slave owner—seperated from their parent’s protection.
How much bloodshed does it take for whiteness to share in the sacrifice?
How much bloodshed does it take for whiteness to stop dismissing the pain of brown and black people?
How much bloodshed does it take for whiteness to stop minimizing what are clearly white supremacist and fascist actors, and stop exaggerating and criminalizing the legitimate anger, grief, and frustration of brown and black people?
How much bloodshed does it take for whiteness to stop undermining the peaceful protests of people marginalized by society and this regime? Because they’re waving a flag you don’t identify with?
It isn’t about the flag, and at the same time, it is all about the flags.
We design, sew, and fly flags as symbols of who we are and to celebrate our liberation from colonization of all types. Flags represent the parts of us that demand freedom, to be seen, to be recognized, to be included, to be safe, to belong, and to be in community.
And some flags in certain moments, like the moment we are in this month, the Mexican flag, the Pride flag, the Juneteenth flag, and even the United States flag, are meant to represent the best attributes of humanity. It is not an either/or situation. Community members are not saying they are Mexican and not U.S. American, or are LGBTQ+ and not U.S. American, or are Black and not U.S. American. It is a both/and.
The problem is that whiteness doesn’t understand what it means to have multiple identities, to be brown and black and U.S.-American, to speak Spanish and be U.S. American, to love someone with the same sex organs and be U.S. American.
Whiteness isn’t welcoming of U.S.-Americans who don’t look, act, or speak whiteness. That is what is so un-Christian about the parasitic nature of christian nationalism and white supremacy, and every other form of fear-based hatred of people who are different from us.
Find your flag(s), make new ones, marker up a sign, and come to the No Kings national day of defiance. This Saturday, June 14th, 2025. Find an event near you here, get your friends and family together and peacefully demonstrate that we will not allow people in our communities to be disappeared off the street. We will not allow our civil rights to be stripped away, and we will not allow our public services and money to be stolen.
We’ll see you at Denver’s Juneteenth Festival.
We’ll also see you on Sunday, June 29, in the Denver Pride Parade, where Juniper Formation UCC will join the United Church of Christ contingent of congregations in the parade.
The only red flags we need to be concerned about are the ones with swastikas, not the ones with rainbows.
In Partnership,
Rev. Dr. Jenny Whitcher, Ph.D (she/her)
Minister of Prophetic Formation
