I’m a first-generation English immigrant who came to the U.S. when I was a toddler. I’m very proud of my English heritage and our legacy of things such as the Magna Carta, the Anglican Church, and, of course, Winston Churchill. I’m also aware of the atrocities my country has commited, including England’s actions in Ireland, and the way the Cromwell and Anglican church killed Catholics, shut down monasteries, and, in general, tried to wipe out Catholicism in England. I’m also aware that England drove the Jews out of England back in the 1300s.
Now, where I grew up is, basically redneck country, near the mountains. A few years ago, I worked at a manufacturing plant where a security guard who’d been fired for putting a confederate flag on his lunch box used to drive past the plant in a pick up truck, flying a confederate flag which I swear was bigger than the bed of his pick up truck. Someone said earlier in this thread that he(?) thought most people wearing the confederate flag gave it less thought than the folks in this thread put into their posts. To them, it’s a symbol of rebellion against the government, taxes, and everything that stands in the way of the working man and good ol’ boy. It’s about drinking and hanging out with your buddies and having a little fun without having someone get in your face and tell you how it’s wrong to want to do that. It’s about being proud of who you are and where you came from, even though there are a bunch of people telling you you’re never going to get anywhere and you’ll never be rich or famous like the folks on TV, but you’ve got your pride and you’re from good people and you may have gotten beat, but you’ll never quit or lay down and die. Actually, while I’ve been writing this, I’ve been remembering that a friend who’s on his way over used to have a large confederate flag hanging in his office and he still has letters an ancestor of his who served in the Civil War wrote.
That said, I’m not defending this. You see, like I said, I knew folks like the ones who identified with the Confederate side in the Civil War. Their idea of “having a little fun” all too often included making fun of anyone who was different, including the little immigrant girl. There’s a lot in my British heritage I embrace and display freely, especially this time of year. There’s also a lot I’m ashamed of. I would not wear an emblem of the British civil war in public where it could be easily identified because of what was done to Catholics during it and because I’m ashamed of those actions.
I never went to my high school prom. A kid as weird as I was had a better chance of going to the moon, and my schoolmates made very sure I knew that. If I had or if I’d been aware of this girl’s plans, and it sounds like quite a few people were, I would have been nervous around her because of the way I was treated by people who shared her pride. There are people in this world for whom pride in one’s heritage includes denigrating anyone who doesn’t share that heritage and, having been forced out of places by such people, I learned not to try to join their company. In their eyes, which eventually became my eyes, I didn’t deserve to be there.
If I may add one more shallow note from someone who has done her own sewing and even some design work, I hate to say it, but in the photo, the pose she’s striking and the place where the two bars cross the dress does appear to play up her rump and minimize her chest. If that’s what she was going for, fair enough, but it is more symbolic than flattering, and this from someone with no fashion sense!
CJ