State senator Dale Zorn apologizes for wearing mask resembling Confederate flag to session

[Eugene]

Source: Detroit News

State senator apologizes for wearing mask resembling Confederate flag to session

Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News Published 9:04 a.m. ET April 25, 2020 | Updated 11:13 a.m. ET April 25, 2020

Lansing — A Republican state senator has apologized for wearing a face mask resembling a Confederate flag during a contentious session Friday over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's emergency powers during the pandemic.

Sen. Dale Zorn, R-Ida, told WLNS Friday that the red face covering with white stars inside of thick blue stripes was not the Confederate flag, but said he knew it “would raise some eyebrows.”

His wife made it for him, he told WLNS, and said it was more similar to the Tennessee or Kentucky flag.

Following the WLNS report, Zorn on Saturday apologized on social media for his choice face mask pattern.

"I did not intend to offend anyone; however, I realize that I did, and for that I am sorry," he wrote. "Those who know me best know that I do not support the things this pattern represents.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/04/25/senator-denies-mask-confederate-flag-but-acknowledges-would-raise-some-eyebrows/3025863001/

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Source: The Guardian

Michigan senator apologizes for wearing Confederate flag face mask

Dale Zorn initially defended his actions, saying it was part of ‘our history’, but eventually apologized after widespread outrage

Tom Lutz
@tom_lutz
Sat 25 Apr 2020 19.23 BST
Last modified on Sat 25 Apr 2020 20.02 BST

A Republican politician in Michigan has apologized after wearing a face mask that appeared to depict the Confederate flag, an image offensive to many Americans as a symbol of racism and slavery.

Michigan state Senator Dale Zorn wore the mask during a Senate vote at the Michigan state capitol in Lansing on Friday. He initially defended his actions, saying his wife had made the mask and that it depicted the flag of Tennessee or Kentucky.

“I told my wife it probably will raise some eyebrows, but it was not a Confederate flag,” Zorn told Lansing TV station WLNS on Friday.

He went on to add: “Even if it was a Confederate flag, you know, we should be talking about teaching our national history in schools and that’s part of our national history and it’s something we can’t just throw away because it is part of our history.”

When Zorn was asked what the meaning of the Confederate flag is, he replied “the Confederacy”.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/25/michigan-senator-mask-confederate-flag

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[ProfessorGAC]

3. That's A Confederate Flag!

He's a liar!

[maxrandb]

6. No! That's a Confederate flag in fucking Lansing Michigan!

JFC on a trailer hitch. Someone please stop the world... I want to get off.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Yes. I Should Have Posted Same

His wife's obviously a POS too.

[asiliveandbreathe]

7. Good one dalton99a..they got 'im..nice..n/t

[Wounded Bear]

2. Just a good ole boy...

[maxrandb]

8. Just a good ole' boy from Michigan

who claims he was wearing a Kentucky or Tennessee flag?

[asiliveandbreathe]

4. So his wife made it..really, really?? If that is true, that some kind of fam you got there..

But it was not a conf. flag..and then he steps in it, Even if it was a conf. flag"..

[spanone]

5. Apology NOT ACCEPTED

YOU RACIST POS

[treestar]

9. We really have to pay more attention to state

legislators. How many stories like this have surfaced over the years? True lunatics are getting elected to state legislators. The Legitimate Rape guy. So many other examples.

[Hoyt]

10. Another ignorant white winger that thinks America's Swastika is heritage. Yeah, heritage of hatred.

[sprinkleeninow]

11. butthole....

[MyOwnPeace]

12. You have to take

a written test to get a driver's license - a "bitch" of a test to be a lawyer - a rather difficult test to become a US citizen (if you immigrated from another country - if you could!) - and yet ANYBODY can become a parent (with a willing or semi-willing partner) or - a government official.

W-T-F!!!!!!!!

[Caliman73]

13. Our national history?

“Even if it was a Confederate flag, you know, we should be talking about teaching our national history in schools and that’s part of our national history and it’s something we can’t just throw away because it is part of our history.”

Okay. I totally agree. Here is the lesson of the Confederacy in a nutshell:

In the history of the United States around the mid 1800's one section of the country the South was agrarian and its economy was based on cash crops like tobacco and cotton while the other, the North had turned to industry and trading. To minimize the costs of labor, the South continued to import human beings from Africa to use them and breed them like cattle. These African slaves became a commodity in their own right and these southern slave owners bred and sold them to other countries. When the Northern part of the country (which is not blameless for slavery either) turned away from slavery and abolished the practice, the South persisted. The debate in the US during the 1840's to the 1860's was on expanding slavery to new states with many in the north wanting to halt the practice and most in the South wanting to expand it. When the South saw that an administration opposed to the expansion of slavery was elected in 1860, they decided to try to leave the Union. In almost every document explaining their decision to leave, the states that seceded put SLAVERY as the main reason. The Southern states now renamed the Confederate States, attacked the Union.

Now here is a point of debate and a question, "Were the Confederate States merely a treasonous part of the United States that took up arms against its legitimate government OR were they a foreign country who declared and waged war against the US?"

If they were just a treasonous part of the US, then the flag stand for TREASON and TREASON TO DEFEND SLAVERY, and it has to be taught as such and anyone who uses it as a symbol has to know that they are flying a flag of traitors.

If it is recognized as a sovereign nation that attacked the United States, then it is a flag that represents a foreign county that has NO place in US history. We do not carry and venerate Japanese Rising Sun Flags or the Flags of the Third Reich as part of United States history, why would we give any special place to the flag of a foreign enemy in our history?

[Wednesdays]

14. I was thinking the Deep South at first

...but Michigan?!