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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.
closed TED
