When I was in tenth grade way back in 1985, I had a large Confederate flag hanging in my bedroom. One day, I had a good friend named Corey Oates over to my house to play video games. Corey is black and highly intelligent. As he sat down in my room, he looked up at this flag and told me in a semi-joking manner, “You know, that flag is a symbol of racial oppression and is highly offensive to people of my color.” I rolled my eyes at him and said, “What are you talking about, you homo? This flag just means that I am a rebel. I am not offending anyone. Don’t be such a retard.”
Personal growth comes gradually with most people. It comes over long periods of time and is accelerated through education. It evolves with exposure to other opinions and cultures. I can’t pinpoint the precise moment when these changes occurred in me but I do know that I am not a big fan of the Confederate flag or the words “homo” or “retard” thirty years later. My friend Corey knew that I had no hatred for other people in my heart, but my obliviousness to the pain that I may have been inflicting on those around me should not serve as an excuse for my behavior. We worry so much about “political correctness” these days and how it may infringe on our freedom of speech… but having the right to say something does not mean that you should actually say it. Human decency dictates that we restrict our own speech as soon as we realize that it unnecessarily damages the psyche of those around us.
The Confederate flag has been flown throughout the south for far too long. As a general rule, one does not get to fly one’s flag any longer after one loses the war. Only the winner gets to fly the flag. That is the way that it has always been. Can you imagine how people would feel if the Nazi flag was raised throughout Israel today? Can you imagine the anger and hostility this would elicit from the general public for no reason whatsoever? The Confederate flag belongs in our museums… not flying over our government buildings or in the bedrooms of our clueless teenagers.
Just recently, an angry racist white-supremacist entered a historically black church and killed nine of its church members in a cold-blooded attack. He stated that he wanted to start a race war. He acted as if he spoke for White Americans throughout this country. What would be a better way to honor those victims than to start the process of removing the Confederate flag from flagpoles everywhere? Would there be a better way of collectively thumbing our noses at this cold-hearted killer?
We should not remove symbols of the Confederacy because we are forced to. We should not succumb to peer pressure or political correctness. We should remove all symbols of the Confederacy because they lost the war over one-hundred-and-fifty years ago. We should remove these symbols because they unnecessarily hurt people for no reason. We should remove them because we have undergone our own personal growth as a nation. We should willingly take down these Confederate flags… not because we are forced to… but because we are a good and decent nation.
Say it again brother!!!!!
I’m so glad the removal of the Confederate flag is not an empty gesture that will literally serve no tangible purpose. We can all be assured that (for example) the lives of African-Americans will be improved.
No thanks, I’ll fly it when and where I want. I’m not racist or anything but he you thought though, what flag was flying over the ships that brought the slaves to us the American flag not the confederate flag, we have also had black people who fought with the confederate flag, why cause so much trouble over a dang flag! Why don’t we all just take every single flag away and become one nation with only one ONE flag to fly one fla to salute one flag to do anything to.