Heritage

You can keep your Confederate flags, BUT you have to stop asking for people to give up their heritage. You have to stop asking people to only speak English. You have to stop asking for everyone to look and act American. Because, after all, if heritage is that important to you, then you understand how hard it is to give up them.

The 150th anniversary of General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox was this past week, so Confederate Heritage stuff has been a little louder than usual. I live deep within the borders of Secessionist country. Four people tired of the United States government were arrested before they could start their terror campaign less than a fifty miles from were I live. Confederate flag bumper stickers are a daily sight. Get a random white dude drunk and how the South Will Rise Again likely will come up in conversation.

While reading A Raisin In The Sun, there is a part where George accuses Beneatha of her impending desire to talk about how great West African culture is and end with the word heritage. I finally made an obvious connection. Kwanzaa is African heritage. The Confederate flag is White Southern heritage. Spanish is Latin heritage. These are all things people desire to keep in their lives because of the pride in remembering from whence they came.

There is a horrible hypocrisy is whining about not being able to celebrate one’s own heritage while demanding others with different heritage give up their own. Then again, we have less than a month until Cinco De Mayo, which most people here drinking half price margaritas think is Mexico’s Independence Day. (Which is September 16th. November 20th is the start of their revolution.)

It should be obvious that if heritage supersedes all the negative associations others have with something, then things we hold offensive should be allowed by those who hold them dear. If not, then for the good of everyone we should give up our offensive heritage just like we ask others to do. Maybe we can lead by example?

Now that I’ve put this down in writing, I think maybe I did float this argument once or twice in my early twenties. It did not take off then. I certainly do not expect it to do so now.