The Confederate Flag

The recent shooting, killing 9 people in a church in Charleston, South Carolina has brought the issue of the Confederate Flag flying over the state capital into focus.  The shooter was a 21 year old white supremacist who told people in the church that he had to kill people since blacks were raping white women and taking over the country.  Police found photos on his computer of him with various white supremacy symbols including the Confederate flag.

To me the issue is that the start of the War of the Southern Rebellion was a treasonous act.  Southern forces fired on a federal installation in Charleston harbor.  The southern states seceded from the union to form its own country.  The Confederate flag is their symbol.  The major reason for their actions was “states’ rights.”   These states wanted the right to maintain their economy based on slave labor.  They were unwilling to give up their slaves and therefore left the union.  The flag therefore is a symbol of the desire to maintain slavery.  Is there anything more racist than enslaving a people based on the color of their skin?  The KKK also used that flag as their symbol and rallying point.
The interesting question is how this young man became a racist, white supremacist.  As the song says, “You have to be taught to hate and fear.”  Rodgers and Hammerstein won a Pulitzer Prize in part because of that song.  Who taught this man to think as he does?  Did he grow up in a household filled with racist diatribes?  He did not learn this attitude in school, even in SC.  However, there is a symbol of racism and white supremacy flying over the state capital in Columbia.  That flag flies throughout the South.

White southerners claim the flag is a symbol of their heritage.  Yes, it is.  But are slavery, the KKK, and rebellion the tradition they wish to emphasize?  If so, they cannot complain if others consider them racists.  Some people have equated the confederate flag with the Nazi flag.  The Germans do not revere the Nazi flag as part of their tradition and heritage.  They have repudiated that part of their history.  Isn’t it time for the white south to renounce their history of slavery, rebellion, and racism?  They can start by removing the confederate flag from all public buildings, license plates, and encourage people to refrain from wearing or displaying that flag in public.  It should not be covered under “free speech” either.

One other comment:  the shooter killed the people in the church because they rape white women.  He killed 6 women and 3 men.  Does he think that these African-American women rape white women?  Is he that stupid?  He probably is!