For too long, we have looked the other way and have been “politically correct,” by not being honest about the Confederate flag. We have not wanted to hurt others’ feelings. Perhaps we thought the problem would eventually go away. It hasn’t gone away–any more than the racism it represents.
One can see this flag displayed and honored at meetings of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist groups. Why this flag? Any idiot can figure that out. It stands for the superiority of the “Aryan” race.
Parading this flag to greet President Barack Obama in Oklahoma was as racist as one could get! They might as well have shouted, “Look nigger, what are you going to do about this? We have a First Amendment right to insult any person or group we want!” Indeed they do; their actions speak volumes about them.
Adding to the insult is the G.O.P. Chairman of the House Interior Committee, who tacked on an amendment to the “must pass” appropriations bill, to allow the National Parks Service to display and sell Confederate flags. Coward that he was, he waited until midnight to do it–hoping no one would notice–but they did. As the saying goes, “Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t make it anything else.” So rub the lipstick off the G.O.P. You will find it is the party of racists.
Recall Republican Party strategy in the 1988 Presidential campaign, [using] the classical racist stereotype. Republican nominee George H. W. Bush used Willie Horton, a black man, against his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis. Horton was serving a life sentence in Massachusetts for raping a woman, while on a prison furlough. Recall the Dixiecrats who became Nixon Republicans.
The G.O.P. is the party of Senator Strom Thurman, whose son denounces his father’s racism. It is a party Abraham Lincoln would not recognize. It is a party Republican statesman, Senator Charles Percy, admonished at the 1978 Illinois Republican convention–where I was a delegate. Under Richard Nixon, it was a party willing to sell its soul to the devil, to win at all cost. The G.O.P. still suffers from that fatal mistake.
Anyone who thinks flying the Confederate flag is honoring the Confederate dead is mistaken. It is like flying the Nazi flag to honor the German dead from World War II or flying the Japanese flag of WWII to honor theirs.
Many Confederate soldiers fought bravely, but not necessarily because they believed in their government’s aims. Others were firm believers. Go to Charleston, SC, today and read the newspapers of the pre-Civil War era on display. It shows the arrogance of southern political leaders. For them it was all about money and keeping their wealth–which meant keeping their slaves. They thought the Confederacy would become the strongest, most important country in the world, and they would be in control. They were wrong. Because they were wrong, many suffered and lost their lives. Southern politicians wanted to preserve their wealth and social class status, and they would quote the Bible in their defense.
The Civil War is a sad chapter in our history. We have never recognized it for what it really was–a revolt against the United States of America. Flying the Confederate flag is an insult to all Americans, especially our Union soldiers, but also our veterans of WWI and WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It insults all who have worn the uniform of the United States of America.
Elected officials who support the display of the Confederate flag after taking an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America should have second thoughts.
Painting with too broad a brush is always wrong. Perhaps there are many who have neither given the issue much thought nor studied it carefully. Out of ignorance or misinformation, some have supported or ignored the issue of the Confederate flag. That does not make them racist. Nor does it help, once and for all time, to resolve the conflict this flag represents.
However, it’s time they studied the issue and took a stand for equal right for all people. It’s time to honor only the red, white, and blue. We need to end the mendacity and acknowledge that the Virginia Confederate battle flag is really a symbol of racism, segregation, and oppression.
It is un-American.