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Notes -
The entire fervor for removing Confederate statues, flags, and other icons is one that has been revived within the last decade. And no, linking to some historical griping about it at any point in the last century prior to the 2010s doesn't mean anything. Their removal wasn't some natural conclusion long in the making after distance from the Civil War. It was an opportunity seized during a time when the country was already tilted sideways with Trump and BLM - a time when emotions were constantly overriding everybody's mental buffers. The Confederacy and its legacy were retrofit as the cause and explanation for modern day racial ills, and made a convenient target to destroy in a flex of political power.
Ten years prior you would see the flag on the car in the Dukes of Hazzard remake, and the film even has the playful cognizance to joke about what that means today. Since then, we have awoken to its evil power and must take drastic steps to not just hide it away in a dark vault, but destroy it behind people's backs? I don't believe it, and I would need a lot more than "it makes black people feel bad" (a point of merit) to be at ease with this given I don't trust or agree with any of their other newfound heuristics or behaviors.
I mean, I agree with you it feels a bit like a scapegoat, politically low hanging fruit — but the arguments in favor of Confederate fetishization being a thing of actual harm rather than a cute Southern quirk I think actually do have some internal merit. That’s why it happened so quickly. I think we shouldn’t be so quick to write the whole thing off as a naked power play rather than a sincere effort to right a wrong, long ignored.
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