The Flag and the Fury

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2020

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do you actually make change in the world? For 126 years, Mississippi has had the Confederate battle flag on their state flag, and they were the last state in the nation where that emblem remained “officially” flying. A few days ago, that flag came down. A few days before that, it coming down would have seemed impossible. Shima Oliaee dives into the story behind this de-flagging: a journey involving a clash of histories, designs, families, and even cheerleading.

This episode was reported and produced by Shima Oliaee.

To read or listen to Kiese Laymon's memoir Heavy: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Heavy/Kiese-Laymon/9781501125669.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we start, this podcast contains a fair amount of strong language.
0:07.0	Okay.
0:08.0	Okay.
0:09.0	Okay.
0:10.0	Okay.
0:11.0	Okay.
0:12.0	You're listening to Radio Lab.
0:15.0	Radio Lab.
0:16.0	From WNYC.
0:17.0	To C.
0:18.0	To C.
0:19.0	To C.
0:20.0	I pledge to never be passive, patriotic or grateful in the face of American abuse.
0:29.8	I pledge to always thoughtfully bite the self-righteous American hand and think it's feeding us.
0:34.8	I pledge that white misoccipients and white Americans will never dictate who I choose to be or what symbols I choose to and be with meaning.
0:43.8	I pledge to not allow American ideals of patriotism and masculinity to make me hard, abusive, generic, and brittle.
0:50.8	I pledge to messily love our people and myself better than I did yesterday.
0:56.8	I pledge to be the kind of free that makes justly winning and gently losing possible.
1:02.8	To never ever confuse cowardice with courage.
1:08.8	I pledge allegiance to the Mississippi freedom fighters who made all my pledges possible.
1:15.8	I pledge allegiance to the baby Mississippi liberation fighters coming next.
1:20.8	This is my pledge of allegiance to my United States of America and to my Mississippi.
	...

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