True Story: I was working at Hallmark on Sunday when a customer came in wearing a tee shirt that read, "It's a Southern thing...you wouldn't understand," the words framing a Confederate flag. This was on top of the obnoxiously huge Confederate flag belt buckle the man was also sporting. The combination of the tee shirt and the belt buckle irked me to the point that I wasn't sure if I could wait on this man had he approached the register. I was a little taken aback by my level of vexation until I realized a few things:
1. I live in Ohio. Ohio is not and never has been a part of the South.
2. The Confederacy was crushed by Union troops close to 143 years ago.
3. Anyone who wears a Confederate flag in the year 2008 is either ignorant, delusional, or racist. I'm inclined to believe that someone who wears a Confederate flag in the year 2008 is all three of those.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
True story: I work at a public library with meeting rooms the public can rent out. One of the groups that meets is the Sons of Confederate Veterans. They bring along their big ol'Stars and Bars and their Battle Flag of the Confederacy (the blue X on red background) and I guess wax nostalgic about the good ol'days when their kin had mammies and wasn't great-grandaddy a dashing hero for Dixie? Granted the SCV is not the KKK, and the Civil War or, if you prefer, the War of Northern Aggression, was not ONLY about slavery. But I can't quite condone such meetings, especially when a good deal of the patrons running around above the meeting room would not have even been allowed into a library 140 years ago. I'm a Yankee and darn proud of the fact. The state in which I now live, though, had a murkier allegiance. It was officially a Northern state, but its loyalty mostly lay with the South.
He might have been visiting Ohio from Alabama. But points #2 and #3 would still be valid.
What about Lil' John? He's tryin' to take it back! Okay? So, maybe not "anyone who sports the flag is a racist..."
At any rate, I like to mumble to myself--loudly--as I walk past these types of folks (Lil John excluded), "The only thing left of 'the south' is its accent."
Lil' John wearing a Confederate battle flag is a bit strange. I mean, it's acceptable in most minority groups to call one another the derogatory term for said minority group, i.e. the "n" word. But, to clothe oneself in the symbol of a racist society? You don't see Jews walking around wearing swastikas.
Well, perhaps that is because most Jews have very little relationship to the German country/Nazi empire for which that flag stands; however, Lil John IS the south. The dirty south. He's the king of crunk.
He's taking it back.
Furthermore, O-kAY?
WHAT?
Post a Comment