Jason Patterson, an African American artist who is obsessed with flags and who apparently can sniff out racism that normal people don’t notice, managed to convince the Washington Post to validate his hysterical assessment that the seven state flags pictured above (on a field of “The Stars and Bars” flags) are all secretly sending anti-black, racist, pro-slavery and pro-Confederate messages. He thinks they all should be removed, even though (I’m estimating here) not one American in 10,000 would detect any such messages at all. This is the weird state of mind that has led to statue-toppling across the country, movements to end the honoring of essential Founders like Washington, Jefferson and Madison, and, at its silliest, the elimination of “Turkey in the Straw” as the tinkly tune played by ice cream trucks. It’s fair to describe Patterson as obsessed and unhealthily so, making the Post’s effort to spread his paranoia unethical and irresponsible.
Here’s a summary of Patterson’s flag-o-phobia:
California’s flag…
…is racist because “a number of communities” in California “flew the disused bear flag to express their support for secession and slavery.” A number of people who owned slaves and supported slavery also wore blue jeans.
Virginia’s flag…
..is racist because John Wilkes Booth shouted out the Latin motto after shooting Lincoln. we should all be thankful that Booth didn’t shout, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done!” or the whole Lord’s Prayer would have to be banned.
South Carolina’s flag…
…is racist because (pay attention, now):
“…North Carolina’s state flag dates back to the Confederacy; a version of it was first established in June 1861. The dates inside the banners — May 20, 1775, and April 16, 1776 — obviously predate the Civil War, but they have a secessionist meaning. According to popular theories in the decades before the Civil War, North Carolinians were the first to declare independence from Britain, with the so-called Mecklenburg Declaration on May 20, 1775, and the Halifax Resolves on April 12, 1776, beating the Second Continental Congress’s adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Mecklenburg Declaration’s authenticity has beenthoroughly debunked, and the importance of the Halifax Resolves debated, but the flag today is little changed from its Confederate genesis. In 1885, the blue and red fields were swapped, and the lower date — which used to be May 20, 1861, the day North Carolina seceded from the United States — was changed to April 12, 1776, at the suggestion of a former Confederate soldier.“
Oh.
South Carolina’s flag…
..is racist because “The Palmetto Flag with the crescent and blue background has been South Carolina’s flag since Jan. 28, 1861 — five weeks after the state seceded from the Union and kicked off the Civil War.” It doesn’t suggest slavery, reference slavery, or make any reference to the Confederacy. By this logic, the United States Stars and Stripes are racist because it was first flown when slavery was legal in the U.S.
Maryland’s flag...
…is racist because…oh hell, this one is so complicated I can’t even begin to explain it. You’ll have to read about Patterson’s lament yourself.
The Arkansas flag…
…is racist because it “oozes Confederate battle flag vibes” (Really?) and the star at the top symbolizes the Confederacy (The stars all stand for the nations Arkansas has been part of: Spain, France, the U.S., and Jefferson Davis’s regime, and as everyone can see, the one on the top says that the slavery-supporting South is the best of all. ) I bet Bill and Hillary don’t even see the stars that way.
Finally, Georgia’s flag…
…is racist because “It’s like you pull a knife out of somebody’s back and then stab them with another one,” Patterson told the post. “I think it’s disgusting.” Even though the designed could not be more supportive of national values and the nation itself, with the thirteen stars, “Constitution,” “Moderation,” “Justice” and “Wisdom” all mentioned along with “In God We Trust,” it still reads “racism” and “slavery” to Patterson. And the fact that those remnant design elements of a Confederate flag have flown over an anti-slavery Georgia decades longer than the four years they served the Confederacy apparently doesn’t matter.
I feel sorry for people like Jason Patterson. They want to sense racism everywhere; they want to be convinced that U.S. society is deliberately aiming “micro-agressions” and dog-whistles at their tender minds and ears. But they need treatment, not publicity.
Ethics Alarms 
The perpetually offended always need something to be perpetually offended by. They project their own failings on others to make themselves the hero of the story.
There’s nothing you can do for them. They are victims of the Main Character Syndrome.
Don’t feel sorry for Patterson. I’m sure he was paid for the article. This stuff is good for business. He’s running a racket. I doubt he believes a word he’s written. He just randomly threw together a bunch of concepts as he was playing with a tinker toy set. And, Presto Chango, he’s got a publishable article to sell!
He might not have believed it when he wrote it, but now like many on the left, he finds it very easy to believe anything woke that he reads (even if he wrote it himself) and so now fully believes it to be true.
I am certainly a contender for the title of the most liberal person who comments here with any frequency. I also have three degrees that purport to attest to my ability to interpret aesthetic stimuli and to discern hidden meanings and subtext. But I confess that Mr. Patterson’s ability to conjure racism from these images far surpasses my feeble ken. I think I’ll survive that shock.
Curmie, forgive the non sequitur here but….is your avatar Richard III?
Yes, it is. It’s my real name. Sort of.
Thurston?
-Jut
Oh Dear, Richard the Third
This most obvious White hater (Patterson) continually espouses racism wherever he looks for two reasons: The first is that he can make money from it. The second is that he might be able to use it to con his way into some public office where he can make money that way. And should his racist machinations make him wealthy, the first thing he’ll do is buy a mansion in an affluent White neighborhood.