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Activists Are Planning to Burn American Flags in Brooklyn on Wednesday

Yeesh.

Image via Jennifer Parr/Wikimedia Commons

Disarm NYPD, a political action group with the expressed aim of taking firearms away from the NYPD using "direct action, organizing, education, and other tactics" has announced on Facebook that it will be staging American flag burnings in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park on Wednesday at 7:30 PM. The event has been unambiguously named "Burn the American Flags," in case the plan wasn't clear.

The event sprouted from a Confederate flag burning that was supposed to take place last weekend, but was delayed due to shitty weather. When they regrouped and announced a new date, Disarm NYPD had replaced the Confederate flag with the American.

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In the wake of the Charleston tragedy, similar groups have staged Confederate flag burnings, like the one last weekend in Chicago's Lincoln Park, but Disarm NYPD argues that the American flag should be treated no differently. According to their Facebook post, "However, the Confederacy lost the war the American flag has unceasingly, from the first day it was ever hung, represented the exact same thing." [sic]

According to a comment on the Disarm NYPD event page by a user named Rey Lal Salam, the flag is symbolically tied to the police. "Those are the flags on the back of NYPD cars, that's the flag on every prison and court in NYC," Lal Salam wrote.

When it comes to desecrating symbols, abusing the American flag is a move that alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof used himself. Roof was photographed spitting and stomping on one American flag, and lighting another one on fire. Meanwhile, he seems to be among those enamored with the Confederate stars and bars.

Want Some In-Depth Stories About the Charleston Shooting?

1. Why Some People Think Dylann Roof is Getting Special Treatment 2. What Racists Think of the Charleston Shooting 3. Should Dylann Roof Be Considered a Terrorist?
4. Bree Newsome Gets Arrested for Climbing a Pole and Taking Down a Confederate Flag

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