Wright or wrong. (Letters to the Editor).

I want to thank all of you at The Progressive and Brian Gilmore for his wonderful article ("Stand by The Man," January issue). It really made me think about what the U.S. flag means to different people.

I am a Chicano graduate student at Berkeley, and like many after September 11, I found myself wearing my one T-shirt that had any semblance of the American flag on it. I was wearing the shirt to show some support for the United States--the country I think has the most potential and desire for freedom of all kinds. I was not wearing it to support any future military action. It seems that many people, like Gilmore's mother and me, have tended to let flying flags fly, without thinking about the changing connotation associated with it. To fly the flag after September 11 was initially a true act of patriotism opposing a blatant attack against our country, but now it seems to be largely symbolic of supporting the U.S. bombing campaign against Afghanistan.

As is the nature of icons, the flag is made not of words or even ideas but cloth or paper. I encourage the readers of The Progressive to seek out the ideas behind the symbol of the U.S. flag. Go up to people and ask them why they are flying the flag. Hopefully, they will have thought about it, and you'll get some sort of reaction ranging from agitation to appreciation. Unfortunately, a large percent age of people fly the flag in support of blind conformity.

Joseph Hall
Berkeley, California

Brian Gilmore's article, though providing an interesting perspective on the position of racially and nationally oppressed peoples in this country regarding patriotism and loyalty, uses an awkward example to make his point. He seems to characterize African American novelist (and one-time Communist) Richard Wright's "ambivalence" over the Second World War as "naive."

What Gilmore misses--and this is the result of years of McCarthyite suppression of history--is that Wright in June of 1941 opposed the U.S. entry into World War II, as did many black and white people. Wright favored peace and felt the United States would try to use the war to defeat the Soviet Union. When he declared the war to be "Not My People's War" (just days before the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union), he thought that the war would strengthen the hand of white supremacists and imperialists, whether they were in Germany or Georgia. That he changed his mind and wrote quite patriotically in December of 1941 is not a reflection of his ambivalence but of his committed belief that socialism, as represented by the Soviet Union, was something African Americans ought to defend as their own greatest hope for liberation.

Gilmore's mischaracterization belittles the kinds of political commitments many people held for socialism, for peace, and for justice. The erasure of this aspect of Wright's story (and the story of many other African Americans and whites) not only buys into the effects of McCarthyism but also seems to reduce the particular quandary described in Gilmore's article to purely mental shifts in attitudes, swaying beliefs, or confused outlooks--when Wright's outlook in 1941 was anything but confused or meandering.

Perhaps Gilmore's views of Wright reflect a limited sense of commitment on the part of the author and many on the editorial board of this usually wonderful magazine, since' they don't paint an accurate picture of Wright's own views.

Joel Wendland
Bowling Green, Ohio