Phony racism and the Confederate flag

A couple of years ago one of my daughters brought home a black friend
of hers from school. She was a polite girl — she liked us, we liked
her and we all seemed to get on just fine. Prior to this visit, over
the course of some months, my daughter had stayed all night over at her
friend’s house, spent time with her at the local mall doing some
shopping and gossiping about school and boys, and both had generally
behaved as early teenaged, pre-pubescent girls normally do. No big deal.

That is, until my daughter’s friend came over to our house one day
and spotted a small Confederate flag I had put on our fireplace mantel
along side a U.S. flag. After that — and after my daughter’s black
friend told her she didn’t appreciate the flag — we haven’t seen her
since.

Such is the success of the leftist political and social weenies who
would, if they could, completely deny all Americans the benefits of our
historical roots — or at least those elements of our history that they
don’t agree with.

And though the Confederate battle flag is the lightning rod for this
denial, there are those in our society — especially some black leaders
— who would, if they could, erase all references to, and
vestiges of, the Confederacy as though it had never existed.

Pure and simple, my friend’s daughter — exposed to this warped
marriage of revisionist history and political correctness — is a victim
of this propagandistic smear campaign against the Old South. And I’m
here to tell you — it is just plain wrong. Anyway you want to look, my
daughter and her friend were doing fine until her friend responded to
the display of that flag in typical Pavlovian fashion. The race baiters
in society and in public education trained her well because she reacted
this way knowing my daughter and her family were no racists.

Those blacks who have been responsible for promulgating these kinds
of lies and keeping the hate alive between the races over misconceptions
about the history and the politics of the Confederacy ought to be
ashamed of themselves.

So too, of course, should the whites who choose to use the
Confederate flag as a symbol to expand their Nazi-like white supremacist
beliefs. Neither of these groups has it right.

All of this was recalled to my mind again recently when I read that
the NAACP wants tourists to boycott South Carolina because state
officials remain adamant about flying the Confederate battle flag from
the Capitol building. So much for the freedom to choose.

But more to the point, this continual attack on any references at all
to the Confederacy is getting old, tiresome, and most of all
ridiculous. The NAACP, and groups like it, needs to worry more about
their original mandate — working to improve the lives of their
constituents — rather than whining about perceived racism that doesn’t
exist.

Claiming that a Confederate flag automatically smacks of racism is
like claiming that all black males between the ages of 15 and 22 will
steal your wallet if you leave it out for them. Both claims are equally
divisive and both are equally wrong. Blacks rightfully can’t stand this
kind of blanket assumption, so I believe it’s reasonable to say that
white South Carolinians can’t stand the blanket assumption the NAACP is
making — that because many of them admire and love their heritage (and
honor it by flying a flag) — that they’re all automatically racists.
Southern whites who still adore the Confederacy do so for many reasons
— the least of which is the desire to re-institute slavery. Give me a
break.

Americans cannot continue to support anyone who spouts hate in
any form because ultimately, as my daughter’s black friend
proves, some people will begin to believe the lies.

Our Civil War history, as painful as it may be, is still our
history. We deny it at our peril because after all, we’re supposed
to learn from our history. Ironically, though, the misconceptions about
the Confederate flag that are spun as truths by groups like the NAACP
are precisely the kinds of misconceptions that led to our Civil War in
the first place. Legislators and leaders from both sides had
misconceptions (and misgivings) about the institution of slavery, about
the constitutional role of the federal government, about states’ rights,
and about how to solve their problems without resorting to violence.

We don’t need to make these same mistakes today, but apparently we
already are.

A new poll recently released by the Zogby group shows that slightly
more than half of the high school students questioned believe some sort
of racial segregation is OK and is even preferable. Attitudes about
interracial dating and marriage, overt racism and the like were improved
over the perceptions of the last 40 years, but to have this many of our
children accept even an abbreviated form of segregation is downright
ugly.

I think part of the reason for that is all this constant denial and
misrepresentation of our history as a nation — especially when it comes
to the history leading up to the creation of the Confederate States of
America. It happened. It was real. And mistakes were made on
both sides.

But if we can’t learn how destructive all this pompous,
self-perpetuating divisiveness can be after killing 600,000 of our own
people, you have to ask yourself if we’ll ever learn anything. We won’t
if we’re not told the truth.

Leave the Confederate flag alone and let history tell the real story.
That’s a challenge to both black and white racists.