Yelawolf: False-Flagging

by Jon Oh!

Well I guess they’re pulling out all the stops this year in an attempt to throw the world into chaos, for the purpose of a one government, one nation, but we won’t get into all that.  This is a hip hop blog, so we’ll only talk about hiphop’s f**kery for now!  So this past week Yelawolf, used his platform to express his undying love for the Confederate Flag.

All I could think was: “What a clown.”  While he does state some facts as far as southern artists sporting the Confederate Flag goes, not all southern artists support the flag.  MJG’s first album cover has it set on fire, with the title “No More Glory”.

 

Plus this doesn’t change the fact that the flag is almost equivalent to the Nazi flag which Hitler flew to remind people of his dominance.  The ideals of the people who made/represented the (Confederate) flag were no better than Hitler, and the intentions of ‘their flag’ was none other than to display these twisted ideals on a national level.

 

“As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.… Such a flag…would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as the white man’s flag.… As a national emblem, it is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race, and a higher civilization contending against ignorance, infidelity, and barbarism. Another merit in the new flag is, that it bears no resemblance to the now infamous banner of the Yankee vandals“

— William T. Thompson, Daily Morning News, (April 23, 1863)”

 

Though the white field is not part of the flag you most commonly see, they (the designers) clearly let you know what their intentions were for the flag, why they were fighting in the first place, and what “southern ideals” really were (i.e. slavery).  I don’t know how much more direct, or how much more proof you’d need to see that this flag is clearly a symbol of racism and immorality.

Another fact he stated was that some people use it for the wrong reasons.  Totes agree with him on this one though…in a sense that he’s the one using it for the wrong reasons!  Dylann Roof sported that flag proudly in plenty of his photos, the KKK showed up in large numbers to protest against it being taking down, yet this dude seems to think he’s the one who’s using it for the right reasons.  I’m not one to judge, solely because of my ideals and such, but right is right, and wrong is wrong.  You can’t make a flag represent what you want it to represent.  Yeah everybody perceives and interprets differently, but you might as well chalk this one up as a fact bro.  I honestly feel this guy did no research on the flag, just representing something that he was taught to love as a child, but that’s no excuse.  That’s ignorance, knowing better but ignoring the fact.

Which brings me back to the beginning of all this; there’s no way someone that made it to the point he’s at right now(successful rapper, half-Jamaican wife, mixed kid), and can honestly see that flag as something that’s cool to represent.  Has to be part of a bigger plan, on a level of “Lets push racism into rap.”  Or it could be just a big publicity stunt.  Get some attention, when it hits a head, say you’ve seen the light, and make a public apology?  Rack up some extra album/single sales and whatnot? If/when it happens you know where you heard it first. I feel it has to be one of the two, what’s your thoughts though?

(Oh and one final note before I go.  I forgot to mention that I’m from Charleston, SC, and personally knew one of the victims of the Church Shooting that caused the flag to be taken down, so that bandwagon, anti-southerner talk doesn’t apply to me…)