A video clip of a 2015 debate about the Confederate Flag at Shawnee Mission East high school has resurfaced on social media. In the footage, a student named Christopher Justice commands the attention of his classmates as he obliterates any defense of the use of the confederate flag as anything other than a symbol of racism.
white boy pulled out the receipts pic.twitter.com/3MJRBXeSNb
— i have a virgo moon (@novavacane) July 6, 2018
“To your argument that the Confederate flag didn’t start out as racist, I disagree,” the then-Sophomore says while opening his laptop. “Here is a direct quote from the Confederate Constitution—other than this one bit it is exactly the same as that of the United States. ‘No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.’ So it says no matter what we will keep our slaves.” What he read is the fourth entry of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution of the Confederate States, which was signed on March 11, 1861.
He continued, “If the Confederates were really fighting for States’ rights and were trying to preserve the United States, then why is this [article] the one thing they changed?” As another student tried to oppose his point, he debunked it with another fact about the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution America drafted.
Watch the full debate in the video below.
