Defending the Indefensible

A man living in west Quebec does a mental swagger, considering himself one who can do without social convention. He evidently likes to flaunt his individuality, and flout decency, thinking it adds some kind of lustre to his reputation. Depends, one supposes, what manner of reputation one wants to acquire. Given his past associates, however, the reputation he seeks to consolidate for himself is a socially unsavoury one.

Fact is, nothing excuses this man's deliberate and conscious willingness to represent as an obnoxious and nasty member of society. Of course, this is a free and open society and within certain outraged and harmful limits he may disport himself as he will. Even to the point of offering insult to people. Of this he bravely laughs and thinks of himself as an iconoclast. Not so. Sadly, he has adopted a shameful icon to represent his character.

A potent symbol of racist denigration, that of incorrigible racial oppression, celebrated by the ignorant and the sociopaths among us. In his front yard he has hoisted aloft a U.S. Confederate flag, redolent of all that was hateful in the violation of human rights where historically black Americans were despised and mistreated; a blot on that country that stubbornly resists all efforts by people of goodwill to abolish.

The United States of America has come far indeed, to a singular place in history where a majority of the voting public finally felt comfortable enough in the white/black reality of the country to commit themselves to electing to the highest office of the land an outstanding American who just happens additionally to be of mixed heritage, but is in his heart of hearts an undeniable African-American.

This very little man, Stanley Davis Jr., 54 years of age - proving yet again that age does not confer intelligence - sees nothing amiss in flying the Confederate flag and under it a noose to cement kindly relations with his neighbours who just happen to be black Canadians. This flaunting of these unequivocal symbols of hate and injustice are injurious in the extreme.

They represent an odiously hideous racism completely incompatible with Canadian values. In a proudly pluralist society we have no need of this kind of unvarnished contempt for others' worth, equality and sensibilities. Not only the sensibilities of black Canadians are violently assaulted by this, but those of all Canadians.