5 Dos and Don’ts for Flying Your Confederate Flag
Confederate flags outside #WXTU festival in #Camden called 'message of hate' http://t.co/FYaH9206Bl via @RprtrDan pic.twitter.com/aXw14AxUy5
— MetroPhilly (@MetroPhilly) June 1, 2015
The WXTU 31st anniversary concert was held over the weekend, across the river in Camden, and much of the talk following the event was about Metro’s report discussing how Confederate battle flags were much in evidence at the affair.
We like to think of ourselves as free-speech absolutists, so we don’t want to go around telling people they shouldn’t fly whatever the hell they want. Still, unless you want to be thought a total idiot, we’d suggest using the following guidelines to determine whether or not it’s really appropriate to bring a Confederate flag into Camden, New Jersey:
• You CAN bring a Confederate flag and be cool if you’re one of these guys:
… and even those guys are only just barely cool enough. You really need to own the car to qualify.
• You probably SHOULDN’T bring a Confederate flag along if one of the guys you’re going to see in concert is the former lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish.
• You’re OK to bring a Confederate flag to New Jersey if you’re actually in open rebellion against the United States and are willing to stand trial for treason.
• You PROBABLY SHOULDN’T fly a Confederate flag if you say historically ignorant things like this about it:
… although it’s true. Some people really did do a lot of work under that flag. (Though to parse it even further, some other people got a lot of stuff for free — namely the labor of the aforementioned people.)
• But it’s entirely OK to bring a Confederate flag along to your gatherings as long as you tell everybody that it’s about “heritage.”
…as long as you realize that everybody’s going to assume that your heritage is “being an a-hole.”
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