losers

The United States went to war. They went to war to stand against an oppressive regime that was committing extremely brutal human rights violations. They fought for 4+ years to bring that regime and its allies down. After much life was lost fighting for this cause, surrender was finally given by this tyrannical state. No longer could this entity whip, burn, hang, torture, eviscerate, shoot, imprison and bind the minorities in their midst- minorities whose only crime against the state was being different. Their flag was stripped and burned by the US government, the leaders of their armies were put on trial and found guilty, and at last a new free, democratic rule was put in the place of this regime.

This is the narrative of World War II. It should be the narrative of the Civil War. We should understand the confederacy in the same way we understand Nazi Germany- a government meant to completely disenfranchise and destroy one people group so that the majority group can have the economic and political power they desire. But instead, the atrocities committed under the slave code were allowed to continue for years, and even now still exist. Not only that, but their actual flag still flies proudly over government buildings. So while most history texts outside of Texas will tell you that the North (the legitimate US Government) won the war, it seems to me more like the South won, for they still feel the same way and fly the same flag. Perhaps Germany should be allowed to fly a swastika in Berlin to “celebrate their heritage” and “honor those who perished under it”. How would our WWII veterans feel about that?

And if you find this comparison repulsive, then show me by your actions that the south has changed- words are far too hollow. If you don’t like being compared to Nazis, then you should stop acting like them. If you are ‘proud to be an American’ then recognize only one country's flag should fly at our governmental buildings. I am sorry if people have co-opted your historical flag and made it into a racist symbol- but it is what it is. No matter how hard you try to yell about how it is not a symbol of hate and racism, the evidence of lynchings, discrimination, intimidation, Klan rallies, redshirts and all the act upon act of racist violence piles up against your argument. If you wrap the bleeding broken bodies of African Americans in your Klan-white bedsheets, I am pretty sure the result would be a confederate flag pattern.

Oh, and stop whining. The confederate flag is not being banned. The Bill of Rights (from the Northern union that preserved it!) guarantees you can treat it with the same dignity as you have been- you can continue to let your daughters wear stars-and-bars tank tops while your over-sized battle flag drags the red clay mud behind your pick-up truck and the one on your barn wall keeps being the perfect backdrop for target practice with all of the scattershot holes in it. The winning side gets to make the rules- and the losers have to suck it. You get to keep your flag in all its many ridiculous iterations on swim trunks and penknives everywhere, but it can no longer fly on public, governmental property. Deal with it and move on. More likely though, I suspect you will resort to your usual habits of playing the victim and intimidating those who dare to resist. Having lived in the south all my life and even attending a university founded in 1861, I know your ways. My family heritage includes southern soldiers and German immigrant Kings grant recipients and slave holding Civil War generals. It goes back in South Carolina before there was a United States. I am almost ashamed to admit that history some days. But I can see the faults in our past, and work to correct them rather than standing on the shifting sand that is false pride. Perhaps you can too? Even so, I don’t trust this area where the current of mob rule runs just below the surface, more threatening than any shark attack in the headlines. I imagine you might send some bullets into my house if I were to put this in the paper or even out on facebook. So I’ll show my own cowardice by posting it here.

A war fought for 4+ years and thousands of lives lost. Just so we can have the same arguments for 150 years. Sigh. I think perhaps it is time I become more proud of my German heritage.