I frequent apps such Letgo™ and Lollipop™ looking for vintage guitars as I am a collector. I live in a small town 32 miles south of St. Louis MO. I was looking for deals on guitars when a I came across a listing that horrified me.
Lollipop™ allowed a listing for the sale of 3X5 Confederate flags. The location was Hayti MO about 100 Miles south of my city of residence. I went immediately in an uproar. I could not believe that this Internet startup would allow such a racist item to be advertised and sold. I did a little more research and I found that in other areas of the country in states such California, Lollipop™ had more ads for Confederate flags.
Obviously the owners of this web site are not sensitive to the concerns of their customers. I am sure that there as many African Americans who frequent the site as there are caucasian, and other ethnic groups. I am Caucasian, and I am mad as Hell. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be African American, and see the Stars and Bars for sale on a popular web site.
The first thing I did was to report the list using the Lollipop option to report inappropriate ads, Next, I contacted the St. Louis MO NAACP office. No one was in, so I left a voicemail. After that, I contacted the National NAACP office and I was told to contact the Missouri State NAACP office; which was fruitless because all I received was a busy signal.
I could not let this issue lie. I had to keep searching for someone, or some organization, that would would do something about this issue. I began calling the Local TV station newsrooms. One conversation in particular, is worth discussing here. I called the KMOV TV Channel 4 in St. Louis news desk. I explained what was happening with the Item on Lollipop™ and that it needed to be brought to the public’s attention. I was cut short before i could finish.
The reporter explained to me that he did not see the flag as racist symbol, and went on to say that the individual selling the flags had the right to do so (I am not saying that he cannot sell the flags, nor that people cannot have one as long as they keep in the privacy of their homes; they have a constitutional right to their beliefs). When a racist symbol is displayed publically and the Internet is public domain, it is there to perpetuate racism and to insight bigotry and violence.
I tried to present my case as to why I was upset, but he also cut me short with very curt “Let Me Talk” and he said, “I am not going to argue with you….” However, he went in to a spiel about why the Confederate flag is not a racist symbol; that it stands for more than oppression of African Americans. He began to expound on what the flag really meant, and how it should not be considered just a racist symbol. He said it represented the confederacy and stated that the Civil War was not just about slavery. He was lecturing me as to what the cause of the conflict really was.
I was born 20 minutes north of Detroit Michigan, but when I was 13 we moved to the Bootheel of Missouri to a small town in Dunklin County. I went to junior high, and high school, with some real “good ole” boys. Many times I heard my best friend say, “the south shall rise again.” I also lived 12 miles from The Crowley’s Ridge Battle site. It is now an Arkansas State park. I learned a great deal about the history of the Civil War, and about the politics of the people who live in the Bootheel area of Missouri and the northeast corner of Arkansas.
Because of my experience in southern Missouri, I am pretty knowledgable about the Civil War, I know that slavery is but one aspect of the War; which also involved politics and economics. Slavery was, however, an indirect, but also a major cause of the war. The northern states wanted to control Texas and the other western territories. They wanted the wealth that could be had by annexing these areas. But more that that, they did not want the western territories to become ones in which slavery would be legal.
To continue, when the reporter finished his narrative, I said to him, “you said you were’t going to argue with me” and I abruptly hung up on this guy. I could tell there was no use in trying to state my concerns to such imbecilic person. Basically it was a one-sided conversation because he would not let me present my arguments.
I was very surprised to find that a major TV news room employed such a person in this day and age. Then I thought about it and about the people I know in St Louis. As I counted the “sheep” (I remembered how many times I had heard relatives, friends, and neighbors use the “N” word), it became pretty clear that I live in a bigoted city. So, the response from the news reporter at KMOV should not have surprised me as much as it did.
Still to the problem at hand, I hope the the Daily Kos will publish this piece and that some justice will be executed and the racist flag ads that will be removed from sites such as Lollipop™.