The Confederate Flag’s use as a symbol of hate and fear goes back over 150 years. Its use since that time has continued to promote that hatred and fear.
Q: But why don’t we put that behind us? Shouldn’t we let the hate fade?
Well for one it is still used as a symbol of hate and fear, the only change now is it is also being justified as a symbol of defiance and non-conformity. As long as it continues to be used to inflame the public the controversy will go one.
Q: Why don’t the ‘symbol of hatred’ people capitulate to the ideal that not everyone displays it as a symbol of hate?
So the innocent few (the true heritage believers) can have their symbol if those whose heritage was under that oppressive flag acknowledge that not all who wave that flag are racist?
Well the true heritage believers need to take that argument to the abusers (of their heritage) instead of trying to pass the burden on to the victims of the abuse.
Q: Why don’t the ‘so-called haters’ stop trying to be ‘politically correct’, stop being so sensitive, so easily offended?
Do you believe that others shouldn’t be so easily offended? It’s just a cloth, a symbol. Well consider this:
- Are you offended by someone burning the American Flag? Its just cloth, a symbol.
or
- Are you offended by someone flying the Al Qaeda flag?
- Are you offended by someone flying the ISIL flag?
- or the Taliban flag?
They’re all just cloths, symbols.
1
Q: How long before it will be acceptable for those flags to be flown in someone's front yard? 
I would guess, never.
: Also consider this:
- Wasn’t there public outrage when African-Americans began celebrating Kwanza?
- Don’t certain mainstream groups now complain about the rainbow flag of the LGBT movement?
- Wasn’t there public outrage over
Peace symbols and the Black Power flag in the 60s and 70s?
All three are symbolic, and none of them are connected to systematic oppression, racism, lynching's, etc., yet there are still those that find them offensive with little justification.
Just who are the ‘haters’ here?Are they the ones who brandish a symbol that has been used to spread hate and fear, or are they the ones who call that symbol hateful?
- One man’s funny joke is another man’s obscenity.
- One person’s Political Correctness is another person’s censorship.
- One’s good manners is another’s intolerance.
As our rhetoric has become more divisive we have become less tolerant of a difference of opinion leading to harsh, unbending responses that seldom generate resolutions. We find ourselves increasingly taking stances of being offended or wanting to offend.
Agreeing to disagree is no longer seen as a compromise position so that our differences don’t divide us. Now we see disagreement as the norm, the division as the compromise… the only right choice has become division between our position (the right one) and everyone else (the wrong one).
: If we have to choose between displaying a symbol that is hateful to others, but not to us, why would we insist on displaying that symbol? Yet we do it all the time. Nicknames and mascots that are seen as offensive to native Americans, the Confederate Flag is seen as a symbol of hate and fear by Catholics, Jews, Hispanics, and African Americans.
On the one hand those that want to keep those symbols site traditions and mythical heritage, while those who oppose them can site genocide, oppression, lynching's, and racism. Anyone can connect these conditions and acts using sanitized High school history books. By going to more sophisticated sources we can further prove the point in detail. Yet, the fondness for those mascots, and the simple fact that the Washington ‘Redskins’ have always been called the Redskins takes precedent over genocide, oppression, and enslavement?
Unfortunately we live in a time when we are so touchy about our differences we have become too thin-skinned, and I’m not just talking about those that feel offended. I’m also, and especially, talking about those people that are offended by other people being offended.
Q: Think about it. Who is more sensitive?
- Person “A”, the person who is beaten, bullied, refused service, falsely arrested, subjected to slurs, slander, or liable;
or
- Person “B”, the person who is offended by the audacity of person “A” when he complains about any of these things being done to them.
“Heritage or Hate?” is a 4-part series on the subject of the meaning and appropriateness of the Rebel Flag, the Southern Cross. The 4 parts are:
Click on any of these titles to read.
1 A lot of people who defend the Confederate Flag against accusations of it representing hate, are the same people who go berserk about anything that resembles a symbol that they don’t like. For example----------------->
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