What would Dr. King want?
Ben Jones, formerly known as
Cooter on the Dukes of Hazzard (and
former congressman!), is leading the push for Texas to allow license plates with the
Confederate flag:
Nine states let drivers choose specialty license plates featuring the flag and honoring the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which says it seeks to celebrate Southern heritage. But Texas refused to allow the group’s plates, saying the flag was offensive.
On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to that decision in Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans, No. 14-144, a case that considers the limits of free expression and the meaning of a charged symbol that many associate with secession and slavery.
Texas officials rebuffed the proposed license plate design:
“A significant portion of the public,” the board explained, “associates the Confederate flag with organizations advocating expressions of hate directed toward people or groups that is demeaning to those people or groups.”
On CNN's
Newsroom, Ben Jones made the case for the controversial plates, saying Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would've approved:
I don't think the Sons of Confederate Veterans are the least bit distasteful. We're an honored heritage group. We want reconciliation in the South and among the races. That is what Dr. King wanted. And these tactics that they are using are very divisive and they are very offensive to us. And yet, we try to turn the other cheek. But, don't paint us as something we are not. And that is what the state of Texas is saying and doing–that we are somehow, by nature of our DNA, offensive.
Reconciliation obviously starts by allowing the symbol of slavery and oppression in the United States to be on the official license plates of Texas. Why not put a confederate flag sticker in the window to compliment those
Truck Nutz and move on?
An NAACP spokesperson sums it up:
Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the Confederate flag has only one fundamental meaning. “It’s a powerful symbol of the oppression of black people,” she said in an interview.
Hell, even Rick Perry, who once proudly hunted with his father at
Niggerhead ranch is
opposed:
"We don't need to be scraping old wounds," Perry said.
Watch Ben Jones' interview here: