In 1989,
an artist by the name of Dread Scott,
who has also graced the TED stage,
created a piece of art in Chicago
where he simply placed an American flag on the ground
and then invited you the viewer to go and stand on that flag
and record how it felt in a journal.
And to me, one of the most powerful things written in that journal in essence says,
why are we so OK
with homeless people,
with human beings laying on the ground,
but not flags?
And to some of you, this piece of art is quite disturbing,
and that's kind of the point of this talk,
not to upset you or to make you mad
but to prove to you that flags have an incredible power,
and that even if you think you don't care about flags, you do.
You know you do.
All right.
By the end of it, I hope that you're inspired
to go out and harness this power of flags and fight for a better world,
but before we get there,
we're going to start on the opposite end of the spectrum,
and before I show you the next stuff, I need to say that anything I show here
is not an endorsement,
it's usually quite the opposite,
but more than anything, what I want to do is create a space here
where we can look at these flags, these designs,
and examine how they make us feel.
We're going to talk about our emotions.
Is that OK with everybody?
OK.
You ready for your first flag?
Cool, we'll start with an easy one.
That was a joke.
So, some of you may be a little bit uneasy sitting in a room with this.
I'm certainly feeling uneasy standing in front of it.
Some of you may be feeling a little bit of pride.
And that's understandable. This is Texas. This is not a rare sight, is it.
But let's start with the facts.
So this is not the Confederate flag. OK?
This is the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia
led by General Robert E. Lee,
so next time someone tells you that this is their heritage,
unless their family fought for that very specific militia,
they're wrong. All right?
And you have a flag expert's permission to tell them so.