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Video of boy desecrating US flag as woman watches sparks outrage: 'Raised to hate'

The viral video shows the boy yanking out a US flag from somebody's yard while a woman, probably his mom, waits for him till he throws it on the ground

A controversial video has sparked outrage on social media after it showed a boy pulling out the US flag from someone's front porch and flinging it to the ground as a woman, likely to be his mother, watched on.

The purported security camera footage, which has no audio, was shared on Twitter by writer Marie Oakes, who wrote in the caption, "Children are being raised to desecrate the flag." The video shows the child riding on a kick scooter alongside a woman riding a cycle. As they are traveling down the sidewalk, the boy attempts to rip apart a small American flag standing in a yard. After missing on the first attempt to uproot the Stars and Stripes, the child comes back to pull out the flag before throwing it on the ground. The woman, however, appears unfazed at the boy's disrespect of the national flag and the duo resumes riding down the street.

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The eyebrow raising footage comes amid a nationwide debate on the pros and cons of incorporating Critical Race Theory in school curriculum across the country. Several parents and lawmakers have argued that the left wing academic movement teaches children to "hate American exceptionalism," according to The Blaze.

Posted on Friday, July 9, the video has garnered millions of views and thousands of reactions online. Many observers were outraged over the boy's behavior and how the older woman allowed the child to damage someone's private property, especially an American flag. "This is sickening. What a horrible mother," podcaster Gerry Callahan commented. "Breaks my cold little heart to see such a young child doing this.... what is going on in that home if the mother can egg it on," one Twitter user added. "A nation will not survive when society teaches its children to hate it," another chimed in. Another said, "Honest question: How can a country succeed if their citizens are being raised to hate it?"

As noted by Fox News' Emma Colton, the perception of the Stars and Stripes as a divisive symbol has leached into mainstream culture. Songstress Macy Gray recently argued that the flag needed a revamp because the current version is "tattered, dated, divisive, and incorrect", while a Black Lives Matter chapter in Utah called the flag "a symbol of hatred".

"When we Black Americans see this flag we know the person flying it is not safe to be around," Utah's BLM chapter wrote in a Fourth of July Facebook post. "When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist. When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do. When we see this flag, we question your intelligence. We know to avoid you. It is a symbol of hatred."

Meanwhile, The New York Times defended an editorial board member after she said she was was "disturbed" to see American flags during a trip on Long Island. "I was on Long Island this weekend visiting a really dear friend, and I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with [expletives] against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and, in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing," Mara Gay said last month during a segment on MSNBC. "Essentially, the message was clear ... This is my country. This is not your country. I own this," she added.