The American Flag: Recoverable or No?

I've mentioned to a few folks recently that it feels like the US flag has been stolen. I feel no sense of pride in the flag. This is a sentiment I've heard others talk about as well. Mostly, it gets tracked back to the attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021. But for me it goes further back than that. I'm not sure when exactly the flag soured for me, but long before it was associated with a mob on the capital I'd developed an association of it with racists and Christian Nationalists. When discussing this feeling with Dems and the Indivisible-type crowds, it always seems to garner the same response: "That's our flag, too. We need to reclaim it. We can't let them have it!" But the way I see it lately, in order to take it back they have to let it go. Will they ever? Can they, even? I think to reclaim the flag—to liberate it from the spiteful grip that holds it now—it has to no longer represent hatred, oppression, and white supremacy. And when in US history has it shaken the weight of…