“What Is Your Fucking Heritage?”

June 22, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From a reader

Charleston memorial with graffiti Black Lives Matter
Protesters spray painted “Black Lives Matter” and "This is the problem #Racism" on a monument to the Confederacy in Charleston. (AP photo)

There is growing outrage, fury, and controversy over the Confederate flag flying high above the South Carolina State Capitol. Prominent voices have demanded it come down now.

  • Filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted “The terrorist Confederate flag still flies proudly @ the South Carolina State Capitol. Somebody needs 2 tear that flag down now. Today. TODAY”
  • Actress Mia Farrow tweeted “Confederate flag a ‘part of history’? It is a symbol of hatred and pain. The swastika too has an extensive history- #takedownthatflag”
  • Protesters in South Carolina have demanded the Confederate flag that flies above the South Carolina state house come down, and protesters spray painted “Black Lives Matter” on a monument to the Confederacy in Charleston.

I want to share two quotes with readers—one defending that flag, and another one (by Bob Avakian) calling it out for what it is.

Ben Jones, who was a Democratic congressman Georgia and played “Cooter” on the television series, The Dukes of Hazzard has been put out on the news defending that flag.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times (June 19, 2015), among other arguments, he defends flying the Confederate flag: “To those 70 million of us whose ancestors fought for the South, it is a symbol of family members who fought for what they thought was right in their time, and whose valor became legendary in military history. This is not nostalgia. It is our legacy.”

Bob Avakian, as most readers of this paper know, is the leader of the movement for revolution and the Revolutionary Communist Party. In “RESISTANCE, REVOLUTION, AND WHAT SHOULD—AND SHOULD NOT—BE SUPPORTED,” Bob Avakian brings reality into focus on this bullshit:

A lot of these white people in the South say, “well, that flag doesn’t stand for slavery and oppression, that just stands for Southern heritage.” Well, what is your fucking heritage? Your heritage is inseparable from and is founded on slavery and oppression and the Ku Klux Klan. That is your Southern heritage. There could be no South and no Southern heritage without it.

 

 

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