If the Confederate Flag is About Southern Pride and Heritage, Please Explain This...
As usual people are missing the larger issue and the white supremacists that are on this board are waving their banner of bigotry and hatred of black people like their symbol of treason, rebellion, racism, slavery, segregation, brutality, and murder once fly proudly on the grounds of the Palmetto State's astate capitl grounds.
In the worst act of domestic terrorism since the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the Governor of South Carolina deemed it fit to lower the flags in the state half staff out of respect for the South Carolinians that lost their lives. However, the General Assembly of South Carolina didn't see fit to follow suit in regards to their flag of rebellion.
To the proud progeny of rebellious traitors, segregationists, and/or Klansmen, the blame for this controversy rests not with your usual whipping boys or scapegoats, (i.e. liberals, Democrats, gays, lesbians, blacks, Jews, or the media). No the blame rests solely with your fellow white supremacists and their allies in the South Carolina General Assembly who in their "infinite wisdom," either didn't realize, (or better yet,) didn't care
about the national disapproval that would ensue if the Confederate battle flag was left flying in the aftermath of massacre committed by an avowed racist who identified with himself with "Southern ideals," and proudly displayed not only this nation's quintessential symbol of white supremacy but other those of the apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia.
If the flag of rebellion really meant that much to the progeny of traitors, they would have been the first and the most vocal at having the symbol of treason removed from the statehouse grounds, because of not only of Roof's association with flag, but also, and more importantly, what the general public's perception of the Confederacy is and what the Confederacy represents. The Confederate sympathizers wasted the perfect opportunity to show that their flag wasn't the symbol of treason, rebellion, racism, and segregation that most Americans perceives it to be.
However, where the white supremacist is concerned his animosity and deep seeded loathing as it pertains to black people trumps even the most sound and pertinent of logic. If the South Carolina General Assembly had immediately voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from the capital's grounds during the state's period of mourning and returned it afterwards, then the issue of the Confederate flag wouldn't have popped up. I would daresay that if the South Carolina General Assembly have the common sense and decency to even lower the flag to half mast, the controversy would have been avoided, however, that would have offended the white supremacists, racists, and segregationists who hold these "Southern values," so dear, one of which is being black people aren't worthy dignity, let alone respect. In the 1857 Dred Scott decision, Chief Justice Roger Taney said as much in his infamous words, blacks had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
And that's what removing from the capital grounds or lowering the Confederate flag to half staff would have meant, showing respect to black people, and that's something throughout the history of the Confederacy and it's supporters have never done and have been diametrically opposed to. It was more important to the progeny of rebellious traitors to say "F*ck those dead n*ggers," than to have their symbol of treasonous defiance flying on the statehouse grounds of South Carolina for perpetuity, but yet instill the Confederate battle flag isn't supposed to be about racism, segregation, or white supremacy.
