Imagine the Confederate Flag roaming the halls of the United States Capitol.
It’s an ugly sight!.
You won’t have to exert much energy to visualize the flag. They are all around the towns, cities, and country-sides where we live. On houses, trucks, cars, in yards, and other personal property, you name it— but no problem here.
And the nationwide controversy about removing all Confederate statues, flags, and other Confederate symbols from public, state, and federal properties are ongoing.
But I can’t get over seeing the Confederate Flag walk and run up and down the halls of Congress. How did it get in the people’s house more than 1 ½ centuries after the Civil War?
The flag is the Andreas fault of hate in this nation, and it wasn’t more visible or divisive as showcased recently.
Who invited hate in our Nation Capitol? You and I know flags can’t hate; people hate.
I single out the flag because it represents a type of hate much older than any of the people who carry it. The flag is a tie that binds the carriers to a murderous and deviant brotherhood that still preys to sow inequality, hate, and division in this nation.
It was as if some Capitol police officers escorted the flags and the people in.
But many rioting protestors smashed windows, glass doors and stormed in. Their bodies and flagsticks were battering rams.
It was surreal to watch white supremacists, QAnon, neo-Nazis, and other domestic terrorists’ run amok and desecrate the Capitol.
On January 6, 2021, confederates, militias, and radicalized groups breached the Capitol Building, occupied congressional offices, and tried to hold our democracy hostage.
The Confederate Flag is a symbol of hate and unprosecuted treason, the heritage of a seditious people who wanted to continue the slavery of blacks.
The Confederate flag is the flag of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a hate group that has victimized and killed blacks for decades. This flag is saturated with the blood of innocent black men, women, and children and is used to stoke fear.
I remember a cross burning, a practice of the Klan, that occurred in my community. My cousin, surrounded by white neighbors, lived less than three blocks from me. She awoke that morning terrified! Her grass was ablaze, and a large fire-billowing cross raged only feet away from her house where she and her children had been asleep.
The Confederate Flag, burning crosses, and burning churches are the Modus operandi or MO of hate groups.
Why would any Capitol police officer stand-down and permit insurrectionists to enter the people’s building?
America will never forget the images of insurrectionists, sounds of conflict, and evidence of chaos and death at the Capitol.
One Capitol police officer who guarded life and property died that day; others were injured. Four civilians died in the melee while terrified lawmakers hid in undisclosed places.
“America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control
Thy liberty in law!” (Excerpt from America the Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates)
America! America! You must protect our Democracy?
Pray that God will protect and bless America.
Stay safe.