Take Down the Confederate Flag from Public Grounds

The Confederate Flag, has long been the symbol of defiance of the pro-slavery south. It is a mockery of human decency that it still flies on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse. This gives the flag legitimacy. To African Americans, it still instills unease, fear or even terror. It is a flag under which many white racist groups rally their battle cries of murderous hate and white supremacy.

Some in the south claim that the flag represents the South’s self-assertion against the North’s over-exertion of federal power over state’s rights. It is part of the South’s heritage. But history has rendered its verdict, this self-assertion was based on a wrong and unjustifiable cause, an immoral cause that tried to justify the subjugation of one human race over the other. The Confederate Flag is the symbol of that cause. The Southern heritage is one all Americans should be proud of, it is part of the American cultural landscape, but the Confederate Flag is not one of them. The flag is terra cariosa, in Latin, rotten earth, a gaping gash of quick sand on part of our cultural landscape we should be wise to stay away from. It is an abyss from which one should avert one’s eyes, lest one would be lulled into its hateful embrace.

The Confederate Flag, as well as the Nazi Germany Flag and the Japanese War Flag, should all be relegated to the dark of recess of the World’s Museum of Regrettable and Forgettable History. But the heinous and criminal acts committed under those flags and the lessons learned from them must not be forgotten, like stubborn weeds, they would sprout their tendrils of hatred and malignancy if we were not vigilant at all times. #TakeDownTheFlag