Flag of the Thin Blue Line

If your kids like to take naps in the car as much as mine do, maybe while driving around town you've noticed an American flag with muted colors and a thin blue line highlighted in the middle.

To many this flag represents a commitment to law and order To many it represents solidarity with fallen police officers. To many it represents respect, honor, and courage. To many it represents their support for law enforcement as part of the fabric of American society.

However, the reality is far less prosaic. Because this flag is actually a symbol of White Supremacy.

Let's start with a history lesson. (See original reporting at https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/06/08/the-short-fraught-history-of-the-thin-blue-line-american-flag.)

The flag made one of its most famous appearances at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville in 2017. The same rally with Confederate flags and tiki torch wielding terrorists chanting "Jews will not replace us." (Full disclosure: I'm a Jew. I have no desire to replace anyone. Let alone antisemites.)

It has made other appearances before and after this, from Tea Party protests with the yellow snake saying, "Don't Tread On Me," of the Gadsden Flag, to being adorned on uniformed officers ironically deployed towards peaceful protesters against police brutality. (Even SFPD! See https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-07-06/the-thin-blue-line-the-complex-history-and-thoughts-behind-the-police-emblem and also https://harpers.org/archive/2018/07/a-flag-for-trumps-america/.)

But the flag's development as a symbol started in 2014 by a White college student named Andrew Jacob. He'd seen variations of the flag on other media, but took it further after starting Thin Blue Line USA. His company is one of the largest online retailers of pro-police paraphernalia. (They did tepidly disavow the use of their flag at Charlottesville.) While Jacob alleges the flag's creation was not a response to the Black Lives Matter movement, later statements and reporting by Harper's shows this was false. Indeed, as early as 2014, the NYPD used the flag as an attempt to distract from accountability for killer cops in order to focus more on the minority of cops killed in the line of duty.

Simultaneously, a "Blue Lives Matter" movement began to take shape nationwide. Spurred by isolated incidents of police officers who'd been attacked, even Trump began to co-opt the rhetoric for his own avarice, narcissism, and cruelty, tying it into everything from the Islamophobic Muslim ban to anti-immigrant and anti-refugee actions by ICE. However, attacks against police have dropped by 90% since 1970, parallel to decreased crime rates. Nowadays, it's more dangerous to drive a taxi in California than to be a cop. (See https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/1/14/17991530/violent-crime-drop-murder-usa-statistics-why and https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/1002500001.) Yet that hasn't stopped some local governments from trying to classify resistance from BIPOC to overpolicing police as a hate crime, despite the fact that being a cop is a choice and not at all the same as Black people experiencing racism. (See https://www.nyclu.org/en/legislation/legislative-memo-opposition-blue-lives-matter-bill and https://blackandmagazine.com/2020/08/commentarywhats-wrong-with-the-thin-blue-line-flag/.) 

As for the phrase itself, it's a derivative of the "thin red line" used during the Crimean War in 1854 by the British during their colonial era. It eventually evolved to include a number of professions (e.g. thin white line of bishops) but always with a focus on violence, war, and us versus them.

By 1922, the phrase had made it to New York's police department in pamphlets and other promotional materials. From there it became the title of a 1950's television show masterminded by LAPD Chief William H. Parker. He was well known for his unambiguous racism, regularly employing dehumanizing language about Mexican and Black people that I won't repeat here. (You can look it up.)

Then former military and author Joseph Wambaugh used it throughout his novels, extolling the virtues of Western civilization as compared to progressives, liberals, minorities, or anyone else who didn't fit into his narrow version of America. After that there was Errol Morris's 1988 film, "The Thin Blue Line," where police, ironically, sent an innocent man to death row.

As the phrase and flag became more common among law enforcement, it began to morph further. Versions with the skull of comic book vigilante character The Punisher have been observed (itself a symbol of infamous Death Dealer card from as far back as Vietnam, see https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/03/29/death-card-vietnam-war/, and a symbol found on SLPD officers' tactical gear as recently as 2013!). There have also been various other images or phrases evoking the misconception that the people are anarchist masses poised against supposedly noble police officers protecting the very foundations of society. (See https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/09/the-short-fraught-history-of-the-thin-blue-line-american-flag-309767. Also, no mention if these patriots care whether the thin blue line flag violates the U.S. Flag Code.)

Tangentially, the "All Lives Matter" crowd has been remarkably silent about "Blue Lives Matter" and the thin blue line flag. They certainly aren't out making flags for roofers, garbage collectors, landscape workers, fishermen, loggers, and truck drivers. (All of those jobs are more dangerous than being a police officer.) 

Today, the flag is regularly displayed alongside Confederate and Trump paraphernalia. In many ways, it has usurped the American flag entirely, or standing alongside as a reminder that there are, in many ways, two Americas. One for the police to do as they please. Whether that's gassing peaceful demonstrators or murdering innocent Black women while they're sleeping. And one where their victims are supposed to just feel lucky to be part of, specifically BIPOC, the poor, the homeless, and the marginalized, no matter how they're oppressed. (See https://www.npr.org/2020/07/31/897615425/thin-blue-line-flags-stir-controversy-in-mass-coastal-community and http://www.dailypublic.com/articles/06252018/racist-symbol.)  

I hope my neighbors will join me in condemning symbols of bigotry in our city and reject their messages of violent racism.

Take note and take care.

P.S. Here's a great intro source and compendium from the fine folks at Rational Wiki: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Blue_Lives_Matter.