On this patriotic holiday weekend, let's talk about flag burning. And whatever you're ranting about now, and whether you are sick of the word "intentional,' and all other urgent items!
Unrelated to all of this (which I am really interested to come back and respond to more – I appreciate all the thoughtful dialogue so much):
I don't know why I thought that I could bring up politics and then expect anyone to talk about anything else. It seems that way at a dinner table and it seems that way in comments too. However, I did say that I wanted this to be a place for people to come throughout the long weekend and talk about anything going on with themselves that they wanted to so I'll be the tone deaf ninny that starts it by telling you when the word intention finally broke my brain. Though I like the concept, it's become as overused and inaccurately used as literally for a long while now. So when I read a dermatologist commenting in Vogue on the efficacy of those Kim Kardashian face wrap things (remember those from a few weeks ago?), and the doctor said that they could be effective for lymphatic drainage if applied "with intention," I was done.
Now feel free to comment on any innocuous thing you want to here also. I would love to talk about it.
“Intention” is up there with “manifest” on my list of good words people have ruined.
Is it the weekend? Oh yeah … I suck at keeping track of days and forgot it was Labor Day weekend until Thursday night. Which is fine—I’m sort of a Scrooge about holidays, even though this one celebrates labor unions and I’m all for them. I’m doing my part this weekend by working on my book manuscript about Woody Guthrie, which makes it Labor Day appropriate. And I’m editing with intention because I need to manifest a finished project four weeks from today.
Writing is exhausting! Especially memoir. It’s a good kind of tired, but it comes from using so much energy. It took me a long time to realize that and it still surprises me sometimes.
That's a valid use of my mom's and my least favorite expression. And you're catching me right when I am at the very beginning of writing what I consider my first book. I published two others, but they were really interview based, me pretending to be Studs Terkel, so they didn't require much writing. I'm glad you're giving me the heads up as to what I'm getting into. Is yours nonfiction?
Your pretending to be Studs Terkel counts! What’s the topic of the next book?
My book is a hybrid memoir/historical narrative. It’s about Woody Guthrie, and how I spent his centennial year traveling the country and spending time with his people, in his places, in an attempt to figure out how to live my life. It’s interspersed with a six-week letter exchange between him and his future wife when they were trying to figure out how to live under similar circumstances. So, it’s research-based history and bio (I spent four weeks researching in his archives), and my story of that year.
Oh I think I have asked you about that book ten trillion times but thanks for patiently answering me again. It sounds fascinating. The book I'm working on right now is a memoir. Yikes.
Whoever got into their email and spotted the typo there before I fixed it, enter here by giving the "incorrect" answer and you can win something. I'm thinking about what that would be but it won't be nothing. And I love you either way!
As a Black woman whose roots are both Foundational Black
American and a direct descendant of the Enslaved as well as West Indian with direct lineage to Mother England, I don't care about the flag. It should be burned as it is rooted in evil and is a part of the atrocities thus country has committed. With that being said, even if I did feel a connection to the flag I agree that individuals have the right to burn it.
I have noticed that naturalized citizen often overlook whether intentional or not the atrocities their new country has committed and in many cases continue to commit. The hard, historical truth is that this country was founded on deceit, theft and violence while fleeing “oppression”.
Thank you so much, Meeka, for reading my piece and sharing your perspective. I agree—the flag carries a history of violence, and that truth can’t be separated from anything positive it represents. Sadly, naturalized and natural-born citizens often take their rights and responsibilities for granted. My work focuses precisely on those atrocities and the contradictions at the core of this country’s founding. Sometimes, horrible enough to still make me cry while writing downright boring reports.
That’s also why the right to burn the flag is so essential. Our constitutional protections, however imperfectly applied, give us the space to resist, to call out injustice, and to keep pressing for change. The system is deeply flawed, but it still has some “good bones” that make it worth fighting to improve. Ha! In Florida, an unrepealed law still technically allows a bounty on my husband, who is Choctaw. That contradiction—between the ideals of freedom and the persistence of injustice—is precisely what we must continue to confront together. -K.T.
I thought I left a message but I don’t think that it went through. We can both agree that Florida is “strange fruit” figuratively and literally. With regards to natural-born citizens.. if only Black people ever had the luxury.
You are on a roll, Karim! Sometimes, writing from a place of furiousness can produce great and important work. Like what you've shared here. I think that should be your motto, actually: Get angry and write about it!
Cathy, thank you. After months of fear and tears, my husband took me protesting—and it was magic! I realized not everyone in this country hates me, and fear turned into a need to use my voice. -K.T.
Sharon, you nailed it! I always think of this as having been a Fourth of July cover, but actually it was timed to the November '92 election. Good memory!
Like I said, it was my first ever issue of Sassy (and why I'm still here today!). I was 12, I loooooved Blossom, and my mom was willing to get me the magazine because she was on the cover.
That's so awesome! Mayim came on Jane radio once and we got to reminisce about this issue, but she and Christina Kelly have stayed really close I think and done some other wonderful projects together. And now I have mayim to thank for you!
I agree. Flag burning is protected speech. But regarding dissent, I would have liked to have seen more speaking out when the Biden administration fired thousands of people for not agreeing to be coerced into taking a liability free vaccine which admittedly did not prevent transmission and, in the case of Pfizer, was produced by a company that had previously paid a record-setting fine of over two billion dollars for healthcare fraud. A lot of talk about “fascism” these days, but where were these supposedly courageous voices cowering when respected doctors and scientists who disagreed with dubious junk science during the pandemic were wiped off the internet by massive censorship? Currently although research papers are coming out all over the world raising concerns about the safety of Covid vaccines—I saw a press conference in Japan with doctors from multiple specialties expressing extreme concern and demanding Covid vaccines be paused until further research—there is little to no coverage or discussion of this in the US press.
I really appreciate you showing this perspective. And in terms of courageous voices and important topics, I think it is all well worth talking openly about. Thanks for doing it here.
Are you conflating flag burning with a vaccine that was never supposed to prevent COVID? Instead, it was supposed to protect against severe illness or death.
Besides flag burning, this piece prominently addresses the issue of dissent. Coerced medical treatment has long been considered unethical and a Nuremberg violation. The previous administration took the extraordinary and, to my knowledge, unprecedented action of firing thousands of people by government fiat. Dissent was widely suppressed. Even Mark Zuckerberg published a letter regretting caving to government pressure. To my mind, this was even a bigger story than Watergate, yet the press remained mostly silent. Now when Covid vaccines have the highest reported number of injuries and deaths of any vaccine in history, radio silence. For instance, recent research from Scandinavia and Israel reports substantially increased miscarriages after Covid vaccination during pregnancy. I believe the public has a right to this information.
I'm liking this because even though I don't agree with or trust some of the opinions and research, I think it's so important to talk about these issues with each other and stay open minded about all of it. I appreciate you being here and not agreeing with the majority of the other commenters.
I am all for the public having access to health information but it must be from credible sources. Unfortunately, some laypeople don’t know how to go about sourcing credible evidence and mass hysteria ensues. It’s why I have always had an issue with journalist who did not have a health background writing health related pieces. But to satisfy my own curiosity, I did go do some digging to try and figure out where you might have received this information. Here’s what I came up with. With regards to Scandinavia the large registry studies which include NEJM/JAMA and a 2024 BMJ Nordic study didn’t find any crease in miscarriage after vaccination or an uptick in related adverse neonatal outcomes. The Israel “report” is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. No one have evaluated their methodology. There’s nothing in the “journal” that supports its credibility. The information there is meant to be conversation starters and not taken at face value as it appears is happening here.
This would be a long, data-driven discussion which should be playing out in the press, not here. Many reputable doctors and researchers have published information on this topic. My point is that it is not being reported and discussed with the public. As for “mass hysteria,” neither the media nor government agencies worried about creating that during Covid. Certainly we should not as a society hesitate to explore what transpired or the aftermath.
I am speaking as a public health professional. I have not seen said valid research but to your point, this debate takes away from the premise of the original piece.
I am speaking as an informed citizen. My goal here is not to debate but to point out and in fact agree that tolerating dissent is vital to our society. That clearly did not happen during Covid.
Thank you for raising this, Lisa. I agree that dissent is vital, whether about flag burning or any other issue. The question I keep grappling with—especially in matters of public health—is this: where do individual rights end when they begin to infringe on the rights of others?
That’s why I believe it’s so important to protect the right to protest and resist—even symbolically through burning the flag. Our rights should never be partisan; they are the foundation that allows us to challenge power and hold this flawed system accountable, regardless of who is in office. -K.T.
There is only one kind of right, and that is an unalienable right. What that means is that it cannot be separate from your existence, that it is an unavoidable condition of being a human. It is to say that you have a right to be a human because you ARE a human.
Humans are sovereign individuals with a mind of our own, thus we have an inalienable right to self-determination. We are not predisposed to a genetic hierarchy like ants or bees. We own our own lives.
Because we have intellectual and physical limitations such as the inability to know and do everything, we are interdependent upon each other through trade and shared resources and shared ideas, etc. Therefore we have the right to free association.
We trade our skills and time/life for stuff that we may want or need. Our stuff is therefore an extension of our life, thus we have a right to property.
We have a natural instinct of self preservation that extends to the life we work so hard for, thus we have a right to defense of self family friends community property by any means necessary and/or available.
(I think you get the idea.)
If government vanishes, or on the other side of the universe where government doesn't apply, there are still rights. The constitution is largely irrelevant in this regard. The bill of rights simply recognizes rights and seeks to legally protect them by prohibiting government from violating them.
"The question I keep grappling with—especially in matters of public health—is this: where do individual rights end when they begin to infringe on the rights of others?"
Government is an infringement of rights because everything it does is by means of violence. Wrong right good bad or evil, you are to obey it's edicts or else be punished by being fined/extorted, abducted and caged, beaten tazed or shot, your property destroyed or stolen from you, etc.
It is systematic violence on behalf of the voters/constituency. At it's core, it is simply part of the population conspiring to subjugate everyone else. Voters demand government that makes laws on their behalf that are enFORCEd through violence.
No one has a right to violate, individually, as a group, or by proxy of another entity. The right to violate simply does not exist.
For sure! Do you know that the original sassiest girl in America has been back in touch with me recently and it's such a thrill to keep up with her – she's a grandma!
Excellent and thoughtful writing, Karim! I’m always so torn on flag issues. I’ve had the privileges afforded to me solely from the luck of being a white American woman, but this country has done so much that doesn’t align with my values and, the Constitution. And yep, I’m cynical about how the far right has co-opted the flag. I appreciate having this differing take and perspective.
The E.D. is awful, though. If one part of the First Amendment doesn’t stand, the others can and will be dismantled, too. Frankly, I think we need more protests with that level of intensity.
Unrelated to all of this (which I am really interested to come back and respond to more – I appreciate all the thoughtful dialogue so much):
I don't know why I thought that I could bring up politics and then expect anyone to talk about anything else. It seems that way at a dinner table and it seems that way in comments too. However, I did say that I wanted this to be a place for people to come throughout the long weekend and talk about anything going on with themselves that they wanted to so I'll be the tone deaf ninny that starts it by telling you when the word intention finally broke my brain. Though I like the concept, it's become as overused and inaccurately used as literally for a long while now. So when I read a dermatologist commenting in Vogue on the efficacy of those Kim Kardashian face wrap things (remember those from a few weeks ago?), and the doctor said that they could be effective for lymphatic drainage if applied "with intention," I was done.
Now feel free to comment on any innocuous thing you want to here also. I would love to talk about it.
“Intention” is up there with “manifest” on my list of good words people have ruined.
Is it the weekend? Oh yeah … I suck at keeping track of days and forgot it was Labor Day weekend until Thursday night. Which is fine—I’m sort of a Scrooge about holidays, even though this one celebrates labor unions and I’m all for them. I’m doing my part this weekend by working on my book manuscript about Woody Guthrie, which makes it Labor Day appropriate. And I’m editing with intention because I need to manifest a finished project four weeks from today.
You and I have so much in common! Embrace the journey to your happy place.
Writing is exhausting! Especially memoir. It’s a good kind of tired, but it comes from using so much energy. It took me a long time to realize that and it still surprises me sometimes.
My happy place: a finished book after nearly 14 years of work.
No one told me this, but it turns out? Writing books is hard. And time-consuming.
That's a valid use of my mom's and my least favorite expression. And you're catching me right when I am at the very beginning of writing what I consider my first book. I published two others, but they were really interview based, me pretending to be Studs Terkel, so they didn't require much writing. I'm glad you're giving me the heads up as to what I'm getting into. Is yours nonfiction?
Your pretending to be Studs Terkel counts! What’s the topic of the next book?
My book is a hybrid memoir/historical narrative. It’s about Woody Guthrie, and how I spent his centennial year traveling the country and spending time with his people, in his places, in an attempt to figure out how to live my life. It’s interspersed with a six-week letter exchange between him and his future wife when they were trying to figure out how to live under similar circumstances. So, it’s research-based history and bio (I spent four weeks researching in his archives), and my story of that year.
Oh I think I have asked you about that book ten trillion times but thanks for patiently answering me again. It sounds fascinating. The book I'm working on right now is a memoir. Yikes.
Whoever got into their email and spotted the typo there before I fixed it, enter here by giving the "incorrect" answer and you can win something. I'm thinking about what that would be but it won't be nothing. And I love you either way!
I'm gonna link this article to ever person whining about "leftist America-hating flag burners."
This is so very nuanced and wise.
I'm so glad to hear your reaction to it and you're so right that it's a great response to that ridiculous accusation.
Thank you so much for this. I really hoped the piece would spark exactly that kind of deeper conversation about what dissent means. -K.T.
What does it mean to you?
As a Black woman whose roots are both Foundational Black
American and a direct descendant of the Enslaved as well as West Indian with direct lineage to Mother England, I don't care about the flag. It should be burned as it is rooted in evil and is a part of the atrocities thus country has committed. With that being said, even if I did feel a connection to the flag I agree that individuals have the right to burn it.
I love this point. Thank you, Meeka.
I have noticed that naturalized citizen often overlook whether intentional or not the atrocities their new country has committed and in many cases continue to commit. The hard, historical truth is that this country was founded on deceit, theft and violence while fleeing “oppression”.
Thank you so much, Meeka, for reading my piece and sharing your perspective. I agree—the flag carries a history of violence, and that truth can’t be separated from anything positive it represents. Sadly, naturalized and natural-born citizens often take their rights and responsibilities for granted. My work focuses precisely on those atrocities and the contradictions at the core of this country’s founding. Sometimes, horrible enough to still make me cry while writing downright boring reports.
That’s also why the right to burn the flag is so essential. Our constitutional protections, however imperfectly applied, give us the space to resist, to call out injustice, and to keep pressing for change. The system is deeply flawed, but it still has some “good bones” that make it worth fighting to improve. Ha! In Florida, an unrepealed law still technically allows a bounty on my husband, who is Choctaw. That contradiction—between the ideals of freedom and the persistence of injustice—is precisely what we must continue to confront together. -K.T.
I thought I left a message but I don’t think that it went through. We can both agree that Florida is “strange fruit” figuratively and literally. With regards to natural-born citizens.. if only Black people ever had the luxury.
Yes! I'm learning so much from you and really appreciate all of it.
This is so important.
This is a good one, Jane. You may have to repeat it in order to reach eyes with the will and power to address the issue effectively.
What a great thought. I will definitely get it out there as widely as possible. Thank you!
You are on a roll, Karim! Sometimes, writing from a place of furiousness can produce great and important work. Like what you've shared here. I think that should be your motto, actually: Get angry and write about it!
Cathy, thank you. After months of fear and tears, my husband took me protesting—and it was magic! I realized not everyone in this country hates me, and fear turned into a need to use my voice. -K.T.
Well I sure love you! And you're right. Fear can turn into urgency to speak!
This was the Mayim Biyalik cover, and the first issue of Sassy that I ever encountered.
Sharon, you nailed it! I always think of this as having been a Fourth of July cover, but actually it was timed to the November '92 election. Good memory!
Like I said, it was my first ever issue of Sassy (and why I'm still here today!). I was 12, I loooooved Blossom, and my mom was willing to get me the magazine because she was on the cover.
That's so awesome! Mayim came on Jane radio once and we got to reminisce about this issue, but she and Christina Kelly have stayed really close I think and done some other wonderful projects together. And now I have mayim to thank for you!
I agree. Flag burning is protected speech. But regarding dissent, I would have liked to have seen more speaking out when the Biden administration fired thousands of people for not agreeing to be coerced into taking a liability free vaccine which admittedly did not prevent transmission and, in the case of Pfizer, was produced by a company that had previously paid a record-setting fine of over two billion dollars for healthcare fraud. A lot of talk about “fascism” these days, but where were these supposedly courageous voices cowering when respected doctors and scientists who disagreed with dubious junk science during the pandemic were wiped off the internet by massive censorship? Currently although research papers are coming out all over the world raising concerns about the safety of Covid vaccines—I saw a press conference in Japan with doctors from multiple specialties expressing extreme concern and demanding Covid vaccines be paused until further research—there is little to no coverage or discussion of this in the US press.
I really appreciate you showing this perspective. And in terms of courageous voices and important topics, I think it is all well worth talking openly about. Thanks for doing it here.
Are you conflating flag burning with a vaccine that was never supposed to prevent COVID? Instead, it was supposed to protect against severe illness or death.
Besides flag burning, this piece prominently addresses the issue of dissent. Coerced medical treatment has long been considered unethical and a Nuremberg violation. The previous administration took the extraordinary and, to my knowledge, unprecedented action of firing thousands of people by government fiat. Dissent was widely suppressed. Even Mark Zuckerberg published a letter regretting caving to government pressure. To my mind, this was even a bigger story than Watergate, yet the press remained mostly silent. Now when Covid vaccines have the highest reported number of injuries and deaths of any vaccine in history, radio silence. For instance, recent research from Scandinavia and Israel reports substantially increased miscarriages after Covid vaccination during pregnancy. I believe the public has a right to this information.
I'm liking this because even though I don't agree with or trust some of the opinions and research, I think it's so important to talk about these issues with each other and stay open minded about all of it. I appreciate you being here and not agreeing with the majority of the other commenters.
I am all for the public having access to health information but it must be from credible sources. Unfortunately, some laypeople don’t know how to go about sourcing credible evidence and mass hysteria ensues. It’s why I have always had an issue with journalist who did not have a health background writing health related pieces. But to satisfy my own curiosity, I did go do some digging to try and figure out where you might have received this information. Here’s what I came up with. With regards to Scandinavia the large registry studies which include NEJM/JAMA and a 2024 BMJ Nordic study didn’t find any crease in miscarriage after vaccination or an uptick in related adverse neonatal outcomes. The Israel “report” is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. No one have evaluated their methodology. There’s nothing in the “journal” that supports its credibility. The information there is meant to be conversation starters and not taken at face value as it appears is happening here.
This would be a long, data-driven discussion which should be playing out in the press, not here. Many reputable doctors and researchers have published information on this topic. My point is that it is not being reported and discussed with the public. As for “mass hysteria,” neither the media nor government agencies worried about creating that during Covid. Certainly we should not as a society hesitate to explore what transpired or the aftermath.
I am speaking as a public health professional. I have not seen said valid research but to your point, this debate takes away from the premise of the original piece.
I am speaking as an informed citizen. My goal here is not to debate but to point out and in fact agree that tolerating dissent is vital to our society. That clearly did not happen during Covid.
Thank you for doing this research/fact checking
Thank you for raising this, Lisa. I agree that dissent is vital, whether about flag burning or any other issue. The question I keep grappling with—especially in matters of public health—is this: where do individual rights end when they begin to infringe on the rights of others?
That’s why I believe it’s so important to protect the right to protest and resist—even symbolically through burning the flag. Our rights should never be partisan; they are the foundation that allows us to challenge power and hold this flawed system accountable, regardless of who is in office. -K.T.
Could not agree more.
There is only one kind of right, and that is an unalienable right. What that means is that it cannot be separate from your existence, that it is an unavoidable condition of being a human. It is to say that you have a right to be a human because you ARE a human.
Humans are sovereign individuals with a mind of our own, thus we have an inalienable right to self-determination. We are not predisposed to a genetic hierarchy like ants or bees. We own our own lives.
Because we have intellectual and physical limitations such as the inability to know and do everything, we are interdependent upon each other through trade and shared resources and shared ideas, etc. Therefore we have the right to free association.
We trade our skills and time/life for stuff that we may want or need. Our stuff is therefore an extension of our life, thus we have a right to property.
We have a natural instinct of self preservation that extends to the life we work so hard for, thus we have a right to defense of self family friends community property by any means necessary and/or available.
(I think you get the idea.)
If government vanishes, or on the other side of the universe where government doesn't apply, there are still rights. The constitution is largely irrelevant in this regard. The bill of rights simply recognizes rights and seeks to legally protect them by prohibiting government from violating them.
"The question I keep grappling with—especially in matters of public health—is this: where do individual rights end when they begin to infringe on the rights of others?"
Government is an infringement of rights because everything it does is by means of violence. Wrong right good bad or evil, you are to obey it's edicts or else be punished by being fined/extorted, abducted and caged, beaten tazed or shot, your property destroyed or stolen from you, etc.
It is systematic violence on behalf of the voters/constituency. At it's core, it is simply part of the population conspiring to subjugate everyone else. Voters demand government that makes laws on their behalf that are enFORCEd through violence.
No one has a right to violate, individually, as a group, or by proxy of another entity. The right to violate simply does not exist.
Mayim Bialik, Sassiest Girl in America! 🥳🎉
For sure! Do you know that the original sassiest girl in America has been back in touch with me recently and it's such a thrill to keep up with her – she's a grandma!
That's both awesome and completely crazy!!! 😯
Excellent and thoughtful writing, Karim! I’m always so torn on flag issues. I’ve had the privileges afforded to me solely from the luck of being a white American woman, but this country has done so much that doesn’t align with my values and, the Constitution. And yep, I’m cynical about how the far right has co-opted the flag. I appreciate having this differing take and perspective.
The E.D. is awful, though. If one part of the First Amendment doesn’t stand, the others can and will be dismantled, too. Frankly, I think we need more protests with that level of intensity.