So it wasn't guns or people after all?

Following last week’s mass shooting at a predominantly black church that resulted in the deaths of nine people, including the church’s pastor, you would think it would be a good time to discuss gun violence, mental illness or racism (directly). However, it turns out that rather than discuss any of the aforementioned subjects, it was time to move forward.
And what better way to do this than to fight the Civil War again.
Okay, so that may be a bit of an exaggeration. Surely we agree that the South isn’t going to rise again. Slavery is over. And the days of the southern plantations have ended. However, following the shootings last week, it seems that people are looking to point a finger as to what motivated this young man.
He was a mentally ill, racist with a gun? I can’t imagine what it may have been.
Thankfully, there are people much smarter than me who came up with the real reason for this tragedy. This young man was obviously motivated by the Confederate Battle Flag and what it represents, which, to be specific, is the 13 states that seceded from the Union from 1861-1865 — more than 150 years ago.
And it isn’t just flags either. It seems that in just under a week, all of the symbols of the Confederacy have come under attack. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has suggested tearing down the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that stands in the middle of Lee Circle in the middle of downtown New Orleans. The toy manufacturer that makes the General Lee cars from the Dukes of Hazzard is now removing the Confederate flag from their products. And, in by far the strangest one that I’ve heard yet, the mayor of Memphis wants to dig up the bodies of a Confederate general and his wife and have them removed from a public park.
What’s next? Are they going to rename Jeff Davis Parish?
Now I’ve never been a big fan of the Confederate Battle Flag and I understand how it offends African Americans in much the same way as a swastika offends Jewish people. It’s representative of time in our country’s history when black people were enslaved and sold as property. Under the Confederate regime, countless black people were murdered and raped.
Frankly, it should have been removed from state flags and government buildings immediately after the Civil War ended because ... duh, the Confederacy lost. How many British flags were flying over capital buildings following the Revolutionary War.
When I was living in Biloxi, Mississippi, there was an election where one of the propositions on the ballot was whether or not to remove the confederate sign from the state flag’s upper left hand corner. One day just prior to the election, I thought I was going to drive into the middle of a race riot when David Duke was giving a speech in support of the state flag on one side of Hwy. 90 (which travels along the Mississippi beach) and a group of people who were disgusted by his mere presence were protesting on the other side. Luckily, the police were able to keep everyone under control and things didn’t turn violent, but it sure looked as though it could have.
Which begged the following question: If just a mere design on the corner of a flag were to inflame so much anger, why not just get rid of it.
There were many white people, who claimed that they weren’t racists, that used the argument “It’s not hatred, It’s our heritage.”
Point taken, but it’s like this, Cletus.
While this may be true, it’s also a shameful part of our country’s heritage. And I seriously doubt your great-great-great-great-grandfather who fought under this flag is going to rise from the grave to come punish you.
Sadly, much to my surprise, the citizens of Mississippi voted to keep their state flag the way it was.
And we wonder why people stereotype those of us in the Deep South as not being very sophisticated.
It’s simply progress people. The Confederacy has long since been defeated. And up until last week, Confederate flags that appeared on everything from bumper stickers to tattoos (which frankly, everyone is allowed to do under our Constitution) haven’t been useful for much of anything unless you were looking for someone to get some SKOAL from.
Now we are talking about it again. Now the people who support this symbol of a repressive regime have a voice again. And in a strange twist, this may have been exactly what this punk who killed nine churchgoing Americans intended.
Mark my words. There will be protests in support of this flag in many rural areas of the South. Some of them may even become violent. And all because it seems to have been decided that the issue to arise from this tragedy wasn’t about guns or mental illness — it was about a flag that represented a regime that was defeated a long time ago after only four years in existence.
The Confederate flag was not the issue here. It shouldn’t take a tragedy like this to have had it removed from government buildings. This kid was a mentally ill, racist with a gun. And now we are talking about a flag?
If I am ever caught in a traffic jam in downtown New Orleans because they are tearing down a statue that I never really paid much attention to, I’m going to be pretty upset. When I was a kid I liked the Dukes of Hazzard, but I never associated it with racism. I don’t even recall the show’s villain (Boss Hogg) doing anything racist. Are little kids who presently own the older version of the General Lee car going to become future racists? Only if they are raised to be by parents who are less than educated.
This is a sleeping dog that should have been left to lie. Sorry to repeat myself but once again, but the issue here was about a mentally ill, racist kid with a gun. All that this media hype has done is to make the Confederate Battle Flag relevant again.
I can only wonder how long this (expletive) will go on.
Until next week.

Howell Dennis is a native of Lafayette, La. He attended the University of Texas at Arlington where he graduated in journalism and public relations.