Video of child ripping flag from yard and tossing it as adult looks on goes viral
Photo by Joshua Hoehne via Unsplash
WASHINGTON - A video of a child pulling an American flag from a person’s front yard and throwing it on the ground has gone viral on social media.
"Children are being raised to desecrate the flag," a Twitter user commented on the video, which has been viewed nearly 1 million times since being posted Friday.
The video has no audio and shows an unidentified young boy on a scooter with an adult woman on a bike riding down a residential street.
The boy passes a small American flag in a front yard and attempts to pull it from the ground. He misses on his first attempt, but gets off of his scooter and then successfully rips the flag from the yard and throws it on the ground.
He and the woman then resume riding down the street. It appears the woman gives no pushback on the boy for pulling the flag.
The video comes amid a nationwide heated debate on the implementation of critical race theory curriculum in classrooms around the country, which some parents and lawmakers argue teaches children to "hate American exceptionalism."
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The perception of the American flag as a divisive symbol has also spread to mainstream culture, with singer Macy Gray saying the flag should be updated because the current one is "tattered, dated, divisive, and incorrect," while a Black Lives Matter chapter in Utah called the flag "a symbol of hatred."
"When we Black Americans see this flag we know the person flying it is not safe to be around," a July 4 Facebook post from Utah's BLM chapter reads. "When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist. When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do. When we see this flag, we question your intelligence. We know to avoid you. It is a symbol of hatred."
A New York Times editorial board member also said last month during a segment on MSNBC that she was "disturbed" to see American flags during a trip on Long Island - a comment the New York Times defended.
"I was on Long Island this weekend visiting a really dear friend, and I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with [expletives] against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and, in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing … Essentially, the message was clear ... This is my country. This is not your country. I own this," Mara Gay said.
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