Hey now, we're just following in our fathers footsteps.
Whoa there, we advocate world domination and shooting unarmed black people, never said everybody should be fat.
Personally I don't quite see how this has suddenly become such a massive issue. I mean I come from a nation which has 4 flags*, shoving the wrong one on your car and parking it in the wrong area will get it keyed, or in the case of Ireland, torched. Even the Union Flag causes strife as there are a lot of people who are anti-union, especially here in Scotland. Hell, I have a lapel badge of the Lion Rampant of Scotland and have been warned on a few occasions that it could cause issues by suggesting I'm a Royalist and an
English Royalist at that.
Here in the UK the Stars and Bars is what people who wear stetson hats stick on their imported American pick-up trucks (or PT Cruisers) because they really wish they were from the Southern States for no conceivable reason. But it's no different from any other flag or symbol in terms of "representing bad things". Outside of the context relating to any one individual you can't place a singular meaning on a symbol of any description, especially one dating from 100+ years ago. The use of the Stars and Stripes pre-dates the abolition of slavery, surely that is just as much a symbol of racism?
I maintain this is just a distraction. The issue is not some assortment of stars and coloured lines that may or may not have anything or everything to do with racism in the 21st century, it's that racist people are using it as a banner of sorts. Of course racism cannot and will not be eradicated and reducing the amount of racism in the US would be hard so the US government have decided to stop using the flag...
This achieves
nothing, It's a case of looking like you're doing something while actually
not doing anything and pushing the real issue aside. They say the flag is offensive, so fucking what? Being offended, that is potentially the nicest bad thing that can happen to a person. If you're offended you can just move on with your life, it has no real impact other than on your mood, fuck whatever it is that offended you, go away and live your life. Being offended is NOT the same as being oppressed, that flag isn't oppressing you, racist fucktards are oppressing you. Why is the use/non-use of a fucking flag getting more news coverage and internet discussion than the fact that there are a fuck ton of people out there who think some humans are worth less than other humans due to nothing but the colour of their skin, or their gender, or their sexuality.
Without wanting to sound like a raving conspiracist it's either a gross mismanagement of government effort due to lack of basic understanding about how the world functions or it's merely to draw the headlines away from important issues and on to something comparatively trivial.
*St George's cross for England, the St Andrew's cross for Scotland, St. Patrick's Cross for N. Ireland and that Welsh one with a dragon on it which nobody cares about.