410
•
Freedom
Or Slavery:
A Tale Of
Two Flags
T
he heightened state of alerts
raised over possible terror-
ist attacks on Independence
Day tweaked my state of anxiety.
Fortunately, July 4 came and went
without incident, and another year of
fireworks, barbecues and holiday fes-
tivities is in the books.
I've now been around for more than
25 percent of our nation's existence.
If you're my father's age, you've been
around for nearly 38 percent of our
history and have lived through the
Great Depression, WWII, Hitler, the
births of Israel, Korea and Vietnam,
9-11, the constant conflict in the
Middle East and ISIS. These events
are embedded in the minds of those
Americans who were around to experi-
ence them.
The June 17 massacre at
the Emanuel AME church in
Charleston, S.C., triggered
racial issues we have grap-
pled with throughout our
lives, particularly since the
1960s. As I thought about
Charleston and the contro-
versy that ensued over the
Confederate flag, I real-
ized that while I have been
around for a lot of America's
years — good times and bad
— the Civil War and slavery
era predates us all.
We know about it, but we are miss-
ing the experience of living and wit-
nessing what occurred. The notion of
slavery in today's world is so absurd
and beyond any form of rational-
ity that I doubt most living white
Americans have ever paused and said
to themselves, I wonder what it would
have been like to live in slavery.
As Americans, we value our free-
doms — our right to free speech, to
bear arms, to practice our religion of
choice. In fact, anytime something
happens that threatens our rights, we
get angry and vocalize our determina-
tion to crush those who threaten us.
Have you said to yourself lately, We
have to crush ISIS at all costs? I say this
constantly — because I feel threatened
by ISIS' existence, their charter and
utter disrespect for human life.
Can you imagine what it must have
been like to be a slave?
By definition — absent impris-
onment for a crime committed —
Americans cannot be deprived of their
basic rights of freedom. We wave the
stars and stripes as a proud demon-
stration of the freedoms we cherish,
and we often demonstrate our willing-
ness to fight and sacrifice to preserve
those freedoms.
While we wave the flag with pride
and resolve, last month's massacre
reminds us that racial hate not only
exists, but it can also rage far out of
control, ending in the murder of good
people attending a Bible class.
In the aftermath, we then witness a
debate about whether the Confederate
flag has any proper stand-
ing. From a historical per-
spective, I suppose some
weak arguments can be
made as to the "historical
significance" of the Civil
War and the fight between
the North and South. I say
weak because I don't buy
them — but based on the
polls, some people must.
The "historical perspec-
tive however, misses the
point. All Americans, those
in the North and South,
those white, black, Latino and Asian,
value freedom and have a duty to fight
for and preserve our nation.
If we value freedom, we must be
honest and look back to those years
that predate our lives and admit the
fight fought for slavery was the ulti-
mate hypocrisy, a fight to deprive
Americans of the freedoms we cherish.
As we go forward defending our
freedom and calling upon our children
to sacrifice their lives for our liberty,
we should remember there was a time
when we were as callous and wrong as
our enemy.
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July 9 • 2015
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