The Pride Flag: The Symbol of America’s Identity Crisis

June 14, 2021

Recently, the Pentagon upheld its ban on LGBTQ pride flags being flown at military bases, upholding the policy originally set into place by Mark Esper, former Secretary of Defense to the Trump administration. 

The Defense Department “will maintain the existing policy from July 2020 regarding the display or depiction of unofficial flags,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Friday at a news briefing, confirming that “there won’t be an exception this month for the Pride flag.”

This measure shocked and angered many Biden voters, who had voted for him under the presumption that he would make the military “more inclusive” to members of the LGBTQ community. 

Then-candidate Biden tweeted last July, stating: “Banning the Confederate flag from military installations was long overdue. Banning the LGBTQ Pride flag — the very symbol of diversity and inclusion — is undeniably wrong. The Pentagon should ensure it is authorized, or as President, I will.”

There is something odd about this statement, though. Joe Biden, now the 46th President of the United States, called the LGBTQ pride flag “the very symbol of diversity and inclusion”. Is the American flag, the most recognizable emblem of our republic, not the symbol of what is by far the most tolerant, white-majority country in the history of the world? 

This might seem like a small observation, nit-picky, a stretch. The president’s choice of words here, however, seem to be indicative of a greater phenomenon centered around identity—  or at least the modern left’s current conception of what identity is in a societal context. 

The pride flag is recognizable to most by its rainbow stripes, supposedly representing the diversity of the LGBTQ community. Most of those who read American Pigeon by now surely understand the left-winged theory of intersectionality being at the core of this flag’s existence. Indeed, the pride flag, like every other flag, is a visual representation of what the movement supposedly stands for. In this case, the Pride movement supposedly stands for diversity and inclusion. 

What is interesting about the pride flag, however, is that, unlike the American flag, which visually distinguishes the United States as one commonwealth of sovereign states, the pride flag portrays each identity ‘group’ as its own sovereign entity. Whether or not the words ‘sovereign’ or ‘sovereignty’ are mentioned outright, it is clear that the autonomy of each group, as opposed to the autonomy of the individual, regardless of their supposed group membership, is primarily emphasized throughout the movement. 

This is intersectionality at work. The sovereignty of different identity groups seems to supersede the sovereignty of a unified American people and nation. This reasoning is most likely the result of the widespread adoption of the false narrative that America is the land of brutally oppressed minorities at the hands of the evil straight white male – a narrative that permeates the Pride movement.

pride flag

Indeed, the Pride movement, like most left-wing movements, are under the absurd presumption that America in 2021 is just as exclusive as it was in 1921, or even 1821.

The new pride flag, which was created by LGBTQ activist of Intersex Equality Rights UK, Valentino Vecchieti, comes with the addition of a purple ring on a yellow background, to symbolize the inclusion of intersex people. 

The colors white, pink, and light blue symbolize transgender people, while black and brown symbolize people of color within the LGBTQ community. 

The conventional rainbow stripes, of course, represent homosexuals. This newly amended pride flag seems to be an expansion of intersectional politics, emphasizing the sovereignty of each identity group over a unified, diverse American people. 

With this in mind, we once again return to the modern left’s conception of identity. Such a topic reminds me of a mandatory introductory class for all freshmen at my university. The class was focused on helping students make decisions regarding their future career paths. In one lesson, the class focus became centered around “finding our identity” in an effort to better define our career paths. 

dimensions of identity

Unfortunately, what I expected to be a seminar about focusing on who we were as people, such as our interests, talents, or current skill level (and how we could cultivate and improve that skill level), was instead nothing more than a box-checking exercise, obviously derived from the fashionable ‘woke’ teachings of intersectionality: 

It became clear that the center of identity in this context, being taught at a liberal arts institution, was entirely about how privileged or oppressed you were depending on which boxes you were able to check off. 

Most of the traits listed in the diagram above are hardly things that people can control, and yet college students are taught to believe that these factors can somehow properly index the entirety of one’s identity. Make no mistake, certain external traits such as race, ethnicity, sex, or religion can surely influence what one would consider to be their identity. But to center the focus of identity around these external traits, as if one’s entire identity can be quantified by completing an identity politics-driven box checking exercise is patently absurd and antithetical to the principle of genuine equality. 

Our education system, from children in pre-K to college undergraduates, should teach that one’s identity is ultimately something that can only be defined and constructed by themselves. Whether someone decides that they are gay or straight is surely to have a significant impact on their identity, but such a choice should never supersede the content of their character, talents, or skillset. These are the parts of one’s identity that ultimately wind up determining a person’s ability to either make the world a better place, or to be an unproductive member of society. 

It is this current identity dilemma that is ultimately symbolized through modern culture’s wholesale endorsement of the Pride movement. Identity groups are treated as individual sovereign entities with nothing to unify them except for the common belief that they are all supposedly oppressed by American society. Conventional American traditions that used to unify all Americans are repeatedly denigrated and denounced as racist or derogatory. Any instance of genuine patriotism for one’s country, as opposed to the Pride movement or to their identity group is strongly discouraged. It is this new dynamic which threatens to further aggravate our nation’s socio-cultural fabric until there is nothing left but warring tribes clinging to their ‘group identity’. 

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