THE CONFEDERATE FLAG

I've held my peace about it and now I'm going to say what I think.  I am from the south and we are a great people.  We wave at strangers driving by our houses, we stop and help people on the side of the road, we treat everyone like they are family.  We say "hey" passing people on the street, we love our old people, our children, our guns, our trucks and our dogs.  We don't see things in black or white, we only see things the southern way, "Hey, come on in", "How's your mama and them?", "You doing alright today?", "You need something?"," You hungry baby?",and "Can I get something for you sweety?" atleast that's how I think we are.  The flag, it's a flag, it's not us, even though we've used it to represent us.  For some it's just who we are, we didn't even give it another thought, we didn't look for things it stood for, it just represented the south.
I don't discriminate, I never pick things apart and when someone says something about me being white, this little voice in the back of my head laughs, "they have no idea how black you really are now do they?"
I hate injustice, I can't stand for people to be mistreated, I don't want their to be racial division and I get so frustrated that love is the answer when the enemy is still doing a great job of dividing and conquering us.
I'm not going to make it a black and white thing!  I'm not!  I love everyone!  I never see the color of anyone's skin, even though the world has taught me labels.  People have been totally surprised to meet my soon to be ex husband because I didn't tell them he is black and furthermore it really wasn't any of their business in the first place.  I don't care what anyone has said about me for loving him.  I don't care what anyone is going to say about me from this moment on and that's a good life.
I have a Georgia flag in my dresser, it has the Georgia emblem with a confederate flag next to it.
I had a guy who used to pick me up all the time, a black guy, he said something so profound to me, I will never forget it.  He said, "If they want to fly a losing flag I don't even care!"  This same man said to me, "Every time I see you you are talking about McDonalds or Churches Chicken!"  My reply was, "Don't ever call me a crackhead again, I'm trying to eat brother."
It's a flag.
If it stood for slavery, then it lost.
If it stood for money, then it lost.
If it stood for anything other than southern heritage, then we are all shamed in the first place.
The flag he was talking about was way up on a hill on the side of the expressway and whoever put it there had to do some serious climbing and navigating through the woods to hang it.
It's a flag.  It doesn't put food in your belly, it doesn't pay your bills and I can't even tell you what it really stands for because I obviously don't even know, because it surely didn't stand for what I thought it did.
Personally, I don't have a problem with it and when my husband told me it offended him I explained what it meant to me and us as a people and I still took it down.
When Paul took Timothy with him, he circumcised Timothy, so he could take him into the temples.
The bible talks about if we are doing something that makes our brother stumble then we should stop.
I love being from the south.  I never felt like the flag was a symbol of hatred.  I felt like it was a losing flag, just like my brother said and it was okay and it couldn't hurt anyone any longer, either free or slave, and I was a slave when he said it.
If something you do makes your brother stumble or question your love for him, then stop.  If the flag makes our beautiful black brothers and sisters from the south question our love for them, then take it down.
In my house the term "nigga" is a term of endearment, of the streets,a term of the people we belong to, have lived with, have loved, of who we are, but we've quit using that term, because the grandchildren don't understand the context and we don't want to hurt others because of it.  It's plain and simple.  If it's not love, then we can't use it.  It doesn't matter how we intended it, others would not understand.  I can't tell you how many times my husband has told me,"baby you can't call me that." and I never meant anything about it, it was just something we always said, the dope boys always said, everyone always said.  I didn't even know the repercussions until he told me and even then I was like, "I don't care what anyone else thinks!"
Truth is, when we love people, we really do need to care what they think, but what they see as love, what they see as us showing them that's love and that being the case, then don't do it!
Jesus said, "why do you call me Lord Lord and not do what I tell you to do?"
I am from the south, I love the confederate flag, it is southern, it is the people who are here, who have always been here, but if it for one second made one of my brothers and sisters think I don't love them, that I stood behind slavery, that I still support it today, then that's no good!!!!!!!!!!!
It just so happens I saw Amazing Grace again last night and praise God for William Wilberforce and the preacher he was friends with who had been a slave ship captain, who actually wrote the song.  The man said he lived with 20,000 ghosts of slaves, every day and he was so shamed to have done what he did.  God let that man live, even though he was blind by then, to see the day slavery was abolished in England, which eventually caused it's demise all over the world.  People are valuable!  I don't care what the color of their skin is, what they look like or where you find them, people are so valuable, Jesus died for them!!!!!!!!!!  He died for us!
I don't want anyone questioning my love, so if it means taking down a flag that makes everyone have questions, then lets do it, because it's the right thing to do.  Don't ever try to make it right with me telling me they were selling their own people!!!!!!!  It doesn't matter, it still doesn't make it right!  Get a freaking clue will ya?!!!!!
If a flag is all that stands between the two of us and you knowing that I love you, then I will gladly give up that flag and the history and anything that goes along with it, so you will just see my love, I don't care what color your skin is, it never mattered to me in the first place.