A Facebook petition is calling for a National \u201cBurn The Confederate Flag\u201d Day.<\/p>\n
Only 8,000 people have \u201cliked\u201d the petition as of Monday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Confederate flag has flown in America for 150 years too long. The Civil War is long over. Fortunately, our First Amendment right gives us the power of free speech that will allow us to display our feeling by burning the flag of slavery from sea to shining sea. Join us for a PEACEFUL DAY OF PROTEST and burn the Confederate flag,\u201d the petition reads.<\/p>\n
It continues, \u201cThis is our day to demonstrate that it is no longer acceptable to fly this flag anywhere. Organize a Confederate flag burning event in your area on Saturday, June 27th, and flood social media with pictures and videos using the hashtags #FeelTheBurn and #TakeItDown.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Confederate flag has become a topic of debate once again after a white gunman opened fire during Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week, killing nine. Suspect Dylann Roof, 21, has been charged with nine counts of murder.<\/p>\n
In an op-ed for the Detroit Free Press, Joe Lapointe called for the Confederate flag to be burned.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that South Carolina will never willingly take down the flag, the time has come for opponents to exercise their First Amendment right to free speech and burn the Confederate flag \u2013 at the state Capitol in South Carolina, in front of the White House, in front of Fox News or maybe even outside the Grand Ol\u2019 Opry,\u201d Lapointe wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lapointe said the Confederate flag is as \u201cevil and vicious to African Americans as the Nazi swastika flag is to Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe display of the Confederate flag \u2013 anywhere \u2013 is a nonverbal statement of race hate. Its burning would be a nonverbal response to its crude attitude,\u201d he wrote. \u201cYou\u2019re sure not going to change their attitudes with sweet reason. Fight their figurative fire with the real thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Carolina was the last state to fly the Confederate battle flag from its Capitol dome. A compromise in 2000 moved the flag to a 30-foot flagpole elsewhere on Statehouse grounds, where it has been flying at full staff.<\/p>\n
Source: CBS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Facebook petition is calling for a National \u201cBurn The Confederate Flag\u201d Day. Only 8,000 people have \u201cliked\u201d the petition as of Monday morning. \u201cThe Confederate flag has flown in America for 150 years too long. The Civil War is long over. Fortunately, our First Amendment right gives us the power of free speech that … Continue reading “‘Burn the Confedrate Flag’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":19484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[11937,2676,157,710,11972],"class_list":["post-19482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-charleston","tag-confederate-flag","tag-racism","tag-shooter","tag-south-carolina"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/confflag2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19483,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19482\/revisions\/19483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}