Activists to hold American and Confederate flag burning event at Fort Greene

State Senator Martin Golden of Brooklyn and Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island, both Republicans, have called on the NYPD to prevent the demonstration. Initially, Oliver Darcy added, the event was set to burn Confederate battle flags, but later changed to focus on the stars and stripes instead.

“This protest is a divisive, disrespectful way to express views, and doesn’t reflect the values of our city”, City Hall spokesperson Monica Klein said in an email. “If these agitators hate America enough to burn this precious symbol…”

Golden, a retired NYPD officer and representative of Brooklyn’s 22nd Senate District since 2002, said that the city “cannot stand by” and do nothing in the days before Independence Day. “The flag of our country flies proudly throughout the world, on the Moon, and surely on the streets of Brooklyn”. They plan to gather hundreds in Fort Green Park tonight at 7:30 and set fire to the American and Confederate flag.

Anyways to get back on track there was a group of people the protesters weren’t planning on having show up to counter protest.

So, we will burn the American flag, a symbol of oppression and genocide, and in the same action, dismantle our stunted, cynical expectations of what is possible in the world. “And if they’re not, the rest of us are certainly ashamed of them”.

“Of course some people will be offended, but we want them to know we are not against American culture as a whole, just the racism that is embedded in so many parts of our culture”, he told DNAinfo New York. “The stability of our society is dependent upon those individuals that recognize we are better than that”, she said, calling for original solutions to the problem of racial prejudice.

The news comes on the heels of last Tuesday’s “prediction” by Rush Limbaugh that in the wake of new criticism surrounding the Confederate flag, the American flag would come under attack. “Perhaps this is the great difference between us and the so-called ‘patriots’”. We are building something that will be much better than America….We dream of what real freedom looks like: freedom from paramilitaries occupying our communities, beating and killing our sons and daughters; freedom from our communities being destroyed by the speculative capital of gentrification; freedom from mass surveillance; and freedom from systemic racism. We are building something that will be much better than America.