homewa
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Posts
- 280
I do understand, though, what it means to be black from being a black person in America and seeing deeply entrenched racism with supremacy reinforce itself to hold onto a symbol that was used to empower the denial of my ancestors' humanity on all levels.
Agency under that same symbol denied several black people their lives a week plus change ago.
That is all the understanding I require. Others may do as they please, I've unpacked that childhood ignorance, black bagged it, sent it to a landfill and will never again pretend that shit means otherwise.
You've changed your mind based on the actions of a madman? That's a terrible precedent... That kid would have killed without the flag, he'd have found another reason if race didn't suit him, because he's a fucking madman. We cannot let our thoughts be held hostage by the insane, that way will take us to madness.
And you can judge people who fly it, who have it on their cars, you can even judge the men who fought for it, even though almost none of them owned slaves, or gave two fucks about slavery and were only fighting for their homes. What you ought not to do (although you've the right to) is try to take from dead Soldiers their pride, they were American soldiers, and we've honored them as such, that means that we should honor the flag they fought for, even if it was a terrible thing.
We honor the men who die in even wars that are wrong, because they don't choose their wars, because dying in war is something to be honored, because the dead have nothing left but honor.