"After The Flag"

It is hard for me to imagine a swastika—the hateful symbol of Hitler’s Nazi Germany--being displayed on public land in the United States and defended by American Nazi sympathizers in the name of preserving their heritage, while maintaining an air of respectability.

Descendants of the pogroms in Europe and all who stand with them simply would not tolerate it. And rightly so!

Yet, as I watched the confederate battle flag—a symbol of slavery and racial bigotry--being lowered on the Capitol grounds in South Carolina today, I pondered over why this flag, which is just as offensive and as painful to Black people as the swastika is to Jews, ethic Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Romani, still has a constituency of supporters, who confidently argue that it ought be accepted for something other than what it really is.

If you readily see the double standard operating here, then you recognize there is yet a deadly virus infecting America’s blood stream. Its symptoms are manifested in the ill-fated resistance in South Carolina’s lower house to taking the flag down; by the continuous existence of some version of the same flag in the state flags of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas; by the suppression of Black voting rights; by the burning of Black churches; by the unindicted police officers that shoot and kill unarmed black people; and in so many other ways that white domination seeks to express itself.

Given the head of steam that seems to have grown from the terrorist attack on Mother Emmanuel, it will be interesting to see if real strides can be made on eliminating all other remaining vestiges of the American Civil War with the same dispatch and in the same spirit.

Until that happens, the virus afflicting the nation will continue to thwart its potential for greatness and make a mockery of its highest ideals.

And the sacrifice of Black lives can no longer be expected to be the price paid for the nation’s cure.