It still holds true today. His father sent a note back with no groceries. College students who supported Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign in 1948 waved Confederate flags at campaign events. They said it should be left up to South Carolina, a position for which McCain later apologized. You can also contribute via. McCluney, 53, is a national officer in the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which accepts male descendants of southern soldiers. I have stuck my finger into a bullet hole in her family home where the Klan fired into the wall above where her aunt, then a child, slept. It was 1957 when little Lindy Lubys great-uncle showed up at her house near Benton, Mississippi, where the family had lived for generations. Move forward. Embrace violence. I have lived among it most of my life, and have seen less harsh treatment from master to man than I have beheld in the North from father to son. Their God, our God, it doesnt matter. (Today, its supporters say the KKK co-opted it.). All Ive heard is a downplaying and whitewashing of history in an attempt to gaslight its population.. Similarly, alarge proportion of Republicans believe that the rioters who stormed the CapitolonJan. 6 were "patriots" whose use of violence was justified. Because, my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, our children will never know what freedom is. Yes, they say civil war, and they say it's already started. The Thin Blue Line flag dates back only to 2014. As, However you interpret these videos posted byTrump followers and otherneofascists which couldbe mainly performative , And a new poll from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics even suggests that, During an interview withMSNBC'sJoy Reid,terrorism and national security expert Malcolm Nance said that Cawthorn's video"picks up on the themes that are not just coming from the Steve Bannon level and Donald Trump level, they are coming from theRepublican street and that Republican street is armed. Why are these minorities pushing to do away with this flag? It was there when our grandfathers, great-grandfathers, were struggling to feed their six, eight, 10 kids. It was poor white southerners who fought in these battles, being strung along by rich, property-owning whites who banked on the ignorance and arrogance of the poor whites to fight and die in the war, Be says. The Confederate flag represents pride in the face of poverty to Massey, who came to Mississippi in 2001, the same year voters decided against changing the state flag. In practice, fascism is given life and takes corporeal form through itsfollowers, with each one being a potential carrier of the pathology. Our disgust for the dastardly wretch can scarcely be uttered, fumed a former governor of South Carolina, the state where secession began. The only thing that has changed is how the rest of the country sees the cause it represents. Hes more than enough reason that the symbols of the Confederacy should be removed from the public square.. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a "lock and key" relationship. [My father] was prejudiced, Ira says. She immediately brings up Roof. Haley nodded to supporters of the flag in her speech, saying that for many, the flag was "a way to honor ancestors who came to the service of their state during the time of conflict. The streets fill with bodies and stinging, painful clouds. Their mentality is flag-draped, all noblesse oblige and wounded besiegement, but their actions are those of armies accountable only to their own leadership. (Kean Collection via Getty Images). Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. Police continue to operate under layers of legal impunity and institutional protections. But it's not a coincidence that white Southerners were embracing the Confederate battle flag just as the South's system of violently enforced white supremacy was under its first real threat since Reconstruction. Trumpism is not actually the core disease. So, why are they doing this. The closet is packed with battle re-enactment costumes and weapon replicas. Robert E. Lees armies took special care to enslave free blacks during their Northern campaign. 0:57. On a daily basis Fox News and other elements of the right-wing disinformation propaganda machine use stochastic terrorism and other techniques to radicalize their audience into committing acts of political violence. In fact, if the originalhost dies, he or she can beelevated to the status ofmartyr for "the cause,"serving to inspireexisting followers and lure in new ones. In response, the Ku Klux Klan surged. I have struggled. Whats next? Made in the USA . In actuality, it is better than a gold standard, because violence has universal value. Yet, Heaven knows, no one would be willing to do more for the negro race than I, could I but see a way to still better their condition. Each week, we explore unique solutions to some of the world's biggest problems. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. We are going to stand valiantlyfor God's incredible inherent truths that predate any version of government. The current cycle of protests is a grotesque and familiar protocol, shaped over the past years since the killing of Michael Brown in 2014. The flag's supporters didn't buy the fad theory, either. The law requires the flag to be hoisted 30 feet from the ground, illuminated at night, and surrounded by "an appropriate decorative iron fence." The flag that Dylann Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, endorses the violence he committed. The phrase the thin blue line is older, perhaps first popularized in 1922 by New York City police Commissioner Richard Enright, who used the phrase to describe police as that intensive battle line, the first line of defense against criminality., By the 1980s, the phrase had gone fully mainstream, propped up by a symbiotic relationship between increasingly powerful urban police departments and sympathetic media; in Errol Morris 1988 film of the same name, a judge told the camera that police were the thin blue line that separates the public from anarchy.. 100% Cotton. Dylann Roof plundered nine different bodies last night, plundered nine different families of an original member, plundered nine different communities of a singular member. The Confederacy itself was founded to preserve slavery and promote white supremacy (see, for example, : "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery the greatest material interest of the world," or the. Ultimately, Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders, is, ------------------------------------------, Trump's rallies and gatherings continue to celebrate violence and the prospect of revenge, stochastic terrorism and other techniques to radicalize their audience into committing acts of political violence, theDemocratic Party and the political and news media classin general have remained in denial, and largely passive in response, "Are Your Republican Neighbors Planning on Killing You? Associated Press articles: Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. Potter was the president of the local police union . The friends reject being offended over what Hentz calls just a piece of cloth. "The Confederate flag stands for slavery and human degradation. Listen to the trailer for, Dear Therapist: I Divorced My Dying Wife Once She Was No Longer Lucid, did all they could to disassociate themselves, who understood the logical conclusion of Confederate rhetoric. More than any individual actor, in recent history, Roof honored his flag in exactly the manner it always demandedwith human sacrifice. As historian John Coski writes in The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem, Southerners weren't shy about enlisting the design in the cause of white supremacy. Those are the kind of historical interpretations that make the Confederate flag seem like a harmless symbol of regional heritage. ), Schools are not teaching history the right way, he says. Men who embrace violence. According to the people on TikTok and the Sun (British tabloid), the black American flag originated in the civil war and was flown by the Confederates. There are plenty of big bangs in "Flags of Our Fathers," but because . After she sat on a jury that condemned a man to death, she now campaigns for alternatives to execution and stars in a new documentary about her experience. Im a pointblank person. The LAPD was left to rack up overtime in an abundance of caution. The NYPD tailed protesters fruitlessly across bridges and through parks. "In no way does he reflect the people in our state who respect, and in many ways, revere it.". The Thin Blue Line flag shows how far America has to go to heal from police violence. In September,. The same Georgia state legislature that considered closing the state's schools rather than integrating them also changed the state flag to include the Confederate symbol. But while white Southern women were draping the flags on the gravestones of the fallen in the early years of Reconstruction, Coski writes, an armed militia of white supremacists in South Carolina was marching with the Confederate battle flag to threaten black residents. For those who embrace violence, the ability to see those that embrace evil comes through as clear as a beautiful desert sky after that rare torrential downpour. Signs set the tone at the Embrace help centers and shelter for victims of domestic and sexual violence in rural Wisconsin. I for one, have ever considered if one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us,) that God has ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Swastikas and Confederate flags were among the overt hate signs that the insurrection brought into the Capitol. What has Mississippi done to say that it is sorry for the rape, torturing and killings of scores of its black citizens in order to create a white majority? Be says. Put it in a museum. itol began flying the flag in 1962 and never stopped. LANSING Gun safety measures Gov. Pretty much any non-Conservative. IE 11 is not supported. Larry McCluney Jr teaches history to mostly black high school and college students in Greenwood, Mississippi. But slavery was waning, McCluney insists, and the north should have let it fade naturally. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? antisocial and other anti-human behavior on a national scale. Youre not bad with money. This moral truththat the negro is not equal to the white manis exactly what animated Dylann Roof. They have been fed an entire line which makes them believe that America is no longerAmerica and that, Trump and his regimegave permission and encouragement to his followers and other supporters to engage in. If we cant get white people to stand together, its going to be another civil war, he adds. That use of the flag is the crux of the "heritage, not hate" argument: that the Confederate flag is simply about honoring the South's past, its dead, and its culture. When it was taken down from the Capitol dome, some flag supporters chanted, "Off the dome and in your face.". By submitting your email, you agree to our, The Confederate flag symbolizes white supremacy and it alwayshas, The history, though, is clear: from the Civil War through the civil rights movement, the flag has always been about white supremacy. That's certainlytrue for the most dangerous and most effective of Donald Trump's allies, henchmen, henchwomen,and other followers. They are the opposite of the white flag of surrender. A State Capitol Police Officer in Connecticut donated a handcrafted wood rendering of the Thin Blue Line flag for display at the State Capitol. Not the main stream core freedoms that our country was founded on, rather the diminutive pieces of thread that weave together to form the very fabric that holds our great nation together. His own ancestors sacrifice is paramount. Sitting quietly in the corner, they wait patiently, hoping for the best but prepared to do the absolute worst. Davis is circumspect on the complicated history: I can say it was wrong, and I hope I wouldnt have participated in (slavery), but how can we know for sure?. Their hands would tremble, fearing that their actions have brought upon them the wrath of God. Its message had just become less respectable. 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