If the claim is a memory of slavery over 150 years then how after a flag is taken down does that in any way erase that memory.
What has that go to do with the debate, Charlotte?
There is no reference to a claim of the memory of slavery" going away magically by removing a square piece of cloth with a pattern on it.
It's nothing to do with the Stars and Stripes and some "moral equivalence", as only the Confederate Battle Flag is insulting to Blacks!
It's not like primary schools were all kids get sports trophies or all kids get detention. This is not affirmative action blaming of all symbols or power. It's solely about the one flag that offends blacks, the confederate flag.
We can separately debate the US flag, I promise.
I try my best to convey simple meaning to you and it appears that my command of language is insufficient or you are just unwilling to entertain that the flag flying at their expense is offensive to many blacks.
Taking down the flag won't heal African americans. Not a chance, but it does decrease the resentment and opens a path for debate and dialog and a search for progress in race relations. More important than this decent gesture would be the following measures:
1. cease using all sorts of identification qualification schemes for slowing down voter registration of poorly situated blacks
2. cease blocking medicare expansion for large sections of the southern population
3. publicly apologize for the enslavement of the ancestors of African Americans
4. be decent in treatment of blacks and other minorities - at the pols and by the police and the history that's taught in our schools .
5. Remove the requirement for poor folk arrested on some suspicion to have to either admit guilt or come up with a bail amount that they cannot possibly afford. 30% of inmates in jails in New York are just the poor who have no money for bail. Being in jail means the poor lose their temporary housing and then cannot ever get another job if the do accept a plea agreement.
This and more. I am not a social scientist, a sociologist, economist or a jurist, just a scientist and physician who has a lifetime of experience. I know we have the aptitude, good will and intelligence to begin to tackle this huge problem. Don't worry, all your flags are safe. All the history is safe, No one is going to erase the heroism of men who fought for their homes. None of that!
It's about what to do now and in the future. I'm sure that there are many more simple changes that can help make the poor and especially blacks feel less oppressed and disadvantaged.
On Moral Equivalence
There is none! Discussion of the losses on both sides is a common excuse after massacres. This is what Ottomans claimed after being criticized for the massacre of over 1 million Armenians when the lights went out in Turkey during World War I, and the people were herded off, property stolen, girls raped, stolen for extra wives, sold as slaves/or whores to the Arabs and Circassians and the rest burnt alive, drowned by collapsing rafts in the Euphrates or led to starve a slow death in the burning deserts of Syria. Go to any Turkish website on the Armenian Genocide and you will have the same circular logic used in defending the history of the South, how both sides suffer
.
...and abolishing flags? no one is doing that!
I would say both sides had flags indicating North and South during all the battles fought. Yes there was slavery yes there was Hitler yes there was many things atrocious to humanity- Many lives were taken in the civil war. I just cringe at the idea that if we start abolishing our history/flags what else will come of this what other claim will come of this action. For me the massacre at this church wasn't because of the history of slavery/a confederate flag it was a massacre of A RACIST. It will take a long time before the human ego will understand "we are all humans"
not just African Americans or Native American Indians or any other race of peoples. I absolutely abhor
what this has done however I do hope that African Americans can actually heal if taking down a flag does that for them.
C.
You bring up "red herrings" Once again, I never heard anyone say that a flag
caused the 9 murders! Where on earth do you even scrape that from? It's utterly disingenuous to keep putting up straw man, when the debate is nothing to do with some, "causality" between a flag with a hateful symbol and this specific set of murders.
"Many lives were taken in the civil war?" So what does that have to do with a debate on the insult posed by a small square Confederate Battle Flag, permanently padlocked above a state structure and clearly insulting to most blacks?
You could, in like manner, assert that the "production of apples in those war years was equally high in both North and South!". It equally has no bearing on whether or not the blacks are telling the truth when they claim that the sight of the Confederate Battle Flag on their own State structures is utterly offensive to them!
If you had a recording from Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson where they conspired to invent a claimed insult by the flag to leverage some donation for their respective organizations, then yes, that would be highly relevant. Short of that, the facts speak for themselves. Blacks
are offended each and every day by the continued presence of obvious state sponsored brandishing of a Flag which says, "He, everyone, and you black folk, we're deeply proud of what this flag represents and represented and what we fought for and there's nothing you blacks can do about it, so get used to your position, as nothing is going to change!"
You a kind a and decent person I'm proud to know and befriend, However, you're sorely mistaken in trying to defend the indefensible! The continued flying of the Confederate Battle Flag on public buildings, at public expense is beyond it's allotted time. What was a natural memorial has now developed an indecent patina. Attempting to delay the inevitable by conflating this issue with a noble purpose to preserve "history" doesn't work!
History is not under threat, just white supremacy!
Asher