The Blood Stained/less Stars and Bars

So the SCOTUS said that Texas can choose not to have the Confederate Flag on license plates, and that it's not unfairly discriminatory to deny the Sons of Confederate Veterans the "speech."  The question is not whether or not someone should have the right to place the flag on their car.  They can.  The question is not whether or not someone should have the right to yearn for the South to rise again.  They do.  The question is whether or not the State can have the right discretion to refuse to be mixed up with the symbol of the Confederate flag.  It should, and it does.

First Confederate Flag: The Stars and Bars

Second Confederate Flag: The Stainless Banner

Third Confederate Flag: The Blood-Stained Banner

 Those who wave the Confederate flag say that it represents, "Heritage, not hate."  I believe them, or at least their sentiments.  To them, it is not a hate symbol.  It is a way of honoring their ancestors who fought (and often died) during the Civil War, but for "the other side."  Besides, around Texas and other places in the south there are monuments honoring Civil War soldiers.  There are cities, counties, and even mountain ranges honoring Jefferson Davis and others.  The Civil War was not about slavery, but about the right of states' (and the people's) self-determination.  It was no different from the American Revolution, except that the rebels lost.

Yet, historical revisionists notwithstanding, the Confederate flag represents one thing: slavery, namely, white slavery of blacks.  So, despite many white people believing that contemporary racism of whites against blacks is non-existence, many people on the receiving end of that racism don't feel that way. "Heritage, not hate" and "racism is dead" are hard arguments to make against the SCOTUS when this article is juxtaposed in newspapers with the news of a white man killing members of a black church in a southern state in order to start a race war.