And I think it's important to say that even if it's a 1% chance, that bad experience can be terrible. Not only are you suddenly stuck somewhere without a place to stay, but you're stuck in annoying situation because of who you are. So you've got this frustrating situation of scrambling to try to find somewhere else to stay, and you also get to feel bad about who you are. You can tell yourself they're bigots and it's not your fault all day long, but the sting of rejection is always there.

I think that's the thing that a lot of (not all) average white straight able-bodied cis-gendered people dismiss. Every slight, every rejection, even if it's not blatant it's in your head: I'm being treated differently not because of what I say or do, but because of who I am. On a good day you might forget for a little while, but you let your guard down for a little and there it is again. It's inescapable and you have to build resiliency in every aspect of your life to not get crushed by it.

It wasn't until I met some openly gay folks and I hung out with them that I realized how much energy goes into "is this situation ok to be gay in?" considerations. And there's almost never a sure yes or no answer.

Is that the reason for the LBTQ+ friendly tag you can add in google maps?

Yeah, it's honestly really nice to see when businesses add it because I don't then have to worry about showing up and having that awkward "oh. uhh, okay. guess i'll leave" moment.

The flip side is also sad but ultimately useful, I know to avoid shops that proudly display the Trump, Let's Go Brandon, Blue Lives Matter, Confederate Flag, Don't Tread on Me, the one weird flag that's like fuck Biden but written with guns, or honestly the American flag. And look, I completely agree with the stance "those don't necessarily imply homophobia," you can hate Biden and love the gays, you can love America and the gays, plenty of my conservative friends do, but the kind of person who flies the flags at their home or business is on a whole different level.

This is a useful model. It's not perfect obviously, but I and a lot of my gay friends do the same thing. I'm not going to put myself in danger just because you feel that I need to test the waters with self-proclaimed "patriots" and their associates.

Sometimes you'll be ok temporarily in those spaces until one of their friends/family shows up who's not and it becomes a problem. Generally, you don't have to wait that long.

This whole comment is just contributing to the toxic divisiveness that's permeating our country

> or honestly the American flag

this is especially disheartening. As a child of an immigrant family, one of the first things I'm going to do when I buy a house is proudly fly an American flag. I love our country and there are many reasons to be proud of it and its flag, and they're the reasons so many people want to immigrate here in the first place

Aren't you lucky that you can view the issue as "divisiveness" that can be turned off or discarded. Many people have to live with the concern and question on if they're going to be safe entering a building.

YOUR comment is contributing to the toxic division. You're witnessed someone sharing their world and what they do to feel safe - and you're telling them its wrong and they should stop. Maybe you can listen to them instead, understand that certain people live in a different reality than you. You should try to see what you can do to make the environment around you welcoming to others who may have different experiences than you. It is not their responsibility to throw their safety and wellbeing away because you don't like that people view some symbol of yours negatively.

> As a child of an immigrant family, one of the first things I'm going to do when I buy a house is proudly fly an American flag. I love our country and there are many reasons to be proud of it

I am an American born here, and I grew up with an American flag on my house. I would never move away, and I'm proud to live in America, one of the greatest nations the world has seen - if not the greatest. There are many reasons to be proud of it, yes.

Does it have problems though? Yes. It is NOT a perfect place. Not everyone here feels equally safe and respected. America has long a history of division. Slavery, JimCrow, Red-lining, the aids crisis, etc. Strong histories of division that are unfortunate and real and have long-lasting implications even today. Please realize that many people exist in a reality that does not show love equally to all. it is not a place where all men are created equal, and not a place where all men live equal - although that is a lofty and noble goal America has repeated for generations. The parent comment shared symbols that raise the odds that he (she?) won't be treated equally. They're identifying symptoms of the disease of inequity, not contributing to it.

> Many people have to live with the concern and question on if they're going to be safe entering a building.

Yeah, including me, thanks for trying to shut my opinion down too. It's laughable how people like you, who act so high and mighty about giving underprivileged people a voice, only want to do so when the underprivileged are saying what you want them to.

> They're identifying symptoms of the disease of inequity, not contributing to it.

I disagree. I claim they are contributing to it. Your opinion does not factor into my opinion, and I hope people like you can see how you're just exploiting the plight of others to serve your own views, rather than sincerely trying to help give them all a platform.

I am also a child of an immigrant family, but my prior probabilities put me on high alert around people who egregiously use the US flag (or flag of any nation at this point).

Maybe putting one on your house is OK, but the more fanatic you seem, the more on alert I am. Most normal people I meet just use it on 4th of July or something, but if you are draping yourself, your business, your car in it, then I assume you have a higher likelihood of being tribal for a tribe I am not part of.

And my experience is the people who fly the flag the most are the first to cheat on taxes and try to take advantage of others in society (especially not in their tribe), and then use that “patriotism” as a veil to hide behind.

Same thing with all the other signals Spivak mentioned.

It's important we don't confuse Patriotism with Nationalism. The former is about the individual and generally positive & good; the latter is faceless and evil.

Seriously I don't see any difference between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism to me is mainly a veil to hide behind, so that one can argue that the kind of nationalism one self practices is not really nationalism.

An example is that many even quite left leaning people in the US (but also other countries) often start criticism of US politics with "I love my country, I believe it's the best country in the world..." how is that not nationalistic? You literally are saying you find all other countries inferior. Also what does it mean to love your country? It's completely abstract, do you love the people (I assume you certainly don't love every one), do you love the politics? What concrete thing do you love?

Maybe I'm colored by growing up in Germany during a time when (for very good reason) patriotism was frowned upon because we saw what it lead to. Maybe it's because I've lived in 4 countries now and I feel much more like a world citizen (even though I liked living in some countries more than others), but I find the concept of patriotism just doesn't lead to anything positive.

The way I see it, a Patriot loves their country and wants to see it become the best it can be. They recognize its flaws and want to improve it to make it the best country in the world to live in. They see people immigrating into their country as a compliment.

A Nationalist already thinks it's the best country in the world, and considers any criticism to be traitorous. They think being born there makes them superior to everyone else in the world, and doesn't want the country to be dirtied by immigrants.

I certainly understand where you’re coming from and why.

However, for me there is an important difference: nationalism is always “I support my nation because it is mine” whereas patriotism (can be) “I like my nation because of stuff it is actually good at”.

There’s certainly an overlap, and not just because of cognitive biases, but the latter doesn’t need to denigrate other nations when saying ones’ own nation is good.

I disagree.

If I said "I like Germany because it is comprised of the superior Germanic race" that would be nationalism, but under your definition it would be patriotism.

If you're saying that this is not within your definition, then I think your usage of "good" in your definition is question begging.

I think I can see where you’re coming from with that criticism, but if I’m right then my error was an insufficient example.

I would count “I like Elbonia because we have the best mud farmers in the world” as patriotism. It may be untrue (which is a separate issue), and it may be chosen post-hoc as the only way to stand out (ditto), but it doesn’t imply other nations are no good at farming mud.

I would count your quoted example as nationalism for the same reason I would describe "I like men’s football because it is comprised of the superior male race" as sexism, while I would say that “I like men’s football more than women’s because I sexually fantasise about men and not women”, isn’t.

I don’t know where you’re getting your definitions from, but I don’t think they are widely agreed upon.

It's odd to attach "contributing to toxic divisiveness" to someone pattern-matching, rather than the people creating the pattern.

It's all signaling & identification, so if you don't want people seeing a Thin Blue Line flag & going "maybe that's not somewhere I want to be", talk with the thin-blue-line people & get them to stop doing the things that make some people want to avoid them.

> It's odd to attach "contributing to toxic divisiveness" to someone pattern-matching, rather than the people creating the pattern.

Eh, don't really like this concept as a general principle. 'Pattern-matching' can often just be discrimination.

FWIW, I think it is fine to make inferences based on what flags people are flying and avoid overly patriotic people.

The difference that hasn’t been addressed, which to me is fundamental, is that we’re talking specifically about behaviors done intentionally whose purpose is to signal membership into specific tribes.

I don’t know what the right way to address this because it’s become extremely common to not organize under explicit banners but instead make your membership known by not subtle dog whistles to maintain, again, not subtle plausible deniability. Like everyone does it! I could fill your screen with just the liberal/left/blue whistles I know about. This will always suck for the people who aren’t announcing their membership but the alternative is being ignorant to the groups de facto organizing.

> we’re talking specifically about behaviors done intentionally whose purpose is to signal membership into specific tribes.

Sure, but how do you know what tribes a person identifies with, if multiple groups use the same signals? How do you know an american flag means a proud racist or a proud immigrant (remember citizenship ceremonies are often huge accomplishments that immigrants deeply cherish). How do you know certain clothing styles mean somebody is a proud gang member or just a regular person who's a proud fan of hip hop culture? That's the point of my criticism. I personally am all for taking caution based on prejudice. I'm against people who are only okay with it if it's prejudice against people they dislike, but raise a fuss if people have prejudice against people they like.

Consistency is overrated. I could substitute words in anybody's statement to make them sound terrible.

And besides, I specified 'signaling & identification'. I may have missed where people were being born with thin-blue-line flags as birthmarks.

On the other hand, maybe you've got a point. I should be able to walk into any gun shop in the country with a "John Brown was justified, Sherman didn't go far enough" t-shirt & not see so much as a dirty look.

> This whole comment is just contributing to the toxic divisiveness that's permeating our country

What, we are supposed to ignore obvious and true signals that exist in the real world?

You can’t just wish away the state of reality by ignoring the clear implications of what symbols mean, just because you want said symbol to mean the thing you want.

My parents have always had a flag pole, but flags are expensive and don't always last long. I remember in the late 80's my mom bought a yard of some end-of-roll fabric and made a couple of flags out of them that lasted the better part of a decade. We got so many inquiries of "what country is that flag?" I remember it looked something like Norway...

That's really fun, it would be a good opportunity to insert a flag from some favorite fantasy series.

As a legal alien who used to live in the States, I would avoid any establishment showing the American flag.

It just felt like the place would be loudly and proudly nationalistic and as an alien, I would be more welcome elsewhere.

I’m sorry you felt that way. For most fellow Americans I know, displaying our flag is not intended to convey anti-immigrant or racist sentiment. It’s more often intended as an expression of support for the U.S. as our home and for freedom.

Canadians proudly do the same, FWIW.

Canadians mount flags far less frequently than Americans do, especially on private homes.

There are neighbourhoods where nearly every single house has a flagpole with the American flag in it. In my ~4km x 4km area where I walk my dog regularly, I can think of one house that has a Canadian flag—and that’s the Kwakwaka’wakw design (https://www.canadiannativeflag.ca).

There are occasional flag decals, but many of them are also Pride variants of the Canadian flag.

I see more Canadian flag decals on businesses (but usually in a group of decals, including pride flag decals, city decals, etc.) or maple leaf accents to business logos, in part because there is some signalling going on that "we are a Canadian-owned business" (even if it isn’t really true anymore, like Tim Hortons). I rarely see Canadian businesses flying a flag or mounting a flag in store.

Canadians often have Canadian flag patches or decals on luggage &c. when travelling so that it’s a signal that ”we aren’t American” because we often get confused with Americans and treated poorly because the Ugly American Tourist stereotype exists, with reason.

There’s likely to be a bit of a drop in flag flying because the signals have been sent by Canada’s white nationalists that the flag is theirs given their raucous and obnoxious displays in Coutts and Ottawa, which has left an even bigger distaste for overt nationalistic displays than Canadians usually show. (We are proud of being Canadian, but we’re not obnoxiously patriotic most of the time, and we are mostly disdainful of outright nationalists.)

There’s one other point: it is seen as downright unAmerican for a politician to not be wearing an American flag pin on their lapel. The Canadian equivalent is not wearing one of those crappy disposable Legion poppies in early November (we’ve seriously had politicians called out for wearing an enamelled poppy).

Most of the folks I know flying confederate flags think the same thing about that flag.

Personally, I care less about what I mean when I write and more about how people might read my writing.

> or honestly the American flag

Huh, that’s kinda surprising. I’m not American, but always had the impression that Americans used the American flag like the British use CCTV cameras — putting them everywhere essentially decoratively, because everyone else does, even in situations where they don’t add anything.

(I absolutely understand the problem with the Confederate flag: that’s much weirder than say the English (i.e. not U.K.) flag, which itself seems to only be used in the two contexts of football and nationalism).

Very much depends on the region. A lot of people, even people appreciative of our country, have come to view nationalism as part and parcel with American evangelical political leanings.

Not to mention, given the choice between figuring out whether or not "this" one is ok or just going somewhere that doesn't display any markers co-opted by bigots, it's just easier to go somewhere else.

No, not all X are Y, but if I'm going to have to spend time and effort to figure out if this X is Y when I could just not, I'm going to choose not. That's just easier for me.

Not all have the option, but many move to LGBT friendly areas. I can walk around in my neighborhood and walk into any establishment and I know it won't be an issue. Like others have said, the ease of mind in not having to check is nice. It's a temporary reprieve from the otherwise default state of having to be mindful. For people who don't have that option, it's good to have tags, for example if you're traveling somewhere rural or an unfamiliar area.