As a pleasantly brown hued 'person of color' (ah...there, I wrote it without reaching for my revolver) I'm supposed to have a natural suspicion, even hatred, of folks who enjoy displaying the Confederate flag.
After all, these were the colors of the North American slave empire yes?
So you can imagine my discomfort when an old friend, a red haired, take no crap North Carolinian by birth, pulled up to my house in a sparkling brand new Toyota SUV sporting a little rebel flag in the rear window.
Now Red, a lover of the absurd and an admirer of women, wanted to go to an upscale mall to hang out and *observe the bizarre spectacle of mothers and daughters who're patients of the same plastic surgeon* but I was self-righteously having none of that. Not in this shiny new racist-mobile from the gleaming robot auto mills of Japan.
*What the hell's with the flag?* I asked.
This question started a long conversation with a lot of back and forth about my perception of the flag - a symbol or supremacists - and his: a symbol of defiance against the dominant national culture and smarmy, paternalistic Northern liberalism.
We talked for so long that I was glad the over-priced truck's seats were made of the softest leather, as creamy brown as yours truly (sorry PETA fans, but the leather was crazy soft).
To his credit, he understood perfectly what my beef was and agreed that, given the flag's history and the persistence of racism, trouble and mis-understandings were inevitable. Nevertheless, like a true American or a Maoist, he insisted that the past was dead, even if it continued to live in the minds of the stupid (his words ladies and gentlemen - hold those calls and letters).
*And besides* he added, *a good number of Black and Spanish folks have taken up the flag and modified for themselves.*
And he wasn't lying
DRM
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