Killer Mike criticises American government’s public use of the Confederate Flag

Run The Jewels’ Killer Mike has spoken out against the American government’s use of the Confederate flag in public institutions.

Speaking to The FADER earlier this week, Killer Mike’s comments follow Governor Nikki Haley’s call to remove the flag over South Carolina’s Statehouse, in the wake of the recent Charleston tragedy. The rapper said he had “no problem” with friends who fly the flag, but he sees no place for it in public. “You do not fly the flags of losers over the winner’s country,” he said.

Read the full op-ed by Killer Mike over at The Fader and read an excerpt below.

“My opinion on the Confederate flag is quite simple and clear. I have no problem with Southerners who consider that a part of their heritage flying it privately in their homes or [wearing it] on their shirts or jackets. Even if that’s your choice of vanity license plate, you pay a tax for your license plate in Georgia. So that’s your tax, for your license plate. I have white friends who have the Confederate flag on their license plates and I have no issue with that if they see that as a matter of heritage. But I do not think it should ever fly over a state, city, county building, or school, for the simple reason that it represents secession from the Union. It represented a part of the country trying to become a separate country from America. That side lost, and you do not fly the flags of losers over the winners’ country. It’s just that simple. There’s no way around that.

An army took on the Union, an army lost. That nation, the Confederate states, lost. And if that flag—in terms of publicly or state-sponsored things, or local or county or city-sponsored things—should be forever wiped from the memory, because that side lost. If your great great-grandfather participated on the Confederate side and you hold some sentimental value to that, and you want to fly the flag and hang their picture up in your home, that’s fine. But it should not be on anything that taxpayers pay for, because taxpayers are a part of the Union not the Confederacy. It has no place in the building, no place on the building, no place around the building.”