Brooklyn Council Member Jumaane Williams last week paid tribute to National Flay Day, saying that it is “an important opportunity to reflect on what our flag represents to the nation as a symbol and on the ideals that all Americans profess to uphold.
“This past year has demonstrated that there are many on the Right, with the President leading the way, who have subscribed to a perversion of patriotism that leads them to label acts of protest and dissent as disrespectful, unpatriotic, and un-American,” said Williams, of Grenadian heritage, who represents the 45th Council District in Brooklyn.
“The professed patriotism of the President, literally wrapping himself in the flag while expressing hatred toward people on the basis of race, religion, acts of peaceful protest, or even basic dissent, belies what America, and our flag, should represent,” he added.
“We should stand for the ideals of independence, of free thought and free expression, of equity and justice,” Williams continued.
He said acts of protest that are “demonized as ‘against the flag’ or, more bafflingly, ‘against the troops’ are in reality a recognition of our failure to uphold these ideals.
“On Flag Day, let us make a different kind of pledge — to live up to the ideals we claim to elevate,” the outspoken legislator said.
