I got frustrated yesterday. A person I had a lot of respect for told me that they think it's okay to fly the Confederate Flag simply because they don't associate it with racism. Okay. Cool. You don't associate the flag that slave owners flew while they fought a war so they could continue to own people of colour with racism. Then what do you associate it with? People often defend it saying it represents freedom to them, which is an argument that is laughable at best and harmfully ignorant at worst considering the flag's history. And saying you don't associate a flag with its own history is basically saying you don't associate the Canadian flag with Canada. A flag is made to represent groups and their ideals, and the Confederate flag was made to represent slave owners and their want to continue owning black people!
At first I thought maybe they were just trying to defend their S.O., so I changed tracks and asked them if they would defend the Nazi (yes, those Nazis, the ones with Hitler) flag with the same argument. I thought for sure they would say no, and that it would flip so switches in their head! I was wrong. They said they would use the same argument for the Nazi flag. A flag, as I'm sure you know, under which genocide was done. A flag that one of the most evil organizations in history used. They went on to say that people could use these flags because "everyone is allowed to have their own opinions." Yes, everyone is allowed to have an opinion, but what those flags mean is not an opinion, but literally historical fact!
As this stunningly obtuse conversation continued, they said that not everyone sees them as negative symbols. I agreed. Racists, Neo-Nazis, Skinheads, Homophobes, Islamophobes, etc., probably see those flags as positive things! In general, however, decent people, average people, see them as the negative things that they are! They quit responding after I mentioned that for some reason.
Don't get me wrong, I 100% support freedom of speech and expression. That said, freedom of expression doesn't mean you get to go around hanging symbols of hate everywhere, just as freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to be a racist. I use my freedom of speech to speak out against hate and ignorance. I exercise that freedom every day, and I encourage everyone to exercise that freedom. I also live in a country where I am free to drink myself to death, but I exercise restraint because I'm a normal person who doesn't want to die.
On a side note, that's going to make me sound so white, I asked some of my friends who happen to be people of colour for their thoughts on this person's argument. First they asked me if this was a real conversation I was having. Then they asked if the person was a racist or just a very stupid (one asked if the person was a Trump supporter). When they finally actually answered my original query their answers, all of them, boiled down to basically this: the Confederate flag is racist, no matter what way you try and look at. As for the bit with the Nazi flag, they said the person was "basically supporting genocide."
We live in a culture where people (assholes) accuse others of being too sensitive and too PC, and that all of our being nice to each other is making future generations weak. I pity those people whose minds are small enough to believe that. We are not being "too PC" when we cut the offensive words out of everyday language. We are not weak for not wanting to offend our brothers and sisters. If anything, our dedication to making people feel accepted and loved makes us stronger than those who can't even control their own mouths.
This seems like a big deal to make out of a piece of cloth. But this past year was the year we had a woman climb a public flag pole to take down a symbol of hate against her people, only to be arrested. This past year was the year we (I say we because we all live in North America, and the plights of the American people should be our concern) had more mass shooting than we had days in the year. This past year was the year a black child was shot two seconds after the police pulled up because he had a fucking toy. It's 2016, we should be living in a society where everyone is safe, and there are too many people pretending that that is the case. It's not. It is time to take these rags off of our eyes and see the world for how it really is. The world is a messed up place. Truly. And the people flying the Confederate Flag are not helping anything. At best they're stagnating process, at worse they are actively working against it.
And, as history has shown us, the people waving that flag are on the wrong side.
At first I thought maybe they were just trying to defend their S.O., so I changed tracks and asked them if they would defend the Nazi (yes, those Nazis, the ones with Hitler) flag with the same argument. I thought for sure they would say no, and that it would flip so switches in their head! I was wrong. They said they would use the same argument for the Nazi flag. A flag, as I'm sure you know, under which genocide was done. A flag that one of the most evil organizations in history used. They went on to say that people could use these flags because "everyone is allowed to have their own opinions." Yes, everyone is allowed to have an opinion, but what those flags mean is not an opinion, but literally historical fact!
As this stunningly obtuse conversation continued, they said that not everyone sees them as negative symbols. I agreed. Racists, Neo-Nazis, Skinheads, Homophobes, Islamophobes, etc., probably see those flags as positive things! In general, however, decent people, average people, see them as the negative things that they are! They quit responding after I mentioned that for some reason.
Don't get me wrong, I 100% support freedom of speech and expression. That said, freedom of expression doesn't mean you get to go around hanging symbols of hate everywhere, just as freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to be a racist. I use my freedom of speech to speak out against hate and ignorance. I exercise that freedom every day, and I encourage everyone to exercise that freedom. I also live in a country where I am free to drink myself to death, but I exercise restraint because I'm a normal person who doesn't want to die.
On a side note, that's going to make me sound so white, I asked some of my friends who happen to be people of colour for their thoughts on this person's argument. First they asked me if this was a real conversation I was having. Then they asked if the person was a racist or just a very stupid (one asked if the person was a Trump supporter). When they finally actually answered my original query their answers, all of them, boiled down to basically this: the Confederate flag is racist, no matter what way you try and look at. As for the bit with the Nazi flag, they said the person was "basically supporting genocide."
We live in a culture where people (assholes) accuse others of being too sensitive and too PC, and that all of our being nice to each other is making future generations weak. I pity those people whose minds are small enough to believe that. We are not being "too PC" when we cut the offensive words out of everyday language. We are not weak for not wanting to offend our brothers and sisters. If anything, our dedication to making people feel accepted and loved makes us stronger than those who can't even control their own mouths.
This seems like a big deal to make out of a piece of cloth. But this past year was the year we had a woman climb a public flag pole to take down a symbol of hate against her people, only to be arrested. This past year was the year we (I say we because we all live in North America, and the plights of the American people should be our concern) had more mass shooting than we had days in the year. This past year was the year a black child was shot two seconds after the police pulled up because he had a fucking toy. It's 2016, we should be living in a society where everyone is safe, and there are too many people pretending that that is the case. It's not. It is time to take these rags off of our eyes and see the world for how it really is. The world is a messed up place. Truly. And the people flying the Confederate Flag are not helping anything. At best they're stagnating process, at worse they are actively working against it.
And, as history has shown us, the people waving that flag are on the wrong side.
No comments:
Post a Comment