It's time to stop pretending that the Confederate Flag is simply a symbol of a heritage that's worth honoring. It's time to acknowledge that it's inextricably tied to racism and hate. And especially in light of the Charleston Massacre, It's time for the state of South Carolina to finally stop pretending that it isn't horrific that this symbol of hate is still flying proudly, at full mast, no less, over their Capitol as an implicit endorsement of white supremacy. 

Governor Haley, it's long past time. Take down that flag-- and do it now. 

If you need more convincing, please read the following: 

"Last night, Dylann Roof walked into a Charleston church, sat for an hour, and then killed nine people. Roof’s crime cannot be divorced from the ideology of white supremacy which long animated his state nor from its potent symbol—the Confederate flag. Visitors to Charleston have long been treated to South Carolina’s attempt to clean its history and depict its secession as something other than a war to guarantee the enslavement of the majority of its residents. This notion is belied by any serious interrogation of the Civil War and the primary documents of its instigators. Yet the Confederate battle flag—the flag of Dylann Roof—still flies on the Capitol grounds in Columbia.

The Confederate flag’s defenders often claim it represents “heritage not hate.” I agree—the heritage of White Supremacy was not so much birthed by hate as by the impulse toward plunder. Dylann Roof plundered nine different bodies last night, plundered nine different families of an original member, plundered nine different communities of a singular member. An entire people are poorer for his action. The flag that Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, does not stand in opposition to this act—it endorses it. That the Confederate flag is the symbol of of white supremacists is evidenced by the very words of those who birthed it:

'Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth...'

This moral truth-- "that negro is not equal to the white man"-- is exactly what animated Dylann Roof. More than any individual actor, in recent history, Roof honored his flag in exactly the  manner it always demanded--with human sacrifice." 

-From The Atlantic article, "Take Down the Confederate Flag-- Now"