Southern Discomfort?

In a shop in Skipton today. A ‘Closing Down Sale’. A rack of nice quality, but ridiculously cheap tee shirts.  My 6 year old daughter starts a conversation….

DAUGHTER: Mummy – why don’t we get one of those tee shirts there? They look quite nice.

ME:  Well – at first glance maybe. But that’s the Confederate flag and its certainly not something that I want to wear. That would explain perhaps, why they are 50p and no-one is buying them.

DAUGHTER: So why don’t you like that flag?

ME: Well. Some people say that it’s a bad flag – that it stands for racism because if you use it now, or wear it now – it means that the South part of the USA should be in charge of itself. And the last time that flag was really used was in the fight against the North – and the big fight, the war that they had was over having slaves.

DAUGHTER: What? the African slaves?

ME: Yes – and lots of people think that it is a very bad thing to want to go back to the days when white folk captured black people in order to make them into slaves.  Like me. I think that it is an evil thing EVER to have happened. And I can’t understand why anyone would want to glorify such stupid and backward times.  Now some people don’t think that that is what that flag stands for, but personally – I disagree.  So I would never wear that tee-shirt. Or anything with that flag. Its what it stands for, you see?

DAUGHTER: That’s a shame. I think Daddy would look nice in that tee shirt.

ME: Yes – but he thinks that that is a racist flag too, so he wouldn’t wear it.

DAUGHTER: Oh. Well. (Thinks for a minute).  Grandad would definitely wear it though – wouldn’t he?

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