For a woman of color to try to defend the continued display of the Confederate Flag is simply beyond the realm of belief. But yet, here we are with the former Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, saying just that.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley seemed to suggest on Friday that the Confederate flag did not have racist overtones until Dylann Roof “hijacked” it with his 2015 murder of nine black churchgoers.
“Here is this guy that comes out with this manifesto, holding the Confederate flag,” she said. “And had just hijacked everything that people thought of…
“People saw it as service, and sacrifice, and heritage,” the ex-governor continued. “But once he did that, there was no way to overcome it. And the national media came in droves—they wanted to define what happened.
Dylann Roof didn’t hijack the Confederate Flag in his quest to kill African Americans. It already had the connotation of white supremacy hanging on it in an awful stink…and that’s exactly what drew him to it to use in his hateful attack on other human beings. It was ready made and it indicated to the entire nation if not the world, exactly where he stood.
First and foremost the Confederate flag is a symbol of insurrection and treason against the United States.
Second it is a symbol of white supremacy, segregation, and the subjugation of people of color in this nation…particularly African Americans. It was embraced by the revitalized Ku Klux Klan during the post Reconstruction Jim Crow era and again during the Civil Rights era in the post WWII South. It was even added to the Georgia state flag as recently as 1956 as a protest against the Civil Rights movement and the desegregation of public schools.
There is no gray area about its meaning or the intentions of those who wrap themselves in it. I am extremely disappointed on Ms. Haley’s position. She had originally walked away from the Trump regime without too much personal damage or baggage…but she just threw that all away.
In any event, it was Republican Nikki Haley who took down the Stars and Bars from the S. Carolina statehouse. Not her Democrat(ic) predecessors.