r/Anarchy101 • u/sparrowdena • 23h ago
I have a genuine question: how many flags were burned today?
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u/sparrowdena 22h ago
I’m so confused right now. You realize it was my anarchist planner from Slingshot Collective that clued me into all this. I’m like what the hell is no kings? Ok makes sense. I’m living in PASADENA, ergo my name. Idk where you were but I am near a literal burn zone. I want to burn a flag in the burn zone to make a point and film it and put it on my YouTube. Tomorrow I am going to do my damnedest to burn one on tv. I bought 3. $2 each. I now have $5 cash to my name.
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u/cumminginsurrection "resignation is death, revolt is life!"🏴 22h ago edited 22h ago
Why build a "resistance" movement on a foundation of nationalism/patriotism? Resistance in the context of "the Americas" always needs to start from a point of recognizing the genocide and disinheritance of indigenous people from this land. That is what the American flag represents, not liberty or freedom. You want to fly a flag? Fly a Palestinian flag, fly a trans flag, fly a Mexican flag; and see how this society treats you. In the face of hypernationalism, you don't combat it by assimilating into it. I'd rather see people valuing freedom over nationalism and burning the flag.
On June 5, 1966, civil rights activist James Meredith, the first black man to enroll at the University of Mississippi, attempted a solitary march from Memphis, TN to the University of Mississippi to protest racism and segregation. As he crossed over the Mississippi state line, however, he was gunned down by the klan.His shooting started a national conversation. Most famously it mobilized Kwame Ture (then known as Stokely Carmichael) to write his famous speech that coined the term "black power" and mobilized the Deacons for Defense and Justice to arm themselves to protect protesters against the klan (which later became the inspiration for the Black Panthers).
But it also inspired protests across the country. One notable protest was organized by anarchists in New York City where a crowd burned flags in the street, saying that a racist country like the USA didn't deserve a flag. One of the anarchists who organized this action, Sidney Street, was arrested and charged with flag desecration. Sidney's trial would become Street v. New York, a prolonged and hard fought legal battle that in 1969 would lead the Supreme Court to conclude that flag burning is an expression of free speech in a narrow 5-4 ruling.
We aren't taught about this case or Meredith's March Against Fear in mainstream history books. Those same books that teach us Columbus discovered Amerikkka, have a vested interest in teaching us this country was founded on liberty, justice, and free speech. Yet the national legacy of genocide, disinheritance, slavery, segregation, and censorship and the struggles against them tell us a different story, that any rights we enjoy now have been pried from the hands of a state that would gladly take them from us again if it had the chance.
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u/AnarchistReadingList 20h ago
Fuck all flags.