Flowers and flags confront real American power

White supremacy in America has basically been itching for a civil war ever since Reconstruction, just waiting for any excuse to crack down and shove Black people “back in their place” - and they’ve never exactly been subtle about it. Just look at Alexander Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech from 1861, where the Vice President of the Confederacy flat-out said their whole system was built on keeping Black people beneath white men. So when people try to claim the Confederate flag is just about “heritage,” that’s the heritage they’re talking about, spelled out in plain English. Now it feels like those same types are hoping somebody, anybody, fires a shot at the National Guard so they can justify unleashing the full force of the military on anyone who looks at them sideways. This is why, back in the ‘60s, hippies showed up to protests with flowers - so when the government hit back, it was obvious to everyone just how disproportionate and authoritarian the response was. And it’s not just a hippie thing: during Portugal’s Carnation Revolution in 1974, people handed carnations to the soldiers staging a coup, and the troops stuck the flowers in their gun barrels instead of firing on civilians. Honestly, I wish we could see something that peaceful here if things ever get ugly, not a spiral of violence. If protesters here carried American flags and flowers, imagine the optics if the military turned on people literally waving the flag. It would make it crystal clear to the whole country who actually stands for America’s supposed values and who just wants to stomp anyone who steps out of line. And it’s not just about white versus Black either - the whole white supremacist project is about forcing everyone into a strict pecking order with no real way to move up or down, just the powerful keeping everyone else in check. Equality under the law is supposed to mean the rules apply to all of us, no exceptions, because the moment we start making carveouts for the powerful, the rest of us are always next in line to get crushed.