We live in a world of symbols for symbols take on a life of their own wrapped with emotion and evolving into heritage that creates the telling of stories, folklore and beliefs. This week in the wake of the horrific slayings in South Carolina, symbols have again floated to the top of the hurt and disbelief that must be ultimately addressed nationally; which means every American. Let me give a little biography of myself before my comments ..
I was born and reared in Alabama being born in 1948. My great grand father fought for the South at Gettysburg as did his two brothers. There is family blood on that hallowed field that changed the course of history. I attended a junior high school and a senior high school both named for "Confederate" heroes and our athletic teams were the Emma Sansom Rebels. History is important to Southerners and I am certainly not exempt from that hunger and lure.
Our nation today is at a fever pitch racially; a scale I have not seen since the 1960's which was my teenage decade I remember oh so well. The colored water fountains and bathrooms, back door entrances to doctor's offices for the black; all of that was real, unquestioned, cultural. But that never made it right and surely not today. Yes, I believe the balance, racially, has shifted for too wide on the pendulum of change as is evidenced in a myriad of ways we can witness on TV and movies and music every moment of every day. But the fervor and fever of hate has been astonishing to me and how it has now venomously manifested itself in targeting police as the enemy and targets of assassination all in the name of some gibberish that hearkens to the Black Panthers, NAACP, SNCC of the 60s. I say all of that is window dressing for a much deeper cancer is metastasizing all too rapidly. It is my belief that the ascendancy of Obama to the White House and his behaviors and that of his wife and the legislative process has augmented and accelerated this racial hate that is perhaps too far heated to be brought under control thus chaos potentially reigns ahead. But then there are the black families in South Carolina that are a blessing to any and all that are witnessing their faith in action!
But to my point! The Confederate flag is a symbol. At one time a symbol of honor and sacred to so many a hundred years ago. That same flag has become the symbol of red necks driving rusted pick up trucks with gun racks in the back window. As a Southern man, and proud of it, living in the North for almost three decades now, when I see that flag on some redneck vehicle and the perspective of the person driving, I am appalled and dismayed for the symbol is not worth of what it once met. The Confederate flag is a blaring reminder of a time gone by, a harsh, and deep scar on the American national landscape with nearly a million soldiers killed under the auspices of what that flag stood for. Seeing that flag on the South Carolina Capital in 2015 in the midst of the hate crime by a twenty-one year old probably deranged young man proudly being pictured with his red neck license plate was, for me, sickening to my stomach and brought a sense of why this flag is nationally allowed to still be flown. For what, for what purpose, for what end? A symbol that has surpassed its usefulness and now is symbol of hate and gasoline on a aging cause is just plain irresponsible. This symbol needs to GO AWAY NOW. I doubt there are very many South Vietnamese flags to be found waving in the breeze of Vietnam today and yes, it is the same parallel.
The second artery now surfaced after each mass shooting is gun laws. I have fired many weapons in my life but am not a member of the NRA but I cannot fathom how an organization like the NRA could in good conscience stand and defend gun use in this nation. We have the highest, by far, gun death and incident numbers in the world. Fiddling with legislation with Congress fueled by the dazzling funds flowing from NRA members into political coffers means that will never be corrected. For me, at this stage, the symbol of Second Amendment rights has been prostituted beyond recognition of what the Founders intended. I believe guns should go the way of the Confederate flag which is complete surrendering and destruction and that gun manufacturers face the same scrutiny as cigarette manufacturers are making their business model unprofitable.
People, WE ARE OUR OWN WORST ENEMY and these two arteries are front and center of the cancer.
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