The
"heritage not hate" bullshit survives today because white America got really comfortable after the end of the Civil War thinking that simply ending slavery meant the complete end of the disenfranchisement of black people when it wasn't. For how much talks about the taboo that is treason, it basically did nothing to the Confederate movement in the wake of emancipation. The flags should have been burnt, heads of the Confederacy should have been tried, prosecuted and jailed, groups looking to lionize Confederate soldiers or leaders through books and statutes should have been immediately and harshly pushed back against, intergration in schools and communities should have been immediately prioritized, swift and ruthless legal action should have been taken against individuals or groups committing acts of terror or hate crimes against black and brown people, the KKK should have been dismantled and crushed as an organization (It's telling that groups like the FBI chose to instead spend their efforts on civil rights groups) and Confederate, anti-abolition politicians with gross ideals should have been instantly disqualified from being viable governmental candidates.
It should be just as taboo to walk around with the Nazi flag but the Confederate flag is in a liminal space where pretty much everyone knows what the Confederacy stood for inherently, but too many people in positions of privilege spun and/or ate up the "heritage" lie as a reasonable justification for tolerating it while black people have repeated fervently for generations how gross and hurtful get ignored or gaslit with the "
we must tolerate the intolerant/
we shouldn't 'erase history'" rhetoric that so many political cowards cling to to this day. It's funny how back in the youth of the country and even now, the majority of the people actually interested in enacting and maintaining the ideals America has always claimed to stand for have been black people and other disenfranchised groups.
i just got done seeing this when i saw this thread..
LOL this will never get old. I don't think I've ever found out where this was from. A Vice Doc or something?
www.cnn.com
