Thursday, June 25, 2015

The Flag

Nine church goers are gunned down in cold blood in a sanctuary massacre that has all the characteristics of a premeditated hate crime and the best that mainstream media and a passel of politicians can come up with in response is to take down some silly flag that never should have been there in the first place.

It is true that that flag is neither a fitting nor honest tribute to those valiant Southerners who started, fought and lost the War of Northern Aggression. It is a symbol of racial hatred, nothing more and certainly nothing less. It was raised in the early sixties by racist white politicians as a cowardly poke in the eye of an Uncle Sam committed to ending segregation. If that flag stands for anything beyond racism it is a tribute to spineless politicians, then and now, who flap about in the direction of prevailing political winds.

And there are some so bold as to declare that should that flag come down then these lives were not lost in vain. Is life, in their eyes, so cheap that one silly rag flapping in the wind is worth the loss of nine good lives? Is it really conceivable, in their minds, that anyone who lost a friend or relative in that massacre views the loss of their loved one as a just sacrifice if it results in the removal of a banner? Or is it more likely they would fly that rag in their own front yard if it meant their loved ones were returned?

These lives were not lived in vain nor were they lost in vain, not because some flag comes down but because they, their loved ones and their fellow Charlestonians are an enduring testament to what the South and the entire United States can and should be.