Over 16,534,758 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
You might hate this, but it's time to let go of it for the sake of advancing as both a nation and as human beings. This is the flag of the rebel army that committed treason against the United States of America by starting a civil war, fought only because confederate states, didn't want slavery abolished. Yes...that is the key reason why the Civil War was fought...because they wanted to keep their slaves, and Lincoln(A Republican, by the way), wanted to free them. I get it...I do. It's a cool flag, and the General Lee, and Bo and Luke, were my favorites. I loved Dimebag Darrel's Confederate flag Washburn and Dean guitars, and they were symbolic of a Southern boy, makin' it big without conforming to the boring, monkey suit, business world. It's an iconic symbol in rock 'n' roll, metal, and country music, and has always been a beloved symbol of marching to the beat of your own drum, and being a little different...a rebel.
But...all of that, still doesn't erase the original reason that it flew, and the terrible ideals that it represented. When the Nazis...whose ideals, in many instances aside from the genocidal, Jew hating thing, were progressive and positive...were defeated, the nazi flag, which was not the German national flag, much like the Confederate army flag, is not the flag of an official country, was banned, and made illegal. Why? For the exact same reasons that people are demanding that the Confederate flag be lowered...because it's representative of an oppressive and traiterous chapter in American history, and is frequently used alongside the Nazi flag, as a symbol of hatred. I know that y'all are enamored with the illusion of it being representative of a better time, but it really wasn't. America was divided, and friends became enemies...all over the decision to try to become a better country, by ending oppression and exploitation.
After that defeat, the flag, was put in mothballs, and on display in museums, as a reminder of a not so happy past. It was mostly forgotten and left as a historical conversation piece...until the 1950s and 1960s, when the civil rights movement, brought about desegregation, which led many of the Southern states to pull her out and fly her high as a symbol of defiance, and to once again spit in the face of black people, and remind them that they were not the same, were not welcome or liked, and were not considered equal to everyone else. These, are convenient tidbits, that are omitted in history lessons, because acknowledging that we still have serious issues as pertains to bigotry, is inconvenient, and makes us look bad. The flag, has not been flying for 150 years, as so many falsely believe. It's only been flying for about 50-70 years since its latest rebirth. the fact that it is still so popular, denotes that we've learned nothing, and have done nothing to change the meaning of the flag, despite all of the talk about how far we've come.
Look at it like this hypothetically for a moment...supposing ISIS invaded, and managed to convert a big part of the nation into their messed up, distorted version of Islamic ideology(which is very different from real Islamic ideology, for the record), while killing and enslaving the rest of us for not being one of them, and started an uprising, the likes of which we've never seen, after the new progressive government, decided that killing and oppressing us was wrong, and set out to free us from this persecution. When the smoke clears, the new order prevails, and ISIS concedes defeat, agreeing to the new order's terms...but ISIS supporters continue to fly that gawdy awful black flag, despite the restoration of Ol' Glory and the Republic for which she stands. Don't you think that you'd be just a tad bitter and pissed off, if the government allowed them to fly that flag that caused you and your friends and family so much pain?
Maybe you know and love a veteran who has been wounded or killed in service in the Middle East, fighting these extremist assholes How would it make you feel to see a family down the street flying an ISIS flag? Wouldn't that piss you right off? Wouldn't that hurt? That, my friends, is exactly what black people in America, have been living every time that this flag is flown. That flag, to them, represents an unwillingness for America to move forward, embrace change, and truly embrace the idea that all men are created equal. It represents an unwillingness to do the things that need to be done to help black people become all of the things that white people are, and wish that they would be, while fighting the kinds of societal changes that would enable them to rise and be able to conform to those expectations.
If we can't do something as simple as let go of the obsolete flag of a long defeated treasonous uprising that represented oppression and torture to them, then how can we expect them to take our talk of trying to be a better country seriously? America, has made huge strides towards eliminating racism, but there is still a lot of work to be done, and it can't happen until everyone is willing to stop and think about how and why certain things hurt minorities, and are counterproductive to true national unity, and then take steps to eliminate those things that impede the unity that America needs to be a truly great nation. It's time to put the confederate army flag away. She can stay on display in museums and historical exhibits, to remind us of how far we've come, but she's a part of the past, and shouldn't stay in our present, nor come with us into the future. The future, is the stars and stripes, one nation united, indivisible, and with freedom and justice for all. Let's make it happen, folks. It's long overdue.
