Levin: Do I Owe the Virginia Flaggers an Apology?

Is grass green? Is the Pope Catholic?

Here's Levin's initial post about Grayson:

Virginia Flaggers “Restore the Honor” One Racist Statement at a Time

December 24, 2013

Want to know why the Virginia Flaggers are not taken seriously in Richmond? It’s because underneath the rhetoric of “Restore the Honor” and “Heritage Not Hate” there is a great deal of racism. Grayson Jennings is a vocal member of the Flaggers. Here is his response to the recent decision in Jacksonville, Florida to change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. Yes, and that is Barry Isenhour, another prominent Flagger.  You could spend quite a bit of time unpacking Jenning’s post.

Sometimes I wonder why Karen Cooper (only black Flagger) associates with these people. What a shame. It seems like just last week that I was applauding the Flaggers.

He followed up with this one.

Do I Owe the Virginia Flaggers an Apology? 

December 29, 2013

Last week I pointed out what I interpreted as a racist comment from a prominent member of the Virginia Flaggers. A few days ago they offered the following response, which included a photograph of an African-American man carrying a Confederate flag in front of the Museum of the Confederacy.

I certainly don’t want to be known for casually accusing people of being racist, but I fail to see how this photograph assuages concerns. The Richmond community – who the Flaggers claim to be improving through their efforts – deserve a response to these types of statements. What exactly did the statement mean? How would this specific Flagger explain it to the individual in front of the MOC and the rest of Richmond’s black community? 

I left a comment, but we know the track record of these floggers, not posting what they don't want their followers to see....

So I'll put it here just in case:

Yes, you owe them an apology -- all you floggers and floggerettes do, many times over.

Grayson made ironic use of a cultural phenomenon (a very real, observable obsession with SHOES in the black community) in relation to yet more erasure of Confederate heritage. Racism is hatred or intolerance of another race or other races  Noticing cultural obsessions a racial group exhibits -- to the point that it is reportable in the news media (and look at photos of the Air Jordan crowds to see the racial groups comprising them) --  is not hatred or intolerance.

Of course, you floggers label it racist for heritage advocates to even notice that somebody is black or to show an interest in racial issues.

Whether you race-obsessed floggers realize it or not, the country -- not just the Confederate community -- has just about reached its limit with the racial grievance industry -- which you floggers aid and abet -- and its flat-out lies 

Just look at GLAAD's recent and blatant lie that Phil Robertson "praised" Jim Crow laws. In fact, he was talking about the destructiveness of the 1960s poverty/welfare laws that conspicuously did NOT erase poverty, but did a great job of maintaining it by erasing husbands and fathers from poor black homes via the marriage penalty built into welfare laws. Thanks to poverty-creating anti-poverty legislation, the black illegitimacy rate skyrocketed  from 23% in 1963 to 72% today. The most accurate predictor of a child being raised in poverty is being born into a single-parent (i.e., single mother) home. And to top it off, fatherlessness results in some of the country's worst social pathologies. http://fathersunite.org/statistics_on_fatherlessnes.html
http://blackdemographics.com/households/poverty/

Yes, you owe the VaFlaggers an apology, just as GLAAD owes Phil Robertson an apology. But don't offer one. We don't want hell freezing over. It's cold enough as it is.

I would note a few things here: He flatout says HE INTERPRETS Grayson's comment as racist. He offers no proof that the VaFlaggers are not taken seriously in Richmond. Opposing the I-95 Flag Memorial, warring on Confederate heritage, lying about the VaFlaggers in blogs (such as Kristen Konate accusing Grayson and Barry of putting her address on Facebook when SHE was the one who did that) -- this and more tells me that the VaFlaggers are taken very seriously in Richmond (and elsewhere) by their critics and opponents. If they weren't to be taken seriously, Levin wouldn't have blogged about them in the first place.

I would just say that at one time or another, the floggers have exhibited FAR MORE hatred of the VaFlaggers (and others) than anything any VaFlagger has ever posted. Of course, most of the VaFlaggers are white Southeners, and white Southerners are the last goup in the USA that one can ridicule and lie about, not merely with impunity, but with approval and praise.