I remember a confederate flag flying on a house in a suburb of Rochester. Even at a young age I considered it a novelty to be able to witness somebody so blatantly flaunt his idiocy. There simply was no good excuse for displaying it twenty years ago in upstate New York.
Here in Southern Indiana, more than once I’ve seen a pickup truck with a gun rack and an Obama Sucks bumper sticker flying a confederate flag. These people are dangerous. Driving behind them is uncomfortable. And I’m a white guy!
Plus it makes no sense. Even if this person truly is proud of being a racist prick, the goal of the confederacy was to divide the United States in half, which makes the symbol of the confederacy literally about as Un-American as possible.
I saw a ridiculous meme earlier that read “Do not take a knee! Take a stand! Support saving our history and our nation!” (I’ll spare you the image.) I assume the first statement is in reference to Colin Kaepernick’s ultra-peaceful protest to bring awareness to racial injustices, and if you complained about it then, you had better not be complaining now…about anything. As for the latter statement, this is surely in reference to confederate monuments, many of which are still on public display but of which the call to remove is growing louder.
Baseball teams commission monuments of the greatest players in their team’s history. Monuments are meant to glorify. We are not in danger of forgetting World War II, and thankfully we do not see swastikas flying in Germany, and statues of Hitler in public parks. We glorify the good guys, memorialize the fallen, and mentally spit on the jerks. Nor are we in danger of forgetting the Civil War. While there were multiple reasons the Civil War erupted slavery is commonly acknowledged to be the most important. Slavery is America’s National Shame. Robert E Lee and his fellow confederate generals fought to preserve slavery and are not worthy of being memorialized. They represent slavery. Now why would you want a monument glorifying that?
