I am sickened when I see citizens of the United States of America wearing t-shirts or waving flags that depict Nazi symbols and the Confederate Flag. The first word, a very important one, in our country’s title is United. Both Nazis and the Confederacy were about the opposite, they were about dividing to create control and doing so with violence and destruction. Millions, many, many millions died to put those ideologies down. Sacrifices were made by our soldiers and countless others to literally fight to the death to put an end to these selfish and evil philosophies.
It isn’t a Protest to wear those symbols. They are not protesting an injustice or asking for a redress of grievances. What they are doing is saying, “Kill the Unity.” They are standing proud for the destruction of United. They are saying, “I have the right to kill anyone who is not like me.”
Contrast that with something like BLM and a protest against police brutality. In that case the people involved see an injustice and take to the streets to proudly speak out against that injustice in hopes of making a change; simply, to have more justice.
Black Lives Matter is saying, “We are being treated unfairly and we would like to be treated equally with our White brothers and sisters. We don’t want to take anything away from you. We just don’t want to be treated like bad people. And shot, we don’t want to be shot.”
A BLM supporter is not saying, “Whites don’t matter.”
A Nazi is saying “Blacks don’t matter,” and is supporting, “Gays don’t matter, and Jews don’t matter, and Latinos don’t matter.” A Nazi is saying, “Only white people matter.” That is the literal opposite of what Black Lives Matter is saying. That is what Nazi means. Period. It doesn’t have some other nostalgic meaning.
Nazis are not only saying Blacks Don’t Matter they are saying they have the right to destroy them; the right to kill Blacks, Latinos, Jews and literally anyone who isn’t them or opposes them. That is precisely what a Nazi is.
It isn’t a protest movement; it is an ideology of destruction.
The modern love of the Confederacy—the real one being no more than a nostalgic myth at this point—is almost just as bad because you don’t have to look far to see that the same people carrying those war flags which represent Disunity and the literal attempt to destroy the United States of America, are very comfortable standing next to the Nazi flag.
And then they toss in the American Flag, the flag of unity, the flag that represents an attempt to live up to the ideals espoused by Black Lives Matter and our Constitution as it evolved. The American flag and what it represents belongs to all of us, the United States of America. It is our country, not some image of our country bent towards fascism and Nazis and racism.
I shake my head when I see all these symbols being equalized by those who really want an unequal world. They want the United States of America to become the White States of America and they want all those “other people” to “go back home” or die, preferably.
What we should be saying to these people, these Nazis, is Get Off Our Lawn.
Peter Kjenaas
Peter Kjenaas is an author, screenwriter, theater director, producer, chef, AirBnB host, parent and caregiver extraordinaire. And now he adds travel writer to his resumé as he sets off across the country in a 1971 VW camper bus. But first and foremost he is a caring and productive human who has graciously allowed us to post some of his writings to this site. See his latest book at PeterKjenaas.com, and his travel adventures at Riders on the Storm Bus.