Black Americans have deep and conflicting feelings about American civic symbols.

Evidence

So when I was young, that flag outside our home never made sense to me. How could this Black man, having seen firsthand the way his country abused Black Americans, the way it refused to treat us as full citizens, proudly fly its banner? My father had endured segregation in housing and school, discrimination in employment, and harassment by the police. He was one of the smartest people I knew, and yet by the time I was a work-study student in college, I was earning more an hour than he did. I didn’t understand his patriotism. It deeply embarrassed me. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 78

Categorization

• XREF: The Black-veteran-and-flag tension connects to The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s theme of loyalty and belong under a skeptical national gaze.