How Ed Schultz lost me

[MohRokTah]

MSNBC’s Schultz: America’s ‘Desecration’ of Confederate Flag is ‘Unproductive’

You cannot desecrate that which is unholy.

[restorefreedom]

1. i kind of agree with him

he said the flag should come out of public spaces because it sends the wrong message. It sounds to me like what he was saying was we should not proudly display the flag in public places because it shows the worst part of what this country was about. But we can't erase the fact that it existed . even Michael Eric Dyson said this morning that it would be inappropriate to try to erase the fact that it exists or ever existed in the history of our country. I'm not sure what he really means by desecration unless he's talking about people putting it in piles and burning them, but it sounds to me like he saying let's get it out of the Public Square, but let's never forget what it represented and what it means to our country so we never go back there. It kind of made sense to me.

[Cleita]

2. Melissa Harris Perry also said something about it.

She said she saw it less as a symbol of racism and more as a symbol of a sovereign nation that was defeated and should be considered treasonous. I'm paraphrasing but I think this is what she said. She said as a southerner she didn't think it was right for southerners to disown their country by flying this flag.

[tblue37]

3. I think many people ignore the etymology and the precise meaning of

"desecrate" and use it carelessly to mean to insult certain people's feelings about something in a particularly aggressive way.

[procon]

4. That's an important point.

Its one thing to take away the iconic symbol that a group people hold dear, but to purposefully desecrate it just heaps insult on injury with no good purpose. I took note of Bree Newsome's respectful handling of the confederate flag as she removed it from the flagpole. She had every opportunity to rip it to shreds or set it ablaze, but she didn't and even took care that it did not touch the ground.

The purpose of taking down that flag is not to take a cheap shot at those misinformed people who still think that it is a symbol of pride. Disrespect will not educate them or change their minds, but as public opinion changes and more people see that the confederate flag only represents treason, slavery, ignorance and racism, eventually so will the views of those holdouts.