While we continue hear from black and white
Democrats, as well from the likes of Al ‘Not-So- Sharpton and ‘Calypso Louie’
Farrakhan about the need for removing not the actual flag of the Confederacy
but the more recognizable Confederate battle flag, from public spaces across
America's South, there are blacks now asking if such a move actually marks what
can be called real progress for black Americans, or if it’s merely nothing more
than distraction. Of course it’s a distraction,
employed by those on the left desperate to distract blacks away from the issues
that truly impact them.
Across the country, blacks are applauding a
fast-growing movement to remove the Confederate flag from public life after
last week's racially charged massacre of nine black worshipers in a Charleston
church. But even many of those who support the effort suspect it will do little
to address what they see as fundamental racial injustices, from mass
incarceration of black men to a lack of economic and educational opportunities. These are self-inflicted issues. Blacks have simply reaped that which they
have sown for years by insisting upon voting for Democrats.
In South Los Angeles, where police last year shot
and killed Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old unarmed black man, residents, when interviewed
by Reuters, said that while they welcomed the prospect of the Civil War-era
flag finally being purged from public grounds, they did not see its removal as
a watershed moment for race in America.
It’s a flag! And to considered as
anything more than that seems to be rather pointless. Personally, I would think the Civil War would
be viewed by blacks as positive. After
all, it was thousands of white folks that came to their rescue.
And in demonstrating that the near endless
propaganda which we continue to hear from both Democrats and their many minions
in the state controlled media is having its desired effect, we have Melina
Abdullah. It was Ms. Abdullah that said,
"Black folks are still being killed; they are still being undereducated;
they still have little access to health care." Abdullah is an attorney who has helped
organize community response to Ford's killing. Taking down the Confederate
flag, she says, will not solve what she called "institutional racism and a
police system that kills black people."
And at first glance it would at least seem to appear
that statistics underscore those concerns: the average white family had about
seven times the wealth of the average black family in 2013, according to the
Urban Institute. Since the early 1970s, black unemployment has been
consistently more than twice as high as that of whites. And more than 27
percent of blacks now live below the poverty line, compared to 13 percent of
whites. And yet, oddly enough, blacks
continue to vote for source of their misery.
They vote for Democrats and voted for Barry in rather impressive
numbers.
Now there are those within the black community who
see far more intractable problems facing blacks than the Confederate flag,
including a justice system with an incarceration rate six times higher for
black men and a high rate of gun violence in many neighborhoods. In the United
States, blacks are more than twice as likely to die from gunshots as
whites. And it was Abdullah who said,
“We can't have this debate over the flag blind people to the larger
struggle.” But if any serious headway is
to be made on these issues, blacks will first have to accept some level of
responsibility.
Still, for many blacks, the movement to bring down
the Confederate flag holds powerful symbolism, especially after Dylann Roof,
21, was charged with the June 17 shooting in Charleston. In the days following Roof's arrest, photos
were circulated showing the accused killer posing with the flag. Ms. Jerri Haslem, 51, who grew up in
Birmingham, Alabama, said, "That symbol, the flag, is hurtful for so many
people of color. If you're not a person of color, you might not understand
that." I’m sorry, but to claim this
flag remains to have such an impact 150 years later is ridiculous.
By the way, she claims to feel the way that she
because she remembers as a child being called a racial slur by a boy wearing a
Confederate T-shirt. Come on,
really. Suppose I were to say that as I
child remember as being harassed or intimidated by some thug wearing a Black
Panther T-Shirt. Does that mean that
such shirts should no longer be allowed to be worn? Somehow I think I’d be told to get over
it. The flag in questions symbolizes
nothing more than the Confederate Army, it was not the official flag of the
Confederacy that chose to go to war over the institution of slavery.
The defenders of the flag who say it is nothing more
than a symbol of Southern pride and a tribute to the tens of thousands of
Confederate soldiers killed in the 1861-65 Civil War. But many Americans, black
and white, still claim to see it as a reminder that 11 Confederate states
seceded from the union in order to preserve a system that enslaved blacks. But that would be the same 11 states, then
controlled by southern Democrats, who were defeated and denied their desire to
do so! It is part of our history, we can’t
pick and choose what parts of our history are to be remembered.
Mervyn Marcano is someone who has helped organize a
number of protests around the killing of Michael Brown, who you will remember
as being the black teenager who was made to meet his rather untimely demise
because he made the conscious decision to attack a white policeman in Ferguson,
Missouri. Mr. Marcano describes calls by
politicians for the flag's removal, particularly those of white lawmakers in
South Carolina who never backed such a move previously, as a "cheap
political branding opportunity".
But it’s those on the left who are the political opportunists here.
Glenn Martin he grew up in the crime-ridden New York
neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in the 1980s and 1990s, one of three
children of a single black mother who was on welfare. He says he was subjected
to racist taunts and insults by white colleagues at a series of jobs. He said, “For so many black lives, it's a
cycle of in and out of the welfare system and the jail system.” Asked whether the movement to bring down the
Confederate flag will help, he was dismissive. "We are always looking for
the easy way out rather than having difficult discussions about systematic racism."
Again with the rather idiotic, and I would argue
baseless, claims of systemic racism.
Look, such claims are really nothing more than an excuse to be used by
those who refuse to take any responsibility for their own lives. And until they choose to do that absolutely
nothing, or very little, is ever going to change in the black community, with
or without this confederate flag flying.
More black men are in prison because more black men commit crimes that
makes prison their only possible destination.
And many, sadly, see that almost as being a badge of honor.
So I guess my question is, what’s to be gained by
trying to erase such a very significant period of time in our history and that
which, like it or not, played a very important role in us becoming the nation
that we have become? A nation that would
come to elect, and then re-elect, a black man as our president. Historically speaking, slavery lasted only a
very brief time here in America. And
it’s also a fact that slavery remains alive and well in many countries to this
day. And blacks are far from being the
only ones to ever find themselves placed into slavery by others.
And what I find curious is which modern day
political party is it that played a prominent role during that same period of
our history that is now under assault with desperate attempts for it to be forever
purged? That would, of course, be the
Democrat Party. That same political
party that found itself intricately intertwined with slavery, Jim Crow, the Ku
Klux Klan and segregation. And it is now
members of that same political party who seem to be so determined in their
efforts to erase every remnant of that history, starting with the banning of
the confederate flag.
No comments:
Post a Comment