The singer Macy Gray wants to redesign the American flag.
The one-hit-wonder wrote an opinion piece for Market Watch in which she said that the American flag has been co-opted and is now a replacement for the Confederate flag.
“The American flag has been hijacked as code for a specific belief,” she wrote. “Like the Confederate [flag], it is tattered, dated, divisive, and incorrect. It no longer represents democracy and freedom. It no longer represents ALL of us. It’s not fair to be forced to honor it. It’s time for a new flag.”
Gray won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her 2000 song “I try” (which has the lyrics “I try to say goodbye and I choke/ Try to walk away and I stumble.”)
Gray’s idea for a new design: off-white stripes and 52 stars matched to skin tone.
In her piece, Gray (real name Natalie Hinds – Gray is a stage name) argues that Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico should be given statehood, and that the flag should be updated to include 52 stars. Instead of white stars, though, Gray would make them display a range of colors based on skin tone, “like the melanin scale.”
As far as the white stripes, she suggests changing them to off-white.
“The Smithsonian documents that the ‘white’ stripes represent purity and innocence. America is great. It is beautiful. Pure, it ain’t. It is broken and in pieces,” she wrote.
In addition to her music career, Gray also had an acting role in the Denzel Washington / Ethan Hawke movie “Training Day.”
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God bless the red, off-white, and blue.
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