Black student says he hung Confederate flag on memorial for black soldiers

[hack89]

Source: Boston Globe

A man claiming responsibility for hanging a Confederate flag from a memorial for black soldiers says he didn’t intend it as a racist gesture—and in fact was protesting the symbol and what he believes it represents.

Some who saw the flag hanging from the memorial—including a woman who took it down—interpreted its placement as a hateful gesture. The flag hung from a sword held by a sculpture of Col. Robert Gould Shaw, commanding officer of the Union Army’s Massachusetts 54th Regiment.

Harvard Medical and MIT student Stephen Allsop told Boston.com that he was part of a group of demonstrators that left the flag on the memorial after a Confederate flag-burning ceremony on Sunday evening.

While one of the flags was burned “pretty completely,” the second was only “partially burned,” so Allsop said they hung it from the memorial. “We thought it would be clear we were trying to show the destruction of that symbol,” Allsop said.

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/06/29/black-soldiers-monument-marred-confederate-flag-has-history-vandalism/emvp9nIEToEKNXMTrMmziK/story.html?p1=feature_pri_hp

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Glad he came forward to explain.

[still_one]

1. If you have to explain it, it wasn't an effective demonstration

[secondwind]

2. Wow, that was my first thought, I thought it was appropriate to see the flag hanging

from the tip of the sword...

[Locrian]

3. yeah

It does look like that in the pic. Still - too risky a misinterpretation. Just like the internet -sarcasm and subtle don't really work a lot of times.

[marble falls]

4. Good concept undone by being carried out.

[Octafish]

5. Kind of a False Flag thing.

Works all around the world. Literally.

[candelista]

6. Flags. :)

What else is there to get excited about?