It's Just A Flag, Until It's Not

I remember the first time that I was called a nigger. It was third grade and by a classmate (who shall remain nameless), because I had angered him. I didn't even understand what the word meant. We didn't use that type of language in my household, but I went home and told my grandmother, and I received an early education into racism, and its products.

I have been watching the debates over the Confederate flag and just shaking my head at how clueless we have become when it comes to the feelings of our fellow man, and how we want to wave a magic wand and make racism go away.

Is the Confederate flag racist, or is it just a flag? Well, the Confederate flag was the official flag of the Confederacy, which wanted to secede from the Union. They wanted to protect states' rights. These rights were the right to own slaves. Slaves were property, and a source of free labor. Having to pay people for labor, cut into their overall profit margins, and good old Southerners were not having that.

President Lincoln, or the "great emancipator" as he is called, wanted to keep his union in tact. He used slavery as a bargaining chip. Freeing slaves was never about humanity or loving black people, it was about crippling the Confederacy financially, so they would have no other choice but to rejoin the union. The Confederacy of course that it was their God given right to own slaves, so of course they fought back, hence the Civil War.

If you are not convinced yet, of the Confederate flag and its racist origins, then why does the KKK, Dylan Roof, and every major hate group use it as its flag of record?

When individuals scream "heritage", this heritage is one built upon slavery and the oppression of black people. If you are okay with that, this is a matter between you, and your God.

If you want to place it on your car, your home, buy Confederate memorabilia, I say be proud in your racist ideologies.

But this flag has no place in government spaces, ie, the capitol building in Columbia, S.C. One of the most heartbreaking things for me as an American citizen, is to know that Rev. Pinkney's body had roll past that disgusting flag, during his funeral service,

Did you know that the flag was placed in the S. C. capitol building in 1962, as a direct response to the rise of the  Civil Rights Movement? But it's not racist right?

I prefer people who are honest about race, so if the Confederate flag is part of your heritage as you claim, this tells me everything that I need to know about you, and how you feel about me as a black man, and a fellow citizen of this country.

Until next time....