HERITAGE OR HATE
...southern pride or is it designed to remind African-Americans of their oppression during slavery. Being that I am an African-American from one of these so called southern states, I feel I have the right for my opinion to be heard on the matter. My judgment is that Mr. Barber’s intentions were good, but he really was just in that business to make money. How can you make a T-shirt with the slogan “a proud symbol of heritage” and actually expect people to respect that. Proud for whom, my people were held as slaves and were fed like an animal, which is far from proud! He said in an interview for Time magazine, that 16,000 men, women, and children died for that flag. I have an even larger number for Mr. Barber, 2,312,352, that’s the number of slaves imprisoned in four, four [sic] southern states as of the 1860 census. As if that were not ghastly enough, 86 percent of those slaves would not live past 32. It may symbolize southern pride to him or the million other Americans who purchased Dixie Outfitters products last year, but it does not symbolize any kind of pride to me! My people were held as slaves, cleaning dirty bathrooms, picking cotton, fixing dinner, and washing other peoples clothes, that is nothing to be proud of. In that case, people should start wearing Ku Klux Klan shirts; even they did not kill as many people as slavery did! Or maybe a Hitler shirt, yeah Jewish people should be real proud of that, right. What if I come drag one of you out of your homes, bring to my mansion, make you cook, clean, and mow my lawn. I feed you my tab...