Flip a coin...

So I cannot decide if I should stick to my guns and write the ranty blog that was forming in my head this morning or let it go and watch the video of the puppies again. The puppies were awesome and made me laugh. So I keep leaning toward them...

But...

Well that's sort of the problem that I wanted to address in the blog. See, I'm not sure anymore if people are woefully uneducated or just willfully ignorant. I think the truth probably lies someplace in the middle, but I'm not entirely sure.

Watching the interviews with people and reading the responses to stories on that flag being flown in South Carolina has been head shakingly frustrating. People trying to say that the Civil War has nothing to do with slavery. That the choice of the KKK, the Dixiecrats and the segregationists of the 60s to adopt the Stars and Bars as one of their main emblems has nothing to do with racial intimidation.

And I know people who will try to argue with me on those points. And I just can't even with them. Just can't. Read what was written in the declaration of secession by South Carolina and their rallying call to get other states to join them, no wait, excuse me, not just other states, other slave holding states. "we ask you to join us in a Confederacy of Slaveholding states." Does that sound like it wasn't about slavery? You can scream states rights to me all day but the state right they wanted was to hold on to their slaves. 

It's like the American South is the only place where the losers wrote the history books.

And then there is the moment where they will tell you that other states NORTHERN states had slaves. Yes they did. You're right. And they will tell you that NORTHERNERS were racists. Yes they were. And BLACK PEOPLE even owned slaves. Yes they did. And guess what? NONE OF THAT FUCKING MATTERS IN THE BALANCE OF RIGHT OR WRONG! Seriously. I don't give a fuck who did what when, owning people is wrong. Discrimination is wrong. Flying a battle flag of an army that fought to keep the right to own people is wrong. And if you cannot understand that there is something seriously wrong with you. 

It's a sign of southern pride. Okay, why? What are you proud of that that flag represents? Why use that? Are you proud of the war? Of the fact that your ancestors fought to keep slaves? Are you proud of the treasonous history? Or of the fact that they lost? Which part of it fills you with the most pride, exactly? I'm curious here. Or is it some romanticized Gone with the Wind bullshit story you tell yourself about the good old days? Because, spoiler alert, they weren't good for everyone.

It's part of our history. That's another one. Well, sure it is. It's a big part of our history. And as such we should learn about it in school. We should see evidence of it in museums. We should understand that the wounds from that time, then Jim Crow laws that followed it, up to and including current attitudes today were all shaped by it. And denying it? Saying it wasn't what it was? That's not history, that's fantasy. And it's a dangerous one. It's one we see scars of today. And especially last week when a young racist with a stars and bars fetish went in to a historic black church and killed 9 people. You want to tell me again about how it has nothing to do with racial intimidation? 

It's not that he didn't understand what that flag means, it's that you don't. 

Are you woefully uneducated or willfully ignorant?

Now I'll go watch the puppies again....