by Kevin Shannahan
“Scalawag” If there is a museum of vintage insults somewhere, the controversy over the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Confederate flag’s removal from the Christmas Festival parade has brought it a welcome revival. While I have to admit that I find some of this to be funny (I may be the only person accused of being a Marxist, cultural or otherwise, to have a nearly perfect 35 year Republican voting record) much of it is not.
I am not calling for a civil discussion here. Nice is an overrated virtue. Go ahead and call the mayor an idiot, pile of vomit or any of the insults I’ve read that don’t bear repeating. Paste Soviet flags on photos of Front Street and create a meme with Josef Stalin wanting to come back as the new mayor. Go ahead and call him an Uncle Tom (Ok, I have to admit that one caused me to scratch my head in wonder) if you must. It’s a free country and politics is a blood sport.
Traitor? Turncoat? Stop and take a long look in the mirror. You are not accusing the mayor of slipping the secret meatpie recipe to the Red Chinese or giving the keys to the city to Vladimir Putin. You are accusing him of being a traitor to his race. Every time I read a post on social media that calls the mayor a turncoat or traitor, it is soon followed by a comment about the racial composition of Natchitoches. One poster summed it up – “He turned his back on his own kind.” Other comments manage to be both obscene and racially inflammatory, their authors beyond shame.
Those people need to take a step back here before it’s too late. I do not want a city and state I have grown to love to be marred by a group of people waving a flag whose moral legitimacy has long since passed. Choose wisely, the future beckons.
The Natchitoches Parish Journal received this submission from Kevin Shannahan. The views and opinions expressed are those of Mr. Shannahan and not necessarily those of the Natchitoches Parish Journal. If you have an article or story of interest for publishing consideration by the NPJ, please send it to NPJNatLa@gmail.com.
Well here we go with one more idiot on the Confederate(Rebel) flag. How sad and for how long is this discussion going to linger on about this damn flag. People who attempt to prop up the Rebel flag are basically in deep denial and are bigots in their minds and hearts as to what the Rebel flag depicts. While it is true the flag flew over the Confederacy and the soldiers who fought under it – the truth also remains that what they were fighting for was oppression of people of color and desire to maintain slavery as a way of life for people of the Negroid race. As history moved on from the Civil War, the flag became a symbol of hate and segregationist practices against those same people of color. During the days of civil rights movements, groups in opposition to equality among the races, flew the Rebel flag as a defiant symbol to block activities toward equal rights for all citizens. Its comical and interesting you bring up the word “dixiephobic.” Dixiephobic refers to Dixiecrats who were no more than segregationists and white suprimacists groups who wore the color of their skin as a badge of superiority. The simple reference to “we have room but for one flag” means only that the Confederate flag has no place along side the American Flag. You know, bigotry is like wearing blinders that blocks out ones ability to have vision and be able to distinguish right from wrong. Its high time to bury the Rebel flag…somewhere deep in a museum.
The argument “we only have one flag” is just silly and immature, and reeks of US nationalist chest beating. Are you against State flags as well since you only want one? If you read the writings of our founders you will be quite surprised what they thought of the federal government in comparison to the States. (We could of very well been founded as a centralized single nation state titled “America”, but they chose a decentralized Union of States for good reason.) We have room for many flags, and whether you like it or not this is Dixie, it always will be. The South has a beautiful and well designed flag which hundreds of thousands of good men honorably served under and died under protecting their homes and families, and we should not forget their sacrifice, as Mr. Shannahan intolerantly and offensively advocates in this article.
P.S.
If you want another term to describe yourself besides “scalawag”, it would be “dixiephobic”. Google it.