Hate-eritage

That thing some call a symbol of their heritage reminds others of when their ancestors were commodities. I don’t believe the heritage of one people owning another can any more be separated from that flag than rapist's or trafficker's faces can be erased from their victims' psyches. The biggest problem with the good old days is that they were anything but good for some people, and insisting that such symbols be universally preserved is an attempt to hold on to one people's pride while salting others' pain.

We have banished the swastika to places where the historical horrors perpetrated under its guise are told without sentimentality, and only those who still harbor hate for members of their own species are audacious enough to display it otherwise. Race is a social construct, perhaps first used to distinguish skin tones and geographies, but ultimately wielded as justification for superiority.

Societies elevating order and control as indicators of divine emulation (e.g. Euro-ages of iron, renaissance, industry, and empire) have historically declared their own "people" to be more advanced and therefore more exceptional than those who've left more of the ordering to creation. We use the words primitive, primordial, and primal pejoratively, to describe cultures on a track different from ours, but some of the greatest human-to-human hostility has been perpetrated by people who pride themselves on civility.

At least two things are sure: [1] The flag is just the beginning. [2] There are still too many stories that need to be heard. They may have been told, but we, as a society, have not really been listening.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins