It was very exciting and joyous to read about Bree’s climbing up the flag pole to take down the Confederate Flag and what a breakfast conversation that generated.
It is clear South Carolina was not going to remove their confederate flag. When you have been in politics for awhile you understand that when you lose – there are standard responses to that loss – punt! procrastinate! lie! postpone! acknowledge your loss and talk about how you are going to do the right thing, but tomorrow! And that is what South Carolina has done and is doing. No one should have to wait nor should there have to be a fight for that flag to be removed. It could have been removed years ago, but is still flying.
If they had any intention of taking down the Confederate Flag, it would have been down before Bree went up that flagpole. The people who need to be arrested are those responsible for continuing the presence of such a racist symbol. The principles for which the confederate flag stands were the losers and are the losers in present day America.
We talked about how great it was to know that all of that police brutality has not had the affect of putting fear into this young generation fighting racism and sexism. It was really fantastic to know we are not alone – there are others across the country taking action to make sure our United States changes and follows its own principles and beliefs – and to know there are still United States citizens willing to risk their freedom to secure freedoms for the rest of us.
We talked about those whose constant response is “Sorry, but I can’t be involved”. Yet, those saying those words have no problems accepting and using the freedoms they can now experience because of the involvement of the rest of us.
It is time for the leaders of these Civil Rights Movements to be those who climbed the flag poles and not those who begged off because of their non-involvement policy. Those ‘not going to be involved’ folks are standing apart and aside from the activists so they will be ready and free of “taint” to become leaders and take advantage of what the activists have wrought? We hope that, this time, that ancient way of doing things and allowing for the continuation of racism and sexism as usual is violated.
In South Carolina, we cannot fault those who say the confederate flag is their history and the history of their ancestors. If that is their claim – it is. However that is not true of all the folks in South Carolina nor of anyplace else in this United States of America. Some folks from South Carolina and elsewhere have another history. They do not honor and hold up the history and ancestor worship of the kkk, nor of the white citizens councils, nor of the survivalists nor of other groups trying to maintain the Jim Crow which was the traditional way life was lived.
To fight to keep the confederate flag, which didn’t fly over the South Carolina capitol until 1962 and which began to fly there as a reminder that South Carolina’s folks were promoting a way of life which pre-dated the Civil Rights Movement needs to be acknowledged. To allow the confederate flag to fly over the state capitol to remind South Carolina’s citizens of the fact that the freedoms for which the Civil Rights Movement was fighting and promoting need to be constantly kept at bay was and is wrong, immoral, sinful and evil. It was an act of defiance against Brown vs the Board of Education and other changes happening. They wanted life to remain in the place where “White” meant privileges which others didn’t experience and “Blacks” meant you couldn’t vote nor take part in anything other than the menial service to the “Whites” in the state and the maintenance of White Privilege.
If that confederate flag is replaced and flies again after Bree’s action, I think it is clear South Carolina has no intention of taking it down. They have simply put up mid-August as the date for a vote to remove the flag in the hopes that things would quiet down and they would be able to vote against the removal of the flag and only a few would notice and not take action.
Isn’t that the traditional way those “White Privileges” have been maintained. Removing the flag means a commitment by South Carolina to end “White Supremacy”. It is past the time for that to go and past the time for states to maintain a prominent place on the State Capitol’s grounds for the confederate flag or for anything else that maintains that belief, goal and principle.
Thank you Bree from the bottom of our hearts!
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