Just the other day I had a tongue-lashing from an old acquaintance about the ‘appalling flags the Americans put outside their homes, like Nazis all over again.’This flagophobia from Europeans has been bothering me for a long time. Americans are supposed to understand that flags conjure up for Europeans visions of Nazi Germany. Fine. I'm a child of multi-culturalism. I understand and accept their unique experience. What bothers me is that they cannot seem to do the same for us. It seems impossible for Europeans to understand that, for Americans, flags do not represent fascism. As a matter of fact, for Americans, flags represent the spirit of a country that got up off its collective behind to cross oceans and defeat fascism.
If Europeans are as worldly as they would like us to believe, why do they have such a hard time with this simple concept?
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