Larry Wilmore on Monday offered to take down the Confederate battle flag from South Carolina’s Capitol grounds himself.
“You’re taking that flag down right?” the host of “The Nightly Show” asked South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley after she on Monday called for the legislature to meet for a special session to vote on the flag.
Two-thirds of the legilsature would have to vote on extending the session to debate the flag, and then again to actually remove the flag.
“So you want them to come back to debate taking it down?” Wilmore said. “But there’s a chance that they won’t? So you’ll say hey guys, you better come back and talk about this?”
“South Carolina, it sounds like you’re trying to fuck me on this,” the host whispered.
sorry, Larry. The first vote will fall just short. In other words, no Vaseline no cover
How appropriate that their beloved symbol of slavery is chained.
And with this vote, we see the whole problem with conservatism. In their minds, there are no problems, just clashes over symbols. They view all problems, and all the things they perceive as problems, as symbols. Obamacare? Symbol, not a law addressing a policy concern. Guns? Symbols, not things real people use to kill. Racism? Liberal symbol, not a real thing.
It’s the reason they get their panties in a such a triple twist over flags, which are, of course, the paramount symbols.
Don’t get me wrong. Symbols are important. All of communication is an exchange of symbols. There are those who say that our entire consciousness is a thing that reduces inputs to symbols and manipulates them. So, yeah. But the only problems you can solve with purely symbolic gestures are the ones caused by symbols, and those are few and far between. Racism isn’t one of them.
It’s all just Kabuki Theater to provide cover for the “southern pride” racists to keep their “symbol” flying.
It will be debated (hypocritically) and defeated (loudly, with much “rending of clothing”) with Gov. Haley then stating “the people have spoken” and the feckless press will then scurry off to the next tragedy/outrage of the week to exploit in an orgy of advertising.
The reluctance to removing that Confederate flag is the essence of conservatism - opposition to change. It’s a death grip on the past. Logos v. Mythos, logical versus mythical. Symbolism is a very important aspect in religious cultures and South Carolina is steeped in religion and militarism. The seal of the Confederacy includes the words “Deo Vindice, Under God Our Vindicator.” They felt slavery was their God given right. Conservatives have been disenfranchising black folks since Reconstruction and it continues today.