Taking Action to Reclaim the Flag

It actually owns the American flag. What there's a misconception about that, I believe And that's why I want to talk to Alexis Patar Alexis Patar, thank you very much. Um C produced, right and directed. Reclaim the flag. It's a thirty minute short film It's time to reclaim the flag Depending on how the United States feels about you, will depend on how you feel about the flag think of trauma. I am not welcome here. The values that we want this to stand for feel far from us right now If I'm on Ginder and I see an American flag emoji in someone's bio, I think that is a Rublican. How do I feel about the United States? She's messy. She's scary. She's beautiful. My father, my grandfather, fought for our freedoms. Our security. seems to me that the flag is being used in a way that wants to take away that from Me and girls like me. erasure of a lot of queer progress happening right before our eyes. I feel like we're under attack right now This flag represented unity. How are we united? This is the moment when we can ask ourselves, what are we going to do? How do we want to be in the world We can't change what we don't face. It's something that we need to own The American flag is not their flag. We should be proud of the American flag. We're Americans. There's going to have to be a lot more fight in us than there is right now. This is the future. What do we do with you You know Welcome, thank you. How'd give the idea to do this Hey, how you doing, Don U great So I came up with this idea February of last year It was after Trump was reelected. I was in Tokyo with my husband and three kids in a family trip We had just had sex and I'm looking at BBC catching up on news And was a reading about proroject twenty twenty five U and really honestly like scared about where the country's going fearful about, you know, U the standing of gay marriage and what would be the market points for us to leave the country. So we're like back in that loop of a conversation And I started thinking about how I feel about being an American. gay, I'm married, I'm an Arab American I never felt totally embraced by the American flag or America, I should say And separately, I'dve been obsessed with this narrative about the American flag and how the left basically let it be co opted by the right. Yeah. There's like two separate narratives. One was the co opting of the flag and You would see it Like The class is on the back of the car truck We're driving on the highway and it's like a massive American flag And it was like, we're coming for you. Like that was the message and I started really thinking about the American flag, what it was intended to be as a unification, but had never obviously been realized by most of Americans, or at least today. I wanted to basically talk about the dilemma that many people feel that feel marginalized by America. A. get into a conversation. Ive specifically focused on LGBTQ plus getet into conversation like, why did that community feel marginalized But then getetis past that, there's like a level of acceptance, get us past that conversation. And at the end of the day I'm American. Like I'm American What am I doing today to make this country a place that I'm proud of? and how am I contributing to really makeake a country that I want my kids to grow up in And so we focused on just the American flag as a symbol and we' started with that. The reason I was drawn to this, you know, when I heard that you were doing it, and I said, I got to have to do something with Alexis is because I actually wrote about this had a book that came out in In twenty twenty four at the end of twenty twenty four. And I talk about Tim and I, this is like not long after, you know, I got let go from CNN and I was saying, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And so my happy place is out on a boat. I love the water of I Pisces. I come from Louisiana. It's water everywhere. So I talk about it. And we sometimes when we come back in, we have a boat. and we come back in and Tim starts taking down the flag right, you know, up the boat and put and packing things away and I'm like, no, no, no, no Leave that flag up on the boat or when we get on, I'm like, put the flag up because I feel like that flag has been co opted by the wrong people. And I talk about I the book and I want to what you think about this I said, u When I said the boat This is another venue where the American flag looks perfectly on point, I say. But some days it's hard for me to run the flag up the portside flagpole There are moments when it gives me anxiety just to look at it As a gay man, I have a complicated relationship with the Bible as an African American have a complicated relationship with the flag I grew up reverently gazing at the stars and stripes every morning, reciting those words over and over like a prayer, even as I came to understand that liberty and justice for all didn't include people like me. America was not indivisible. It was starkly divided and always has been. Black and white haveves and have not have nots, Americans who look American like on TV and those who look like they belong somewhere else And so then I go on to talk about it, but a little bit more and I say, these days, a lot of people here and abroad associate the American flag with the most bellicose Narr minded ideology because the ones waving that flag loudest and hardest are bellicose narrow minded ideologues. They wave the flag as a symbol of theic of the America they envision, a country that belongs to them by divine right, not the United States we all share. And to drive that point home, they carry the stars and stripes alongside the stars and bars of the Confederacy, a treasonous junta that literally tore the United States apart in a bloody effort to preserve slavery as an economic engine. The term Christian nationalism rings out with faux nobility, but it is a wolf in sheep's clothing. White supremacy cloaked in evangelical religiosity. What do you think of them Totally. I mean, I think that You know It happened gradually after the Vietnam War, but I think particularly where we are today in kind of this mAaga centric place the flag has been weaponize and continually weaponize and continually use to divide. Um, but I think what I really understood for myself was You know How do I feel about the American flag? Like what are my feelings about the American flag? And And ultimately, I need to accept that I am American and And it What would it take for me to be proud of the American flag? Like I can look at the reasons why I struggle with the American flag being a gay man, growing up during the AIDS crisis. I get why I struggle with the American flag. But I need to kind of snap into solution and think, well what would it take for me to feel proud about America today and I think that was the point of the documentary is like, yes, let's look at the reasons why we feel this way about the American flag because we all have individual reasons why we did not feel embraced by the American flag But ultimately, if we're American I think most people, at least on the left, feel defeated right now. and That only gets us so far, like we actually need to really start to activate and snap into solution, which is I need to be proud of America. and fight for the America I believe in that never was realized.'s exactly what you Yeah, you considered as an Arab American leaving American, you said, like you just said, you realize that you are American. but in the in this dock You You speak to nearly fifty LGBTQ plus leaders and you ask them, what does the American flag mean to you What does the American flag mean to you, Alexis Well, it's changed. I mean, you know, my parents were American history professors And so I grew up Um, leararning a lot about history. my dad's Syrian. I don't think I ever felt embraced by America being an Arab gay American. I never looked at the American flag as something I related to at all. I mean When I was in the eighties, I did have an American speedo. that I would wear in Central Park at the rambles. just just to be just to put some context, but there was irony If you know if you know you know. Yeah ye. and I never felt like particularly proud of I didn't feel the flag represented me It felt the flag, the American flag did not embrace me. I felt America hated gayse because I think they did and U Yeah, I didn't feel embraced. So the American flag was always kind of like something that I would slightly fringe from and incrementally in Trump's two presidencies got even more fearful, you know, around or not fearful the wrong way, but I would have this like, oh, yeah, don't stay away from that house. You know, if there's a flag, I'm gonna take my kids away from that house on And we have a house in the middle of Maine, and we also live in Brooklyn. So you don't really see a ton of American flags in Brooklyn, but in the middle of Maine, it's a very American flag country and um So At first, I really struggled with it, but it's why I made the dock is I had to look at why I struggled with it and then think about what it was intended to mean Um And I still believe in See democracy that America was built on And so In the end, I have an American flagoutside my house. big American flag outs our house Brooklyn. Don L Mensch was brought you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Now, if you have been following the news like I have, you probably saw What just happened in Texas State education leaders approved a required reading list that includes Bible passages for public school students. Whether you agree with that decision or not, it raises a big question Who decides where the line is between religion and government? That's exactly why organizations like the Freedom fromom Religion Foundation exists As America approaches its two hundred and fifteth anniversary, it is worth remembering that our Constitution protects your freedom to practice a religion, to change your religion or have no religion at all Those freedoms only work when government stays neutral The founders rejected religious tests and established a government accountable to the people Those principles still matter today. The Freedom Fom Religion Foundation works every day to defend the First Amendment and everybody's freedom of conscience Learn more or become a member. Fr f. US slash D or text D to five eleven five eleven. That's D to five eleven five eleven Text fees may apply Support comes from Le. Now it feels like everywhere you look these days, somebody is talking about weight loss injections. 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I went through this a couple of years ago. This sounds weird, but I live in the same neighborhood as Joy Bayhar And we talked about it because there are people where we live. it's there's red. It's, you know, a lot of red And we said, why is it always why is it always a conservative? So why when you see someone, you know, with with a flag on your? It' me, her and And Sonny Hostst And you see someone with a flag on their truck or their car and automatically you feel like ooh, you know you get got this sort of tight feeling in your chest or like you become suspicious. I think you mentioned something like that And we said, you know what? we should start displaying the flag more on our homes. And you know, I do. I do the flag, I do the buuntings, I do it. I use my dad's flag. I hang it outside of the house and then I fold it back up like it is. like it should be because my dad actually served this country, my sister dad who's departed, my sister's departed, serve this country, and I have many family members who serve this country. And all three of us came to the conclusion that we are just as deserving of this flag. And some of us may be even more considering the history of know African Americans in this country builduilding the country, helping to build a country for free Um You know So my question and all of that is So then how do we reclaim the flag? Do we display it more? Do we talk about it more? Do we just accept it and for what it is and then fight for it? Like how do we do that? And I asked the same question when we were saying, we're going to reclaim the N word. So how do we reclaim the flag? What does that mean, Alexis Well, I think the answer is obviously complicated, right? And I don't think it's an easy one I think from on a very simple action point, although there's nothing simple about it. I do think you know gettingting people in touch back up for one second. When we shot this documentary We gave each person an American flag B They didn't know they were going to receive it. And so when they held the flag, They They really got in touch with the American flag. They had not held an American flag probably since they were like a kid. And I think it's important for us to reclaim it. We need to go through our individual feelings about Why we why some feel Um Wh some feel not embraced by the American flag or America That has to be accepted. If we do not accept on an individual level, I think it's a person by person at a time we're going to reclaim the flag. I really do. I think it's a person by person. and It is understanding why you didn't feel embraced, but then getting to the place that ultimately You're American and We need to accept that we are American and each person has an act of responsibility to fight for the democracy of this country. So I think There is The answerers two. onene is from an individual level where you actually work through that and come out the other side into a solution oriented action Like putting a flag up U And then the other is, I do think one of the cool things and Andrew Solomon talked about in the documentary and Bilty Jones that If more people put American flags out You wouldn't know if it's a Mga fllag or something like a gay guy like me who's married with three kids, you know? And if everyone put an American flag out or if a lot more people put an American flag out First of all, the negative Um the negative implication or a symbol that we have of this kind of MAGa would be dissipated and also, I think would send a very strong signal to everyone that we believe in the democracy of this country. So I think from a right and a left, I don't think it's quite a b It's not just a partisan thing. I think it could be a bipartisan moment And What are you hopeed to happen? from this, justust what you said Ideally, yeah, that's what yeah, defeinitely would, you know We are starting this movement where it's a very simple, two step process. One is hold an American flag, talk about your feelings Um, feel it Yeah If you never felt embraced by the American flag or You felt that the flag was co opted talk about it And the second is post a video. I think social media for us is obviously a great way that people can connect and And I don't think we You know, we're not u We're not naive and believe that this is good to disappear quickly. But I think the conversation needs to happen in everyone's living room about their feelings about the American flag and just the symbol of what it was supposed to represent, the unification and the ideals of the Constitution and So my hope is, yeah, that people talk about the American flag and bring us back to a place of unification Well, I hope this works because I believe in what you did. The only I love what you're doing. The only thing is that I didn't get to be a part of it. So I'm not happy about that, but I love you anyways Well, thank you, John. I appreciate it. Thank you. Alexis Bitar It's called Reclaim the Flag. It's a thirty minute short film and it is produced by Academy Award winner, Bruce. en. Okay and co produced and directed by Alexis Matara. Thank you, Alexis Thank you so much Thanks for watching everybody. I appreciate you Make sure you like, subscribe, and turn on notifications so you don't miss anything We're live weekdays at ten AM and five PM Eastern with new content at two PM Eastern, sometimes at eight PM Follow the Don Lemmon Show wherever you are YouTube, TikTok, Instram, Facebook, Twitch, Substack, Spotify, iH radio, Apple podcasts. We are everywhere And we're there every day. And if you want a little more, join the Limit community, exclusive posts, behind the scenes, live chats Just hit join or check the channel pages. All right