Bob Collins
The defenders of the Confederate flag who have insisted that it represents only pride in history are proving that it doesn’t.
In the wake of the effort to remove the flag from the grounds of the South Carolina capital, it’s becoming the new graffiti, the new “fighting words,” mean to stir an anger in those to whom it’s directed.
Over the weekend, someone hung it from the memorial in the shadow of Boston’s statehouse honoring the 54th Massachusetts regiment in the Civil War.
Is it only coincidence that the 54th is the all-black regiment that fought against the Confederate Army, which fought for the right to enslave black people? Hardly.
Confederate flag hung from Boston memorial honoring all-black regiment from Civil War era http://t.co/5ii9rbnJKs pic.twitter.com/hLwAGgCPpo
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) June 29, 2015
Nobody removed it until Melissa Carino, 37, tore it down.
“It makes me angry to have to do this in my own town,” she tells the Boston Globe. “I was like, really? Is that for real?”
“Obviously it’s pretty upsetting to see,” said Jonathan Krieger, 29, of Jamaica Plain. “When somebody puts something in a spot like that, obviously they are trying to send a message, and it’s an upsetting message.”
In Sioux Falls, S.D., a couple is hardly honoring a noble history by flying the Confederate flag in the yard. They admit as much to KSFY. They hung the flag because they’re in a long-standing feud with their neighbors and they wanted to make them angry.
