screw confederates

We were driving back from the cabin yesterday and saw a pickup with a Confederate flag license plate. I asked my dad what statement he thought it made. "I hate black people." That's what it means. States rights, Southern tradition, what a bunch of horseshit. It means "I HATE BLACK PEOPLE." How is this acceptable?

States rights and southern tradition are simply euphemisms for the ugly truth concealed by the Flag. After all, the primary purpose of the secession of the Confederacy was not defense of states rights as an ends; the idea was to defend states in rights such to keep slavery legal. And "southern tradition" means the same thing. The only portion of southern tradition represented by the blight on America that is the stars and bars is an inefficient and lazy slavery driven economy that refused respect the humanity of all its people. The Confederacy was a hate filled institution, and the continued use of its symbol can only represent perpetuation of that hate.

Furthermore, the Confederate flag represents principles that rub against the Anglo-American tradition in the deepest possible sense. Liberty. Equal opportunity. Justice. We as Americans see ourselves as citizens of a country under which all of these objects are fundamental rights ensured to all. In short, these goals toward which we strive are the opposite of slavery, and when part of a population is enslaved, none are free. This is the irony of a person who puts a Confederate and an American flag in their pickup truck, or waves a Confederate flag while attempting to ban flag burning. The Confederate flag represents principles so profoundly opposite to everything that is represented by the American flag, it is essentially rejecting the United States as an entity, and all of its traditions and founding principles. In short, it is worse than flag burning.

The other horror of the Confederate flag is the fact that such a hate-filled and un-American symbol has become so trite today. Lynyrd Skynyrd can use the stars and bars on their set without any outrage. People put it on their trucks, and it is in several state flags. In a country where freedom and equality is our goal, and black/white relations is THE most important national issue over time, this should not be acceptable. Everyone should attempt to strive toward freedom and equality, not make veiled statements about their contempt for equality. If you don't care for equality; if you want a country where discrimination is the norm; if you want to harken back to a time and place where white people sat around where black people worked for nothing you can find a new fucking country. Because it's one thing to say that the government is failing and not living up to the principles that make America America, and it's quite another to say you don't believe in those principles.

We shouldn't ban the stars and bars, because that'd be almost as un-American as racism. But it's an absolute outrage that something so terrible is so acceptable.