The following is a controversy response paper I wrote for a class in 2015. The article this references is linked below:
This article is especially revealing at this particular moment, as there is intense controversy surrounding the Confederate flag. One of the issues seems to be that to a large portion of historically well-educated people, this flag represents one thing: overt racism. The argument for proponents of the flag tends to be, “It’s our heritage.” The immediate response to that is, “Heritage of what—extreme support for slavery and treason to the United States?” And so the debate rages on and on with historical inaccuracy after historical inaccuracy being offered as justification for continued support of the Confederate flag.
One thing is clear to me: I support 100% everyone’s right to say whatever they want. And, at the same time, I support 100% everyone else’s right to tell them what a moron they are for saying such. So, it really pisses me off when suddenly everyone decides to give a shit about the same thing for 3 seconds and we take things way too far and over the top. Now we have corporations distancing themselves entirely from the Confederate flag, refusing to sell it in stores. Walmart and Amazon have jumped on this bandwagon; even TV Land decided today to stop airing episodes of the Dukes of Hazard. This, to me, is completely ridiculous and shows how complaisant we have all become.
It’s one thing to point out and criticize; quite another to start hastily banning things because some people might find them offensive. This is the point that we are at and I find it disturbing that, like sheep, people are blindly following these trends and not even thinking about any possible ramifications or slippery slopes these types of actions lead to. What’s next—banning To Kill a Mockingbird or Gone With the Wind? Sure, let’s ban those but ceaselessly promote mind-numbing garbage like the Kardashians, or the Bachelor, or Judge Judy, and all of the other things in our society that make a mockery of a supposedly intelligent species. That’s right—instead of thoroughly examining and resolving the conditions which lead to aberrant behavior, we’ll just start banning anything that absolutely anyone takes exception with while simultaneously pushing predetermined social trends and fads because, well, that will obviously work.**
Such is life in our idiocracy. Never mind the fact that over 10,000 people needlessly starve to death everyday around the world; or that millions of Americans are homeless, starving on the streets; or that we indiscriminately bomb brown people on an almost-daily basis; or that American society has been dumbed down to the point that most people can’t even find their ass with both hands, we lead the world in only prison population and debt, and yet we still have cretins screaming at the top of their lungs about how we’re “the greatest goddamn thing that ever happened to the whole, wide world! And, if you don’t like it, you can just git the hell outta here!” Yeah; we’re the best! This type of ignorant arrogance is why many people around the world have the image of a fat, slobby dumbass when they think of an American.
In conclusion, racism is alive and thriving in American society. Anyone that starts a sentence with, “I’m not racist, but…” and then goes on to rationalize some type of behavior by stigmatizing it and attaching it to a skin color is called…hmm…I know this one…I think it’s… Oh yeah! There is a word already for it—RACIST! And there is perhaps no better platform for examining how many people you know that are racist than Facebook. Over the course of the past 2 weeks, I’ve seen more Confederate flags than I have my entire life. It is interesting to point out that the same people, at least on my timeline, that are posting undying support for the Confederate flag are also posting their staunch opposition to gay marriage; using openly discriminatory language such as “n*****s” and “f*****s” when talking about both of these subjects. I’ve even seen juxtapositions of the Confederate flag being praised and rainbow flag burning. But, according to them, they’re “not racist” or bigots and the Confederate flag doesn’t represent racism or bigotry. You know, the same way that throwing up a disclaimer on a site full of racism—some present in the disclaimer itself—means that those that post on the site aren’t racist.
** UPDATE
So... Yeah. Five years later, I read this and think, "FUUUUUCK, what an asshole." The two paragraphs preceding these asterisks are proof of just how pervasive yet subtle the mindset of unrecognized white privilege can be. While sitting in a university setting, in a communications class called Discourse, Culture, and Identity, listening to the stories of my fellow black students, AND having already known about the Black Lives Matter movement and what it's all about, I STILL had the audacity to share some bullshit story about how I'd been discriminated against and called cracker and blah blah blah... 🙄
If by some chance any of those students ever happen to read this or remember my interactions with the classroom, I'm sorry if I ever said anything that might have diminished your experiences. It was wrong and I'm ashamed of having never been willing to listen or recognize my own privilege. Were we all at the same world-renowned university? Sure. But, that doesn't magically make our society's deeply-rooted, systemic racism problem go away. It's real. Systemic racism is real. There is no debate on this subject. It needs addressed immediately and it starts by stating unequivocally:
#BLACKLIVESMATTER
June 6th, 2020 - KBB
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