Context? What more context do you need than what this flag stands for? Sure, it's just painted on a car, but it offends millions of people and I get that. Would it not be so hard to just strip the paint off the roof of that car and paint the whole damn thing orange?
This flag is just not the paint job on the roof of a car from a hoaky 80's TV show. It is not an innocent symbol. This flag has nothing to do with the celebration of a heritage, unless you mean a sanitized history of a heritage that celebrates enslavement and fear. Which is everything it stands for. Today, this flag is used by pure evil racists (witness Dylan Roof) to send a very powerful message to people of colour. And that message is very simple, I will remind you of your place in history. The history of this flag is an affront to all decent people everywhere. The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history. Full stop. The Civil War was all about preserving slavery. Full stop. The wounds of the Civil War run deep and they cross international borders right here into Canada. (Even if Canada never allowed slavery.)
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute.
Abraham Lincoln in his inaugural speech of 1860 prior to the outbreak of the Civil War.
I'm totally with you here.
I'm not a huge fan of how this was dealt with, but the owner deserves a lot of the blame here.
I still enjoy warching the Duke boys foil Boss Hogg, but it's a bit too provocative to casually display that image, or a close-proximimate, today without offending people that we absolutely know take offence to public display of this image.
I want to believe people want to avoid intentionally offending other people in this country. It's just polite. It's Canadian.
I imagine some Buddhists and Hindus (and others) are somewhat miffed that flying a swastika in this country is generally perceived as abhorrent, despite their use of this image for 5,000 years before the Nazis successfully changed what it represents in western society.
Times change.
My "Rob Ford for Prime Minister" t-shirt earned me a lot of laughs around the world at one particular point in time when I travelled with it. It has been very much retired at this point.