One by one, students rise from their seats and stand on their desks. As their new teacher shouts at them to sit, they turn to their departing teacher, Mr. Keating, their faces glowing in admiration. A few say warmly, “O captain, my captain.”
This is the final scene of Dead Poets Society. (Sorry if that was a spoiler, but to be fair, the film came out in 1989.) It is a heartfelt moment. For one, they used a touching term of endearment. Second, and more importantly, it signaled their resistance to the stifling nature of their education. As Mr. Keating explained when he stood on his desk, the reason for this act is “to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.”
The students, by standing on their desks, said what their future will be: moved by nonconformity and strengthened by freethinking. This final scene demonstrates a power of symbolism—that power being in its encouragement of moral action. The same can be said of LBGTQ+ pride flags, the central significance of which is about welcoming and accepting the community.
It is unsettling, then, that LGBTQ+’s symbols of pride are being attacked. With that attack, comes the attack on the community itself. Consider the cruel support surrounding the removal of the rainbow crosswalk. In a video in which DeSantis talks of the removal, a top comment liked by 1.6 thousand people makes it sounds as if LGBTQ+ is a pervasive force against everyone there: “Why does 1% of the population need to be the focus of 100% of public life?” On a TikTok video discussing their anger at the removal, a top comment, liked by over 700 people, suggests a particularly vile implication—that the LGBTQ+ community is an illness: “The word is healing.” Why do these responses exist and get support if it was a matter of safety? I will elaborate later on this point later, but for now, let us be clear: it is rooted in hate.
Also exemplifying how the attack on LGBTQ’s pride lead to the attack on the community is the wrongful firing of FBI veteran David Maltinsky, who alleges that “he was dismissed from the FBI academy last month for previously displaying the flag at his workstation with the support and permission of his supervisors.” He went further to say that him being fired “sent a ripple of fear through the LGBT employees at the FBI.” He noticed that “Many gay colleagues have removed Pride flags from their desks, allies have removed Pride flags from their desk.”
Even if people did not react that way to his firing, his point would have remained valid purely through logical reasoning. After all, if a veteran can get fired so easily, then members of the LGBTQ+ community of lesser seniority should be rightly worried and newcomers of the community should be especially afraid. The position they are in is ridiculous, but familiar to anyone facing prejudice. They must fret over their safety because someone else can’t get over their identity.
In both instances—the erasure of the rainbow crosswalk in Florida and the firing of the FBI agent—the “bland strategy” theorized by Kenneth Burke in The War of Words explains how the right was able to get away with being so callous. As Burke theorized:
“We go farther afield, though still remaining within the outer confines of the bland, with the formula, ‘our hands are tied,’ whereby a mighty nation can supposedly be deterred by ‘solemn pledges’…Thus the British were ‘prevented’ from agreeing to return of certain colonies to Italy because of promises made to the tribe of Senussi in North Africa. The tied-hands device under such conditions is particularly convenient because it need not tie the hands except when so desired.”
Having claimed that the rainbow crosswalks were unsafe, they made it a matter of policy, a force that simply had to be complied with. This is why it did not matter that there was proof supporting that colored crosswalks can be safer. The argument about safety is there for effect and so the effect matters most. In other words, they framed the erasure of the LGBTQ+ pride as a safety matter because in doing so they can send their desired message to the community: we do not care about your kind.
Similarly, Kash Patel, to justify his firing of Maltinsky, claimed, “Pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States, your employment with the Federal Bureau of Investigation is hereby terminated,” suggesting that he could not really do much. His hands were tied—supposedly.
It is not like those on the right are not open to engaging with more positive interpretations of symbolism. They just want to make sure that when the interpretations change that it has appalling aims. In part, this is why the Coast Guard considered putting swastikas and nooses under the “potentially divisive” classification. This categorical change would have meant that a swastika would need to be “reported” and have supervisors “inquire about it” at a time where a pride flag can lead to immediate firing, as if the first symbol’s hate is up to debate, but a pride flag is unquestionably bad. It is absurd.
The takeaway we must face is this: we are in a dire moment in America’s history, one where people are accepting of hate and hateful of acceptance. People can pretend that removal of LGBTQ+’s pride symbols is just how things are supposed to go or insist that it was just a matter of safety—a reality that tied their hands to the decision. But we must not be fooled. If people are willing to attack pride flags and be happy with their removal, it is because they are okay with attacks on the people those flags represent.
