American Flag 'Offensive'... in America

[Celvantes]

American Flag Ousted From Office After Complaint

MANSFIELD, Texas (CBS) ―Is it okay to show your patriotism at the office?

For one Arlington woman, the answer was "no" after she hung an American flag in her office just before the Memorial Day weekend, CBS station KTVT-TV in Dallas reported.

Debbie McLucas is one of four hospital supervisors at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield. Last week, she hung a three-by-five foot American flag in the office she shares with the other supervisors.

When McLucas came to work Friday, her boss told her another supervisor had found her flag offensive. "I was just totally speechless. I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" McLucas said.

McLucas' husband and sons are former military men. Her daughter is currently serving in Iraq as a combat medic.

Stifling a cry, McLucas said, "I just wonder if all those young men and women over there are really doing this for nothing."

McLucas said the supervisor who complained has been in the United States for 14 years and is formerly from Africa. McLucas said the supervisor took down Debbie's flag herself.

"The flag and the pole had been placed on the floor," McLucas said. But McLucas also said hospital higher ups had told her some patients' families and visitors had also complained.

"I was told it wouldn't matter if it was only one person," she said. "It would have to come down."

McLucas said hospital bosses told her as far as patriotism was concerned, the flag flying outside the hospital building would have to suffice.

Kindred Hospital Corporate Headquarters are located in Kentucky. They have yet to make a final decision on the matter. They have not returned our phone calls for comment.

The Kindred Hospital Corporation was chosen as Fortune's most admired for 2009. McLucas hopes they'll back her patriotism.

"I find it very frightening because if I can't display my flag, what other freedoms will I lose before all is said and done," McLucas asked.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

http://cbs2.com/watercooler/american.flag.office.2.1020791.html

Here's a tip... if you're in this country, and you find our flag offensive... FUCKING LEAVE. No one is making you stay.

It's made worse by the fact that it happened around Memorial Day, a federal holiday honoring the men and women of the military who died defending that flag.

 

[Excalibur]

That's pretty fucked up. Would any of you even dream of going to another country and telling them to take their flag down because you found it offensive? Probably not. And if you would, fuck you.

 

[Halifirien]

Here's a tip... if you're in this country, and you find our flag offensive... FUCKING LEAVE. No one is making you stay.

She's at the office. The boss says to take it down. Case closed. A flag that large in an office setting is obnoxious, no matter how patriotic you are. It would annoy the fuck out of me.

 

[Skaw]

Not wanting to be "that guy," but there is no actual fact that the other supervisor said they found it offensive. The boss could have misconstrued what the other supervisor said as finding it offensive, but possibly might have been talking about not liking how the lady brought in the flag if theres a no personal belongs allowed rule or something like that.

E: Guess I should say I don't want to be one of "those guys," since Hali beat my post by mere minutes.

Double E: It's also not her property to display a flag in the first place. Her freedoms aren't being violated. I hate when people throw that and similar phrases around like it's nothing.

 

[Mirewen]

She's at the office. The boss says to take it down. Case closed. A flag that large in an office setting is obnoxious, no matter how patriotic you are. It would annoy the fuck out of me.

Then it would be obstructive, not offensive.

 

[Halifirien]

Then it would be obstructive, not offensive.

It could be both.

 

[Morcheeba]

She's at the office. The boss says to take it down. Case closed. A flag that large in an office setting is obnoxious, no matter how patriotic you are. It would annoy the fuck out of me.

This is pretty much what I was thinking myself.

We have little pins and such to celebrate holidays. Or we'll wear certain colours etc... but I know my boss or at least past bosses would be pissed if I pinned up a big Canadian flag in our office.

 

[Neche]

I would be annoyed if someone hung a 3x5foot of anything lol.

 

[Novolo]

i wish i knew which hospital this was, i would go there and drop my trousers and show them my birth flag fucking pigs

 

[Zaltana]

She's at the office. The boss says to take it down. Case closed. A flag that large in an office setting is obnoxious, no matter how patriotic you are. It would annoy the fuck out of me.

the amount of perfume that the princessy girl at my job wears annoys me as well as the amount of company time she, and the manager that smokes, waste outside talking/smoking/texting when they should be working. I bike my way to work and im sure the spot that i put it gets in the way from time to time. the ability to ignore the small discomforts that annoy me seem to earn a bit of tolerance for where i have to put my wheels. however, it seems to be a rare trait among a great number of individuals these days.

her hanging of the flag had nothing to do with said person's perceptions. what drives me nuts is how the easily annoyed/offended seem to think that they have the lock and key on what should or should not be. so the flag would have annoyed some of you if you worked there. she's supposed to know this? all this time i thought reading minds was only fantasy. for all we know she may have only been planning to hang the flag for a few days, before taking it down herself.

The appropriate course of action would have been to strike a compromise, not just fold like a poker player with a bad hand. And for goodness sake did anyone care about HER feelings? As a former US Marine this also gets under my skin as well as Celv's. my parents put USMC stickers on their cars. if my mother choose to put something in her office to show her pride in my choosing to serve my country in her office she should be allowed to do so. she doesnt own the space she works in but she has a religious plaque that can be easily seen by all who come in her work area. Some athist or non-christian sees this they can be offended or whatever but what gives them the right to say it should not be there? people should keep said diplays within reason of course so that it wont be obstructive like Mire said. but if some offhand workers find said display offensive, while it is their right to do so, has no bearing on the reason she is putting up said display. you don't have to like it, but what you do have to do is respect it.

my point is this; we are not alone in this world, respect the pide of others and you may well get it in return.

 

[Halifirien]

There's a difference between having having a small flag on your desk and putting up a big 3x5 flag on a pole in an office you share with other people. I have to wonder if she even asked if she could set up a flag pole in the office, or if she just took it upon herself to do so.

Clearly it's an issue if hospital visitors are complaining about it. The boss resolved it. This woman should fly a flag at home and get over herself.

 

[masterorion]

if its on a flag pole, its smaller than the size of a fake tree that alot of offices have. unless its this type of pole.

at that point, its an obstruction.
i believe the story was misconstrewed. no one that was born in this country would would say its offensive. thats a bit of a harsh word. i would say it would be more of an annoyance to have something that size spread out on the wall. but again, i wouldnt say an american flag on a national holiday is annoying to begin with unless it was simply, in my way

 

[Halifirien]

i believe the story was misconstrewed. no one that was born in this country would would say its offensive. thats a bit of a harsh word.

I disagree. There are plenty of situations I can think of where someone putting up a U.S. flag would be offensive.

If, for example, McLucas regularly goes around harping on how super-uber-awesome the United States is and that it's okay to waterboard terrorists because Dubya Was Keeping Us Safe™, rails constantly about how immigrants are destroying the country and can't understand why her African co-worker might be offended, and says her liberal co-workers are crazy for voting for Obama, and just regularly feels the need to out-patriot everyone, and then one day I walked into the office and saw her beaming over some big ol' flag she took it upon herself to display in my area, patriotism would fly out the window because the first words out of my mouth would be "Fuck, Debbie. Can't you give it a rest?"

Listening to mouth-breathing conservatives drone on and on ad nauseum about how Obama clearly wasn't American because he didn't wear a flag lapel pin was enough to make the sight of a lapel pin offensive to me for awhile because for a few months it stopped being a symbol of the country and became a symbol of jingoist conformity and the dread that people might think your red-white-and-blue penis wasn't as big everyone else's.

I don't know Debbie McLucas or anything about her relationship with her co-workers, but I'd truly love to hear their take on this situation. For now, listening to this woman wonder if kids are throwing their lives away in Iraq and Afghanistan because she's not allowed to annoy everyone by hanging a big flag in her workplace just makes me shake my head in sorrow at how self-centered she is. I don't think the lady's flag is offensive in and of itself, but clearly the size of it was enough to be an issue.

It's largely a moot point, because she's been allowed to hang it again.

MANSFIELD, Texas—A North Texas woman has won her fight over patriotism at the workplace.

KTVT in Dallas reports that Debbie McLucas, the woman who was told to remove an American flag from her office at a Mansfield hospital, has since been allowed to re-hang the Stars and Stripes after a national outcry over the story.

McLucas comes from a military family. Before Memorial Day, she had hung a 3 foot by 5 foot flag in her office. But her supervisor – who is from another country—took it down, saying it was offensive.

KTVT’s report sparked such outrage that people flooded the hospital’s switchboards with complaints.

Wednesday night, McLucas told KTVT the hospital CEO gave her a call, apologizing.

The CEO invited McLucas to put the flag back up and said the issue was with the size of the flag, not what it symbolized.

But McLucas said that wasn’t the case when she was originally told to take it down.

”At no point was I afforded the opportunity -- [no one said,] ‘Hey Deb, could you get a one and a half by three and a half and hang it instead of hanging this three by five?’” McLucas told KTVT.

In the end, though, McLucas said she was pleased that so many fellow citizens spoke out about the issue.

“It just restored my faith in the American people,” she told KTVT.

One of my co-workers has a small calendar by his monitor with a daily Bible quote. I'm atheist and it doesn't bother me a bit. If I went to work and he'd put up a big poster of Jesus, I'd be talking to my supervisor before the coffee had finished brewing.

 

[Westyle]

One day they will pass a law that we must keep our entire bodies covered because seeing skin color offends people by reminding them of racism.

 

[Skaw]

And for goodness sake did anyone care about HER feelings?

She can feel on her own time in her own home. The workplace isn't always your time or your place to express your beliefs and opinions, unless it happens to match up with them such as a political field and such. A hospital is as mixed as you're going to get when it comes to viewpoints and thoughts. Personal feelings have absolutely no place within it's walls.

 

[Morwen]

If that is all it took to destroy her faith in America... then she's got a lot more issues then a flag in an office. Like maybe a tendancy for the melodramatic.

On top of that, the flag was huge. Something that ostentatious would have annoyed me but I would have, rather than just taken it down, suggested she swap out for something more office managable. Were I in her supervisors position, I would have asked the offended manager why it was offensive to him. My actions would have depended solely on their answer. If they were offended because the US wont give them a green card and only a work visa or wont let his family come over? Fuck off, move on about your day. If its just too fucking big? Sure I'll ask her to downsize. BUT... I would warn that it wouldn't be taken down simply because its the US flag, but because its hard to manage in an office setting. That no one in the US should be made to take down a point of pride for our country and those fighting for it, simply because some fucking dude would rather it be a <insert country here> flag.

Stick it to her supervisor, dude doesn't have a backbone.

 

[Cerato]

I would be annoyed if someone hung a 3x5foot of anything lol.

This was my first thought. If you’re sharing an office space with others you should ask them what they think.

Still, this whole thing reminds me (as many of these “Can you believe the Anti-Americans?” stories do) that not too long ago a lot of once indifferent people jumped on the I-am-more-patriotic-than-you bandwagon.

My dad fought in WWII, my uncle and brother in Korea. Our family didn’t make a big deal out it, but I was raised to respect the sacrifice veteran’s make. We hung our American flag off the porch every Memorial Day, 4th of July, etc. We stood and put our hands over our hearts every time the national anthem was played and saluted the vets in the Memorial Day parade. When my dad died, I was honored to receive the American Flag presented to us as thanks for his service.

While that flies nicely with a lot people today, it didn’t always. In the not too distant past, people rallied against anything patriotic. I can’t count the number of times I was made fun of my friends and strangers alike for showing any national pride. They couldn’t understand how I could go off on the cluster-fuck that was Grenada but still cry every time I saw a veteran’s cemetery (this was before my dad died btw). You see…it just wasn’t cool to love your country, despite its flaws.

Then, we had Dessert Storm. A lot of the same people who previously had laughed at us for hanging a flag turn into zealots. Crazy fucks flying giant tattered flags in the back of their pick-ups. Over time, through Somalia and Bosnia, a few more joined their ranks until the WTC attacks and Afghanistan when the country exploded with a new found blind-patriotism. Any questioning of the administration’s policies not only made me un-American but clearly I didn’t support our troops. I'm still highly offended by that assertion.

The attack on U.S. soil unnerved a lot people, certainly. But too many took it too far. Suddenly, it wasn’t good enough to fly the flag on Memorial Day or stand at attention when the national anthem was played. Now we had to “support our troops” by hanging flags everywhere and screaming “Traitor’” at those who didn’t want to. An angry mob tore up a guy's front yard over a peace flag. An earnest discussion about the pros and cons of the Iraq War became a one-sided verbal assault on my intelligence and love of my country. My aversion to war with Iraq meant I hated anyone in uniform. Even citing proper flag protocol (“Hey man, please stop dragging the flag on the ground”) was met with, “Fuck you bitch.” Yeah…. you're a real American. Halifiren’s description of the kind of people I’m talking about is funny, but completely apt.

If, for example, McLucas regularly goes around harping on how super-uber-awesome the United States is and that it's okay to waterboard terrorists because Dubya Was Keeping Us Safe™, rails constantly about how immigrants are destroying the country......

I didn’t mean to go off on this quite as much as I did, but it made me recall all the hypocritical bullshit I've endured regarding the American flag. Therefore, I ask that before you freak out about someone in an office being asked to remove her big ‘ol flag, think about the fact that some of us have been a little scared by the blind patriotism and would rather just avoid that conflict.

 

[Gohaan]

3 X 5 foot peice of cloth daingling from anywhere in an office is a fire hazard take it down.

 

[Rappa]

There's more to this story than what is being told in the article. There's no way that the flag is considered offensive by itself since "the flag flying outside the hospital building would have to suffice." If there was a problem with the flag inside, why wouldn't they remove the one outside? I'm guessing it's more along the lines of the size and people were concerned for safety reasons.

 

[Rari]

3 X 5 foot piece of cloth dangling from anywhere in an office is a fire hazard take it down.

That depends on the size of the office and proximity to outlets, heat sources, etc..