Editor’s note: This letter is in response to “Wearing the American flag isn’t racist,” published Sept. 2.

The Rademachers state in their letter that a friends son was yelled at for being racist for wearing the American flag on his t-shirt. While I would agree that these adults were way out of line in assuming that this young man was racist because he was wearing this apparel, I would like to point out, respectfully, that, per U. S. code, the American flag shall not be worn or displayed on any wearable material.

We have so debased the meaning of our flag by doing many, many things with it that are specifically banned by U. S. code, but that code is totally unenforceable so it has basically become meaningless to a large part of our country’s population.

I would also agree that we should support our service men and women, even though there has been no real threat to our freedom since WWII and our service men and women have died by the thousands in wars that were not about our freedom at all — in fact there has never been a war, technically, since WWII, since Congress has the soul responsibility to declare war and that has never been done in any of the conflicts we have been involved in since then.

I also take issue with their statement regarding our nation, “If you don’t like it move.” By any examination of our country, there are many serious flaws in it and rather than making statements such as that, we should all be working together to fix those flaws. People throwing back, “All lives matter” at other people saying “Black lives matter” are missing the point entirely.

“All men are created equal” didn’t include Black men, because they weren’t considered men when that was written, and we’ve held Black people as “lesser than” for over 400 years — and many in this country still do. Acknowledging that our country has serious flaws and working together to fix them is what our goal should be, not telling people, “If you don’t like it, move.”

Larry Benson

Enumclaw