Mississippi To Stay Wrapped In Warm Embrace Of Confederate Flag

We've been so caught up in election fever that we have neglected to look in on how racist the Deep South is being these days. We should really set some sort of timer or tickler file to remember to check, because otherwise we would miss things like Mississippi going through a shit-ton of new non-racist flag possibilities but then saying "naw, howzabout we just stick with the Confederate flag, because everybody loves it, right?"

Mississippi’s state flag will include the Confederate battle emblem for the foreseeable future, after state lawmakers on Tuesday said they didn’t have enough support to remove the controversial symbol.

There were 12 different bills in the Mississippi Legislature to either redesign, change, or remove the Confederate symbol from the state’s 122-year-old flag. But they all died on Tuesday, which was the deadline for lawmakers to act on bills that were stuck in legislative committees.

Heritage not Hate!!! We would blame the politicians for this, but they seem to be acting, at least partially, at the behest of the people. Some very very stupid people.

There is still significant support in Mississippi for keeping the flag as-is. In January, pro-Confederate groups held their own rally at the state Capitol, also drawing about 200 people. Supporters argued that removing the flag would be “akin to communists rewriting history.”

Now listen, Mississippi. No one is saying we'd like to forget that you were racist secessionists who fought for the losing side! Hell, we want to remember that pretty much always and forever, to be honest.

We're just saying that maybe celebrating that you were racist secessionists who fought for the losing side is a suboptimal thing to put on your flag, particularly given you have the largest percentage of African-Americans of any state in the country. If you're all worried about making sure that your flag honors some long-distant part of your past, you could have always gone with one of the 12 bills that proposed you return to the magnolia flag, which, while it existed during the War of Northern Aggression, is not quite as aggressive a piece of racist fuckwittery as your love affair with the Confederate flag.

Mississippi, Goddamn.

[ Think Progress ]