This Saskatchewan Man Is Filing a Human Rights Complaint Because He Likes the Confederate Flag

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This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

Dale Pippin is a Saskatchewan resident and lifelong Canadian, but he's incredibly proud of his family's roots in the South (they relocated from North Carolina 110 years ago). He's so proud of it, in fact, that the current climate of anti-Confederacy rhetoric encouraged him to file a human rights complaint regarding media coverage of the debate over the Confederate flag.

That debate began anew after the mass shooting in June of nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina by a white man with a documented fondness for symbols of bygone racially oppressive societies. Until a few weeks after the shooting, the Confederate flag was displayed prominently near South Carolina's statehouse, it's still part of some of the US state flags, and resistance to retiring it is strong despite the fact that the flag calls back to the side of the US Civil War that fought for the right to keep black people as slaves.

Pippin launched the human rights complaint because he thinks "racism and hate have been linked to the flag for far too long and it's incorrect." He also said the current climate of discussion discriminates against people like him, who want to celebrate their Southern heritage. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission has yet to confirm if it has received Pippin's complaint.

Despite the fact that no part of what is now Canada fought alongside the Confederacy during the Civil War, Confederate flags are not uncommon in Canada, especially in rural parts of the country. Though rarely flown by people who openly espouse pro-slavery views, they are often held up as a symbol of rebellion or non-conformity… or Lynyrd Skynyrd fandom.

"As soon as you display a flag, you are questioned about it, and you need to be prepared if you're going to display a flag," said Pippin, apparently ignorant of the near-universal acceptance of many flags as symbols of nationality.

It's also possible, of course, that Pippin was actually referencing the fact that most, if not all, national flags are contested by someone (for instance, many Indigenous Canadians consider the Canadian flag a symbol of their oppression), and using that point to argue for the legitimacy of the Stars and Bars he holds dear.

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