Flag Day is June 14. In my day schools had a program about the flag. We learned about Betsy Ross, and how stars are added when new states are admitted to the Union. In my day, the word Union actually had meaning.

In many schools, students marched around the schoolyard with flags. It was unnecessary to specify American flags, because no one would have imagined marching with any others. But now, in one California school, students were told to march with the flags of nations from which their ancestors had come – come to escape oppression, bigotry, corruption, and poverty. How is it progressive to encourage young people to move backward in time?

And on May 5, the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo, one California school allowed Hispanic students to march with Mexican flags, white other students were sent home for wearing American flag shirts. When wearing an American flag shirt in an American school causes hostility, we’re in trouble. When the flag wearers, not those who expressed hostility, are punished, we’re in deep trouble. When the US Supreme Court refuses to overturn the punishment, we’re in really deep trouble.

It’s Flag Day. If you say that to kids, they are likely to ask, “What flag?” But that’s our fault. We didn’t teach them. It is said that life is not a sprint but a marathon. That’s wrong. Life is a relay race, and we have not passed the baton to the next generation. We bobbled the pass and dropped the baton in the dirt. It’s long past time to pick up the baton, dust it off, and pass it on – while we still can.