FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Mahomet Daily received this statement on Saturday. Per our posting schedule, Monday was the first day this piece was available for publication.
August 25th
From: Ben Chapman for County Board
Contact: benbart.chapman@gmail.com or (217)898-8066
Facebook Page
I oppose the Confederate flag display at the Mahomet Music Festival
On August 24th, a vendor at the Mahomet Music Festival was displaying an American flag blended with a Confederate flag. I oppose this display and I want to express to all those who visit the Mahomet Music Festival that this display does not represent our town as a whole.
I’ve lived in Mahomet my whole life. I love my neighbors. I love my community. I love my town. The experiences I have had during my bids for political office have only deepened this love. However, these feelings have not blinded me to the fact that in Mahomet, as in every community, there exists a history and present of intolerance and non-inclusiveness.
The Mahomet Music Festival provides our community a true opportunity to showcase our music, our businesses, our food, our people, and our hospitality. It is an opportunity for people to come together and be proud of our town and to show others why we are proud. This flag flies directly against these missions.
I understand that to those flying the flag, the flag may not symbolize what it does to me. However, historical meaning of the Confederate flag is impossible to erase. To take this symbol of bondage and oppression and to superimpose it on our national symbol of freedom and hope is unneighborly, unpatriotic, and unAmerican. It is a defilement of our flag and an insult to those values for which our flag stands. As a candidate for County Board District 1, but more importantly, as a Mahometan, an Illinoisan, and an American, I am asking the vendors to take down their flag.
I commented on this issue here on Mahomet Daily a year ago and was again appalled to see vendors, most likely from out of town, not only selling Confederate flag wares, but also modified and butchered American flag wares that almost certainly flout the proper display of our country’s flag as outlined in the US Flag Code. I find this ignorant and disrespectful to our community given that Middletown Cemetery is mere steps away and is the final resting place of a number of Union Civil War veterans. Mahomet talks about honoring its past, yet we allow outsiders to come in and disrespect the legacies of past residents.
If the music festival organizers don’t care about the image of Mahomet they are allowing to be put forth, maybe I’ll just skip it next year and go to the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival instead.
Not only is it a symbol of inhumane bondage and oppression, but it is also a symbol of treason against the United States, honoring people and policies that advocated for dissolution of the Union and the killing of US soldiers.
I was apalled by the entire contents of that vendor’s booth, especially the Confederate flag items and the bastardized American flag. I echo the concerns of others here, this towm is better than that. Common decency and common sense are needed by the organizers, apparently.