@Faithful, I disagree on one point.
The flag may represent slavery, hatred and discrimination, but there are a great many, perhaps more, people that believe it be purely a symbol of the south and the good things it has to offer. It's complex. It belongs in museums, it belongs in Civil War graves and sites, and a private citizen has a right to fly it if they choose. It is part of our history, we cannot erase that.
The removal of the flag from the South Carolina state house, which I agree with, does not change or solve any problems faced by the black community today, that still struggle with poverty, wedlock, crime and negative stereotyping that are only enforced when killing sprees like the one last weekend in Chicago occur.
Agree with some of this.
I think that the flag issue is completely separate one from Black pathology, though.
Flag issue, at least in terms of state buildings,etc...is an American issue. Battle flag means different things to different people, BUT it was adopted by groups who expressly did not want Blacks to have full rights as citizens.Very un-American view in my opinion.
I don't view the flags coming down from govt. property as a victory/solution/magic spell for Blacks but more as a step forward for Americans in general.
Like I've written earlier in this thread, there have been efforts to take the flags down from state buildings,etc for decades.Certain sporting events do not take place in states flying the flag, for example.
This story goes back before recent the church shooting.
If you, or anyone reading this, have ever read the Godfather..recall the story of the mortician asking the favor from the Don. He was an emasculated guy, because of not being able to anything to protect or avenge his daughter. That was fiction. In the Jim Crow South,Black men lived entire lives of emasculation.
Strom Thurmond, the face of 20th century segregation....basically sexually assaulted/raped a young Black girl who cleaned his family's home when he was a young man..in his 20s. What could that girl's father do or say in 1925 South Carolina ? Go to the police?
Emmitt Till was infamously lynched 30 years later in Miss. for being accused of WHISTLING at a white woman..joining countless other American citizens who were lynched publicly (with kids and women in the audience which not even Isis does) for rumors, accusations,etc. With NO legal recourse.
Groups adopting the battle flag to remember the good ol days (jim crow era and pre 1865)...knew full well what imagery represents to Blacks who grew up under jim crow.
