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In 1989,

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an artist by the name of Dread Scott,

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who has also graced the TED stage,

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created a piece of art in Chicago

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where he simply placed
an American flag on the ground

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and then invited you the viewer
to go and stand on that flag

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and record how it felt in a journal.

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And to me, one of the most powerful things
written in that journal in essence says,

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why are we so OK

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with homeless people,

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with human beings laying on the ground,

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but not flags?

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And to some of you,
this piece of art is quite disturbing,

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and that's kind of the point of this talk,

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not to upset you or to make you mad

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but to prove to you that flags
have an incredible power,

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and that even if you think
you don't care about flags, you do.

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You know you do.

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All right.

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By the end of it,
I hope that you're inspired

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to go out and harness this power of flags
and fight for a better world,

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but before we get there,

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we're going to start
on the opposite end of the spectrum,

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and before I show you the next stuff,
I need to say that anything I show here

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is not an endorsement,

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it's usually quite the opposite,

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but more than anything,
what I want to do is create a space here

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where we can look
at these flags, these designs,

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and examine how they make us feel.

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We're going to talk about our emotions.

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Is that OK with everybody?

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OK.

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You ready for your first flag?

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Cool, we'll start with an easy one.

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That was a joke.

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So, some of you may be a little bit uneasy
sitting in a room with this.

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I'm certainly feeling uneasy
standing in front of it.

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Some of you may be feeling
a little bit of pride.

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And that's understandable. This is Texas.
This is not a rare sight, is it.

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But let's start with the facts.

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So this is not the Confederate flag. OK?

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This is the battle flag
of the Army of Northern Virginia

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led by General Robert E. Lee,

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so next time someone tells you
that this is their heritage,

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unless their family fought
for that very specific militia,

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they're wrong. All right?

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And you have a flag expert's
permission to tell them so.