The outbreak of racial violence in recent years, culminating – to this point – in the massacre of nine people while studying the Word of the Lord at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC makes it clear that Black people in America haven’t gotten anything lasting from having a Black man in the White House. I’d imagine he’s feeling that now as well…as he’s winding down his tenure in the White House. And if it’s this bad while President Obama is still in office, imagine what things will be like in the White Backlash that always seems to follow anything White Society views as racial encroachments upon White superiority.
We have six months before the full-on backlash. The GOP is chomping at the bit with 28 candidates and counting, determined to “take the Country back,” repelling the attacks on White superiority. That’s why we need to press the President to honor the Presidential History of Illinois (i.e. Abraham Lincoln) and move to establish the Confederate Flag as a flag of treason against the United States.
How is is possible that you can be both a Patriot and a Confederate?
How can you support secession and union? How can you celebrate the heritage of a people who tried to overthrow the Union and be supportive of the Union you wish had been overthrown?
It is impossible to be both.
If we really want the flag to come down, across the Nation, we better do it while a Black man is in the White House. Whether you are White or Black reading this: do you really believe that this issue will stand a chance of being addressed once a White man/woman retakes the White House in January 2016? Do you think Hilary Clinton will fight to have the flag come down across the Nation? Certainly, none on the GOP side would fight for that.
Yet so long as we accept the confederate flag and it’s accompanying culture, the Civil War is not over. The South can still rise again.
So long as there is a culture that glorifies treason, there is the potential for sons and daughters of the confederacy to take up the original cause. Maybe it’s a lone-wolf attack now. Maybe later it’s a coordinated attack. Would that be better?
With every incident of racial violence we’ve seen recently, attention has waned without much getting done. We’re left in a position of hoping the attention will last.
We have a chance to end the Civil War once and for all: to compel America to confront the deep vestiges of White Supremacy that remain part of our Society. Taking down the Confederate Flag is not simply a singular act. It is a critical act because it is so polarizing. It is our diamond in coal: it looks like a simple, insignificant or meaningless act, but it contains great riches!
Do you think this is something @POTUS should consider. Let him know you understand the importance of this moment to the strength of our Nation.
