I am shocked at the astonishing quickness with with the public and the market have been able to condemn the white working class who hold on to the rebel flag as their one token of self-respect this week. (And all because twisted child allowed darkness to consume his soul!) However: this is an issue and a time wherein those of us who support the flag cannot win. Tempers are too hot. In recent years racial turmoil has broken out again and again, and the national leadership offers bitterness instead of balm. I think we must concede.
Growing defensive over the flag – and defensiveness is utterly warranted when one’s ancestors are being demonized – will not help us. By us I mean the American people as a whole. At the heart of this attack against the flag is legitimate outrage, legitimate sorrow. Those who attack us are consumed by it. We must work for reconciliation. Fighting back will only take the nation further down the road of racial war, which is precisely what Dylann wanted.
In the words of that honorable gentleman:
For the sake of Christ, and in the spirit of Robert E. Lee, we must acknowledge the pain of others and let go of our own pride. We gain nothing by holding on to it. Next week the public will find something else to fixate on.
Not all things decreed by the politically correct are obeyed by all. I fully understand Gov Haley’s gesture. It’s as if the congregation of the AME church expressed good will by proxy in expressing its forgiveness of Roof. South Carolinians are not Roof and are not like Roof. Undoubtedly, however, there are those black citizens of S.C. who think of whites in that way, or are tempted to do so. I recall some writer (maybe Shelby Foote) who opinined that the only states that really wanted the Civil War were S.C. and Mass. The rest were dragged into it in varying ways. And so, to whatever degree the battle flag was or might have been hurtful to the black citizens there, Haley returned the gesture.
Possibly I am overinterpreting the symbolism (having been a literature major and all, one tends to do so) but if any state represents leftism and hatred of everything the South stands for, it is surely Massachussetts, and its surrogates and followers are as ready as ever to condemn S.C. and every human being with a southern accent. S.C. responded “No, we’re better than that. We’ll meet reconciliation with reconciliation.”
But for others, there is a huge irrelevance to the whole thing. Rebel battle flags are sold, for instance, in Branson, Mo. in just about every way there is to use them. Whole outfits are made of them. But it’s without rancor. It’s just “I’m southern, country at heart, and at least a bit of a rebel (small “r”) so live with it.” And yes, there are black visitors to Branson.
I have a feeling that’s very widespread. S.C., through Gov Haley, has spoken its heart and, indeed, did so already by electing her and Sen. Tim Scott at all. But in doing so, it did not castigate those for whom the flag means something other than what Mass (as an archetype) wants to make of it.
:clapping: