I have —we have— been down that road before, and as my grandfather was fond of saying, “It takes a fool to get kicked by the same mule twice,” and I am determined not to be that fool and get kicked a second time, again.

I reasoned that Governor Haley and her lot would make grandiose promises, and then wait for the statue of limitations to run out on our rage. However, they managed to prove me wrong.

But keep in mind that in arriving at the decision that the flag should be removed, Governor Haley and others like her proffered the notion that they simply had no idea of the extremity of the animus engendered by and contained in that antiquated symbol of the South.

Really? Did they not hear what so many of their constituents have been so adamantly proclaiming for so many years? Is it really possible that they did not know? Or did they just not care until now?

And many people are labeling this action and others like it across the South as progress even though nine innocent people had to unwittingly and unwillingly become martyrs for the cause.

The urge to insert the oft-cited Malcom X quote—“If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress.”—almost overwhelms me, but it has been used so often and so carelessly as to be rendered trite, so I shall resist that urge, though it would be apropos.

But, seemingly word of this progress has not reached the grassroots because as I drove to the grocery this morning to pick up a bit of milk and honey so that I could proceed with preparing breakfast for my family, Confederate battle flags littered my piece of the Southern landscape as if they had sprung up overnight from ground thoroughly fertilized by bitter hatred and resentment.

Nevertheless, it is Friday morning the flag is down in South Carolina. I watched the ceremony, and when they were done taking down the flag, the honor guard charged with striking the flag, then even pulled up the whole pole.

Yet, the issue as to just what the flag represents remains very much a point of heated contention. The one group claims that the Confederate battle flag is nothing more than a symbol of Southern pride in Southern tradition and heritage. However, the other views the flag as a sign and symbol of abject racial hatred and strife.

And as strange as it may sound, though, both groups are correct. The problem, then, is that the former group has an unrealistically naïve—maybe even delusional—conception of the true nature of that tradition and heritage and all that they entail.

From what I have observed, within the American cultural imagination, the antebellum South has been romanticized as an extended scene from Gone with the Wind, one huge verdant, agrarian utopia dotted with stately mansions and sprawling plantations, peopled with noble, gallant gentlemen, genteel Southern belles, and happy, singing darkies, and animated by slow, sleepy afternoons on the front porch sipping lemonade or sweet tea, frequently punctuated by grand, elegant balls in the late evening.

I believe this to be the fantastical, allegorical scene motivating most Southerners who cling so ardently and desperately to the symbolism offered by the Confederate battle flag when they speak of their tradition and heritage. But this scene is mostly that—fantastical allegory.

In a society and culture completely permeated and enriched by the institution of slavery, only a small class of Southerners, an aristocratic class made up mostly of planters, even lived this way. Only this very small class of people got filthy rich on the labor of slaves.

The vast majority of Southern whites did not own slaves. In fact, the very institution of slavery made many—not all but many—of their lives even the more difficult. Across the South, slaves performed a wide range of tasks, from the artisanal to the most menial, which, for the majority of Southern whites not owning slaves, resulted in limited opportunity, depressed wages, and a lack of education.

There is no need to pay someone for labor when that same labor can be had without cost.

In a sense, this poor degraded class of whites were themselves victims of the system of chattel slavery. I guess it could be said that they, themselves, were slaves to and within that system. However, the aristocratic class masterfully stoked the fires of racial resentment by manipulating the white masses and laying the fault of their squalid poverty at the feet of the black slaves even as they grew rich off the free labor of these same slaves.

But when the aristocratic class that benefited most from that exploitative system saw that system threatened, it sounded the alarm. It excitedly and desperately sought out the white masses that it held in only the utmost contempt, and proclaimed, “They are threatening OUR way of life! They are threatening OUR very tradition and heritage. WE must do something!”

And the degraded white masses, elated to be finally included in the WE after being shut out and devalued for so long, answered resoundingly, “Yes, WE! WE must do something!”

See; that’s that slave mind.

With that, the aristocratic class united them under various iterations of the Confederate battle flag, now a symbol of their WE-ness, and marched them off to battle. And in the excitement and fervor of the initial rush of war as they proudly marched off to meet the common foe, inspired emboldened by chorus after chorus of “Dixie”, I can only imagine that many glanced up at that flag flapping in the Southern wind, and for that moment, felt immensely powerful.

However, had they taken a second to think, they might have realized that the very traditions and heritage they were marching off to protect actually subtended the system of oppression that kept its boot planted firmly on their neck. Had they just taken a second to think, they might have realized that they were also a slave to and within the institution they sought so vigorously to protect and prolong.

But that symbol, the Confederate battle flag, has served the exigencies of the ruling moneyed class well. During the heat of the Civil Rights Movement, the moneyed class broke it out again just to remind the white masses of the tradition and heritage at stake, and again the white masses enthusiastically responded without critically examining that tradition and that heritage.

Even now the white masses in the South have united in a state of ersatz rage in defending that flag as symbolic of the traditions and heritage of the old South even as this tradition and heritage have yet to be examined, and furthermore, they have failed to recognize the face of the current Southern moneyed class as just the latest iteration of the antebellum aristocracy that has managed to maintain its money and its power by drawing upon the same racial resentments and pitting the one group against the other.

And before we truly embrace the flag coming down as a sign of progress, consider the following caveats.

The murder of the Emmanuel Nine by that young son of the South who had cloaked himself in that revered symbol, the Confederate battle flag, embarrassed the Southern moneyed class, which is currently in the process of rebranding itself in an effort to attract international investment and getting some of that global money, and laid bare the contumelious meaning invested in that symbol making it a financial liability, so the rapid divestment in this symbol perhaps had more to do with the needs of capital rather than a sudden moral realization.

Not only that, and perhaps most importantly, have you considered that the absence of this symbol is even more powerful than its presence, and that in its absence it is even more efficacious in maintaining and reinforcing the old racial resentments and pitting one group against the other?

The most dangerous being on this earth is that being that finds itself cornered and feels it has nothing left to lose. That being will always strike back with a certain ferocious urgent desperateness, knowing no bounds.

And there are many across the South watching that flag come who feel exactly that way, as if all is lost, and they are being pressed into a corner. What will they be willing to do to fight their way out of this imagined corner?

Be careful standing behind this mule. Stay woke.

The post Confederate Flags: Before You Stand Behind That Mule (Again) appeared first on Madness & Reality.

While it indeed is an honorable thing, in the wake of such a horrible act, its inadequate as a response. Why could not this have been done before? Furthermore, if we want to be technical, how does the American flag itself not represent a symbol of oppression? Saying that bigots can no longer display their flags in public just seems too easy and does nothing to remedy what occurred. If the calls for changes in the aftermath of this terrorist act go no further than the removal of the confederate flag from the public sphere, than it will amount to a symbolic, and facile victory. The seen and unseen anti-Black forces in this country should not be let off that easy.

It is now known that the white supremacist who influenced this murderer has donated money to a few Republican presidential candidates. Given the right wing rhetoric around “Taking our country back” it is not that hard to draw a direct line of accountability. What about how these sentiments are whipped up, day in and out? Its just not enough.

To those of you who feel like people making the claim that the confederate flag is akin to the swastiska is a reach, #wellactually no. The Nazi regimes eugenics program was inspired by study of the Jim Crow South. For more reading on that, you can visit here,here, and here.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this. Feel free to comment below.

[Originally posted st Polite On Society]

The post Charleston Massacre Calls for More Than Removal of a Flag appeared first on Madness & Reality.

The massacre occurred at the Emanuel AME Church one evening during a Bible meeting. The assassin Dylann Roof waited an hour to make his move. He took out his gun and started firing indiscriminately killing six women and three men, one of them was Paster and Senator Clementa Pinckney. After the shooting, Roof managed to flee until he was captured in Shelby, North Carolina.

When asked why he did it? Roof replied that he wanted to start a race war. As it turns out, he was indeed a young white racist who intensely hated black people. Apparently, he planned to do something about it for months, according to a former roommate.

The families and friends of the nine victims publicly forgave Roof for his heinous act of terrorism, and I call it terrorism, because the young man was intent to start some chaos, drama and mayhem fueled by his white supremacist ideals he got from God knows where, probably from conservative media or from a hate site. He had a gun that he obtained and wanted to launch the first attack against a people he despises. And he succeeded in taking out a few lives, but his purpose was short lived somewhat as, with all tragedies, it only brought people, both black and white, closer together, if only temporary.

Sadly, there are still many people, mostly white, who supports Roof’s terrorism against the black community. They harbor the same racist feelings and views as he. Only many of them don’t have the guts to carry out the extent of what he did. Instead, they find other, more cowardly ways to express their white racist mindsets. But it’s still racism no matter how one looks at it, and it still harmful just the same.

Again, I call what Dylann Roof did that fateful night terrorism. But there are still those who are considered ‘officials’ that can not and will not decide on what to call it. One can only guess that it was done by an American white guy on American soil against black people. Instead, they see it as a singular occurrence by a lone wolf with mental problems. They treat it as if it happens once every hundred years or so, purposely ignoring the problem of the angry white male with guns who shoot up and murder as many people as possible before – in most cases – taking themselves out.

Those on the right have a hard time admitting that this was indeed a hate crime. They refuse to see it as such, because it goes against their belief that white racism is a thing of the past. In fact, I would say they are too scared to face the reality that racism is still festering in America, and are even more frightened to face their own as almost all white supremacists and regular racists identify with the right. And I think they know it, but yet, they reject that truth, because it counters their political ideals and faith that racism is no more. Yet, they jump at a chance to prove that black racism is here, and sure enough, there are those who blame the shooting in Charleston on black folks, especially the President himself who is black.

Racism in America is real. The actions of that young man helps to prove that we are far from post-racial as possible. There are white males out there who feel entitled to what he thinks is his, and they are pissed off enough to do whatever it takes to teach the world a lesson that the world is his to own and command. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he feels isolated, betrayed, and wronged, and with access to weapons, he will punish the world. Whoever’s in his crosshairs will feel his wrath. No one is safe, not even white people.

As both black and white people heal each other through this crisis in the community of Charleston, the wound of racism will still be open enough for another terrorist attack to occur somewhere else. Another aggrieved white man will carry out a mass murder due to white privilege being denied in his mind and heart. He will have supporters and “excusers”. People will try to deflect what he did on the state of his mental wellbeing and will ignore, on purpose, the realities of racism, whiteness and gun culture, all of which is part of the American existence and what drives American violence. And it will remain so unless society deals with it’s other pathology. The pathology of denial.

The post Thoughts on Charleston: White Supremacy and Racism appeared first on Madness & Reality.

On one hand, I get it. Forgiveness because god said so.

On the other hand, fuck that racist bastard and may he burn in hell.

I’m going to need black people to stop being so forgiving. This forgiveness thing has plagued us for centuries. I’m quite sure forgiveness was taught to black people by slave masters, the same people who taught black people Christianity. Isn’t it ironic?

Throughout history, black people have been benevolent and forgiving. And where has that gotten us? It’s gotten the families in South Carolina a white judge who told them in front of a merciless killer that they should forgive.

No other group of people have been expected to be so forgiving to those who’ve hated, killed and made them second class citizens. Has anyone yet asked or expected Holocaust survivors to forgive?

Roof’s act of domestic terrorism was a calculated and premeditated act. Fuck forgiving him.

And for those who say that forgiveness some how makes your heart better? Show me receipts and prove it.
And for the love of god, stop assuming just because you don’t forgive someone, means that you’re living with a heart filled with hatred. Forgiveness and hatred does not go hand in hand.

If I accidentally step on your foot and apologize and you forgive me. Cool.

If I purposefully step on your foot, and let you know it was done on purpose and I don’t apologize and you don’t forgive. Guess what? You’re in your every right not to forgive me.

Forgiveness isn’t deserving when acts are deliberate.

And let’s just squash this misconception about being an unforgiving person. Just because you’re unforgiving, doesn’t mean that you’re hateful. It means you’re human.

To those families in South Carolina who were affected by Roof’s act of racism and violence, I understand why you feel the need to forgive. But I don’t understand why you feel it’s necessary. He’s not sorry for anything he’s done. The bible says a lot of things that have been open to interpretation, and forgiveness is one of them.

Just because god forgives, doesn’t mean you have to.

(here’s a link to the forgiven killer’s racist manifesto)

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