July 07, 2015
(And please, spare me the pedantry about the flag’s history and nomenclature. It’s as boring and ultimately irrelevant to me”and the larger issue”as my geekery about musical Mischlings is to many of you.)
The overall nonreaction was a disappointment. The few responses I received were all supportive”I even got a shout-out on the radio“but no one, at least that I could see, followed my lead.
Why did I do it? As a Canadian, I don”t really give a rat’s ass about the Confederate flag, and too many of the talking points bandied about by its knee-jerk apologists sound a bit desperate. Plus, whenever I see an African-American defending the flag, all I can think of is “Trent,” the black Klansman in 1963’s Shock Corridor. (Hint: It’s set in a nuthouse.)
No, it boils down to what Gavin McInnes wrote here last week:
They don”t want to keep the Confederate flag because they”re proud of slavery. They want to keep it because you said they can”t.
Is that attitude shallow? Juvenile? “A really futile and stupid gesture on somebody’s part”? Ultimately counterproductive? The redneck equivalent of reclaiming the pink triangle?
I”ll let others decide, and leave you instead with the new land-speed record holder on the “life imitating satire” salt flats:
On June 30, the Daily Mash joshed, “Everybody wondering if it’s okay to change profile back now”:
Millions of people added rainbow stripes to their profile image over the weekend, to show their support for LGBT rights in a way that did not require them to get up from their computers.
Except, come to find out, this is really what passes for a deadly serious matter of etiquette and social standing nowadays:
But what happens now? How long should you keep it up for? Will it make you a bad person for changing it back?
Maybe the #TakeItDown gang really are onto something, albeit accidentally.
Fiddling around with flags really does seem to have wiped out every single one of America’s real problems overnight after all!
