A few days before my birthday no less. 😡
His name is Dylan Roof and he just killed the symbol of the American south. It has even hit Hazzard County.
Others feel the same way.
Yes. If it troubles you, white Southern Christian, to give up the Confederate battle flag, think of it as an act of sacrifice in solidarity with your fellow Christians who suffered and died, and who saw their churches burned down, at the hands of whites who acted in service of that flag’s ideals.
I have contempt for cheap theatrical stunts like Burn The Confederate Flag Day, gratuitous acts of protest that cost those who stage them nothing, but inflates their own egos with noxious eructations of moralistic flatulence. These are people who don’t want reconciliation or peace, only to rub the noses of angry people in their own defeat. However deserved that defeat may be, we don’t need any more hatred from sore culture-war winners.
Be of good cheer: the flag is coming down all over, and it’s coming down because Rand Paul is right: it is inescapably a symbol of bondage and slavery, and it is inescapably a symbol of white contempt for the humanity of black people. Who would have imagined that a skinny white supremacist punk would be the one who at long last drove Old Dixie down, and made the Confederate battle flag anathema, even to many Southern Republicans.
I should note, in closing, that this column is being penned by a Damned Yankee, born and bred in New York. But I’ve lived in enough places and met enough people to realize that you’re not always as wise and as righteous as you may think you are until you’ve sat down at the dinner table of another person’s mom for a plate of red beans and rice with cornbread. Every Southerner I know today abhors the idea of slavery and would immediately call the police if they found out about anyone keeping human beings as slaves. But they are also proud of their heritage and the many things the South represents, and for many of them the Stars and Bars is emblematic of that sense of history and pride. So maybe you can crack the politically correct whip and tear down some flags. I say go to hell. Our brothers and sisters who dwell below the Mason-Dixon are Americans first and always, but they are Southern by the Grace of God.
Some music for this very sad occasion:
I knew that this day would come, one day. But, I never expected my 69 year old Father from Middlesboro, Kentucky and my 60-something year old Mother from Dalton, Georgia to ever live to see it.
It’s a different world, and not the one I grew up in. 🙁 😡