Did I overstep the bounds of decency?

When I learned that a coworker has a Confederate flag license plate, I asked him why he doesn't just drag the corpse of a slave behind his truck.


Too much?
:shrug:

Do it!!

I can't they would publicly hang me for saying something like that around here

:rofl:

:thumbsup:

It has nothing to do (or very little) with racism. It's about defiance and resenting being told what to do.

Ignoring cretins like that is generally more effective.

That's just my opinion and I could be wrong.

Alas, I fear that you're correct. Nothing is more sincerely defiant than hitching oneself to a well-established bandwagon of defiance.

It's sick that the Confederate flag has become ennobled as a romantic symbol of defiance.

The current Georgia flag includes the confederate flag. College kids, frat boys and rednecks (99% seem to be men) like to display the Georgia - confederate flag on their rides.

liquor store. There was a group of people standing outside the door, mostly black. There are always groups of people standing around talking and laughing and such (there's a grocery store next door, so the area is busy). Started to go into the store, and the door was locked, but there were customers inside. One of the guys in the group said, "They're only letting a few people in at a time. After all, can't have too many of US in the store at once, right?"

That pissed me off (not what the guy said, but that the damned door was locked). There was a cop inside, and he came over and unlocked the door. I asked him what was going on. He said that they were trying to control crime. :wtf: I've lived in this neighborhood for 16 years, and this had never happened before.

Anyway, I was really pissed then, and I said (to the cop), "Why don't you just skip the middle man, and hang a sign over the door that says 'Whites Only'"? His response? He told me I could go ahead and enter the store! Once again, :wtf: I'm white, and this idiot thought I was upset because my white ass was locked out of the store!

I said, "No, you need to let these folks in; they were here first." The cop then shifted into the "I'm dealing with a dumbfuck" tone of voice with me...he wasn't scoring any points. I said, "Do you know what kind of message this kind of thing sends to this neighborhood?"

Long story short, they have never locked the door during business hours again, and have gone back to monitoring the number of people they let in to just really busy holiday times (and none of us have a problem with that; the building does have an occupancy limit).

No, you did not overstep the bounds of decency. I think the yahoo with the Confederate flag license plate did. And so did this cop.

How did your coworker react? The usual bs about how the confederate flag supposedly doesn't represent racism but instead represents southern heritage? As a proud and educated southern woman, that argument has always pissed me off.

What baffles me is that this guy has lived in western Pennsylvania his whole life, so it's not as though he's commemorating the sacrifices of his ancestors.

If he were pushed, I'm pretty confident that he'd have to admit that he displays the flag for no other reason than because he vaguely recalls it from episodes of Dukes of Hazzard during his long-ago youth. If I asked him about the Cornerstone Speech, he'd probably think I was talking about Michigan J. Frog.