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Kree -> RE: The Confederate Flag (9/13/2006 7:38:33 PM)
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General comment:
First, someone mentioned the Native American use of the swastika. If you will look carefully, you will notice that the symbol used by Native Americans is displayed, and always has been, backwards. It was a symbol of friendship. Dont create history without investigation.
As to the Confederate Flag, it is very annoying for those who grew up in the South to read the BS that passes as the politically correct "truth" about the flag, slavery, motives for secession, and later day use of a symbol. There is a mindset that would like to tell those who grew up in the South that their heritage means nothing. That their heritage is offensive and should be stricken from all memory. Shades of 1984. While kicking a symbol of the South around as offensive, why do those who never lived in the South, or knew its people, automatically assume that all Confederate flags are offensive? Why is it perfectly okay to try to throw away a culture, a heritage, because it might offend some people when descendents of those original Southerners have seen their streets renamed for civil rights champions, their buildings re-named, museums built in an "in your face" manner? Where are the champions for those who simply grew up with no hatred, no animosity toward other races, yet have had a different culture forced on them? What if a vote were held in the South to remove all mention of the Confederate flags and to outlaw all displays of Confederate flags.... if all streets, buildings, and museums were made to remove the name Martin Luther King from those places and put the names back like they once were? I am sure that will create a storm of outrage, but just try looking at a situation from all angles, not just a politically correct angle.
Someone mentioned the Southern Poverty Law Center. I remember when that organization was founded. The founder was a lawyer that understood the value of lawsuits, both credible and specious, if his name and firm could lead the charge. He has attacked those who needed to be attacked, but he has also created a place where those who did not deserve his scrutiny were damaged. He is the Ralph Nader of the civil rights world. Nader wrote a book called Unsafe at any Speed that destroyed the Chevrolet Corvair. Morris Dees viewed southerners the same way that Nader viewed the Corvair. White Southerners were Fodder at Any Speed to him. People like Morris Dees have created more racial hate than they have resolved.
Yes, I grew up in the South, so please dont try to tell me I havent seen these things. I actually grew up during the times of strife. I lived in Birmingham and actually happened to see the dogs and fire hoses that the media love to show. What was done was not right, but was the action taken in Birmingham that has been used to brand that city worse than the things that happened in the North during that period? No one died in Birmingham... they did in the race riots caused by racial hatred in the North, but we dont talk about that. Both were unfortunate and uncalled for events, but they happened. The only cure for all of these situations is for all people, all races, all parts of the country to drop their pretentions about the past and offer a hand to every other American and walk forward. Forget being Irish American, or Native American, or African American, or any of the other add-ons to American. If any part of the population takes two steps forward and turns backward for one step, we will never be a united country. Leave the past behind and embrace the future as a united population. We will all benefit.
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