Quote:If you were going to send any kind of "racist flag" to me, the origins better be Germany.

 

I'm going to get on a touchy subject here, but it needs to be said.  Many people are "offended" or "up in arms" regarding the confederate flag.  I wonder how many of those same people think about The Holocaust and what took place there?  How many of the people getting "offended" even know what happened in the early days of WWII much less what happened during the Civil War?

 

What I am getting at here, is in the past several people were discriminated against, sometimes fatally (my reference to the Holocaust).  However, there was certainly discrimination that took place years after the Civil War, and it wasn't against blacks.

 

My mother has told me about when she was growing up as a child, and going to public school.  They got slapped in the face (physically) if they were caught speaking Spanish (her native tounge, though she was born her in the U.S.).  If her lunch consisted of a burrito or tacos and beans, it was taken away because it wasn't a "proper" lunch.

 

What my point is, racism has been around and affected more in this country than just blacks.  You don't hear stories like my mother's because they are less common, especially for someone not from the southwest.

 

The bottom line is, if there is a monument erected with a flag that represents the soldiers that fought and died there, the flag should remain, and it doesn't matter who "won" or who "lost".  When somebody wants to argue with me with the topic "because slavery", I say get over it.  My ancestors had to endure a life that was oppressive as well, and you don't see any of them being "offended"

You can go back to the late 19th and early 20th century.  Irish and Italians were regularly discriminated against.

 

In the 1960's. there was an active debate about whether this country could survive electing a Catholic president. 

 

There is bigotry and hatred throughout the history of this country, yet we have somehow managed to overcome these obstacles and advance as a nation.  People should be celebrating the fact that in 239 years, this country has gone from a dream to gaining independence, overcoming a civil war, ending slavery, winning 2 world wars to beat back tyranny and oppression, put minorities of both genders on the highest court in the land, appointed multiple minorities to some of the highest political offices in the land, and elected a black president.  Rather than celebrate that, we're more divided as a nation, and much of that division is manufactured by the very people we should be celebrating.  Unfortunately, we're too distracted by rioting or flags we find objectionable because that's where they need our attention.  It's a shame.

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