‘Woke’ R&B singer and Grammy winner, Macy Gray, is pitching a change in the color of Old Glory and adding two more stars to represent the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico and Washington DC. This isn’t an original thought. Michael Ingbar, Presidential candidate in 2020, has started several petitions to change the look of the flag. The latest yellow, black and white gives recognition to Black Lives Matter. Then there is the “rainbow flag” proposed by the gay pride group. But Gray’s proposal was designed by a nine-year-old for a class project with the idea of unity by changing the stars to colors reflecting every skin tone.

Gray claims the American flag’s reputation is beyond repair after being carried into the Capitol on January 6, and thinks the flag has been hijacked as a code for a specific belief. In her world, she thinks it should go the way of the Confederate battle flag that symbolizes the opposition to the abolishment of slavery. She proposes changing Old Glory into New Glory by making the white stripe off-white because America is not pure, and the stars colored to reflect every skin tone. The blue and red remain, standing for vigilance and valor. The flag was revealed in a Juneteenth day op-ed commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

The pop star is demanding a ‘woke’ makeover for what she calls a ‘divisive’ American flag. "’Woke’ is a slang term that is easing into the mainstream from some varieties of a dialect called African American Vernacular English (sometimes called AAVE)," according to Merriam-Webster. Originating from an Erykah Badu song in 2008, ‘Stay woke’ became a watch word in the Black community. After the death of Michael Brown, the term ‘woke’ became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement, and became a word of action.

What Old Glory stands for goes beyond skin color, and whomever tries to make it a racial symbol just doesn’t understand what the flag represents. This nation was founded amidst a world of slavery. Old Glory is the standard the world looks to for this kind of freedom. It’s a symbol, not that slavery ended at that moment. It was raised and put in the hands of freedom fighters and set forth as a standard that from that day forward every battle and every decision made was a step towards that freedom. Every time the flag is unfurled and held high, it isn’t that slavery has ended, but it’s the standard for which we stand and fight that battle under the declaration made in 1776. It sends a message to tyranny that you’re going down. It’s called Old Glory as a symbol that God founded this nation to fight for freedom worldwide and when it’s carried into battles abroad, God shows His Glory.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The ‘woke’ crowd is using a term that means actively attentive and advancing it in the opposite direction. They demand a social justice while carrying sticks that are meant to do harm. The origin of ‘woke’ actually goes back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:5 when the serpent told Eve if she eats of the tree of good and evil, it will make them ‘woke’. Believing the serpent, Adam and Eve’s world crumbled when they ate fruit of the tree and they were taken into slavery out of their freedom. Now, six thousand years later, the world is reaching into the tree of good and evil wanting to be ‘woke’. Eat this fruit, change the flag, collapse freedom, embrace bondage, and be ‘woke’.

Old Glory is a standard for freedom, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.” These stirring words were designed to convince Americans to put their lives on the line against the mother country. They are words against tyranny and slavery. It is the history of all men, “created equal” that all may pursue life, liberty and happiness.

In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima and into history. Clint Eastwood directed the movie, ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ based on the book by James Bradley about six men who survived a bitter battle to raise the flag over Iwo Jima. Johnny Cash sang about one of them, a Pima Indian boy who watched the government take their water rights and forced them out of their home plunging them into poverty. When old enough, the boy, Ira Hayes, enlists in the Marine Corps and risked his life to plant the battle flag on Iwo Jima. His story has a sad ending, but the flag is what motivated him his whole life.

A retired history teacher told Northwest Observer, “1619 is a fantasy. America was never meant to be a country dominated by slavery, although slavery was and had been practiced for centuries by natives before the Vikings, Portuguese and Columbus. CRT is just wrong. America has been continuing from 1865 to become the nation promised by our constitution. Somehow there's a movement to reverse all we gained in the turbulent 60's and 70's. It's like Martin Luther King never lived. I went to Cuba during the missile crisis. I love the flag and our country. We are going through a struggle right now but the strength represented by our flag will straighten our course.”

The ‘woke’ crowd wants you ashamed of who you are, ashamed of the flag, ashamed of this nation. Changing the flag will strip the hope of every young person, especially minorities. Change the flag and you have no standard for freedom.

This July 4th, wave Old Glory proudly as a standard for freedom for all.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2021-07-04 06:48:08