KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – These photos, taken yesterday in Wolfville and posted on Twitter today, serve as a reminder that racism is alive and well in Nova Scotia.
The flag, flown by Confederate troops in the field during the American Civil War, has come to stand for white supremacy and is now a universal symbol of racism. It’s intimidating, especially to Black citizens, and that’s exactly its intention.
The person who took the photos contacted Wolfville police and was informed that flying the confederate flag is not considered a hate crime.
Sightings of the flag in continue to be a fairly common in the Maritimes.
In January we were approached by residents of a Timberlea subdivision where one obnoxious fellow thought it hilarious to ride around the subdivision, on top of a riding lawn mower flying the confederate flag. He posted videos of this on his YouTube channel, and he had a Facebook page. People were scared. Black people live in that community.
After a similar flag sighting in Truro in 2015, a group of Nova Scotians initiated a petition asking that all white supremacist symbols be banned in Nova Scotia and indeed in all of Canada.
That the blatantly racist confederate flag keeps popping up in the Maritimes shows the need to ban this symbol of hate and white supremacy in Canada has not gone away.
See also: Op-ed: Ban the hateful confederate flag in PEI and elsewhere
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