There is a danger of letting what’s happening in America become normalized.
We have watched thousands of federal workers fired from their jobs, with no reason, putting their homes and families at risk. This administration has demonized thousands of Haitian, African, Venezuelan and Mexican immigrants as criminals and scooped them up like cattle, often separating parents and children and deporting them rather than fix the border.
This is being done while the president pardons actual convicted criminals who stormed the U.S. Capitol causing damage to property, defecated on the speaker of the House’s desk and harmed law enforcement, with three officers eventually losing their lives.
This administration has declared a takeover and ethnic cleansing of Gaza; blamed Ukraine for the war when Russia invaded it; shut down diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; put Medicare and Medicaid at risk; banned Black history in schools; and unraveled the gun laws we have fought so hard for. It is about a president who has totally ignored the Constitution of the United States of America and, unfortunately, has few guardrails besides the court systems to stop him.
And sadly, these are just a few things in a long list of actions that are being taken to dismantle our democracy and government check points, many of them being done by a billionaire citizen whom the president has given total access to the government and to American citizens’ confidential information.
Flying the U.S. flag upside down is a symbol of distress and emergency, and our actions are to proclaim that America is in distress, and we are in a “state of emergency.”
We reached out to countless veterans in conversation who all agreed with us, and many of them turned out with us on the day we raised the flag at St. Sabina Catholic Church. I believe we are at a crossroads in America. We either can assimilate into this madness, becoming overwhelmed and depressed and angry, or can stand up and call it out and resist this train wreck that is tearing our country apart. We have chosen to raise the flag upside down to say what’s happening is wrong and unacceptable and cannot be normalized. The truth is this past election was not so much about Republicans or Democrats or even the election of Donald Trump; rather, it was more a statement about us and who we are as Americans.
There are those who truly seek and believe in building a country where there is freedom and justice for all, and another group that will fight, lie and steal to build a country of white supremacy and control by oppression. We must decide whose team we are on because history will judge us. We need to decide whether we will repent of our injustices and commit ourselves to being who we say we are or continuing on this path of wickedness.
In his sermon “Paul’s Letter to American Christians,” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. told us we must redeem the soul of America and that must be the charge of the faith communities and citizens at large. Until we redeem and transform the soul, laws and culture of America, we will continue to give way to fascism and oppression.
America, we must resist nonviolently, yes, but resist! Or we will find ourselves repeating Nazi Germany.
The Rev. Michael L. Pfleger is the senior pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church.
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