Black woman refuses to give work to contractor who shows up with Confederate flag

A black woman who called an independent contractor to fix her golf cart fired him after he drove to her home with a Confederate flag waving from the back of his truck.

Allison and Zeke Brown, from Georgia, hired a man called Michael to replace the brakes on their golf cart, but they were left uneasy when he arrived with the controversial flag, Yahoo reports.

Allison refused to give him work, and apologised to him, saying she was “beyond upset” about the flag.

The 40-year-old radiation therapist told Michael: “Hi, you know what, I do apologise. I know you’ve come from a very long way, but we’re going to use someone else.”

Her husband Zeke, 48, added: “She’s upset about the flag.”

“No, I’m beyond upset about the flag,” Allison stated.

The contractor offered to remove the flag, but the damage had been done and the couple didn’t want him working for them.

Allison told him:

No, you need to take it down. You can continue to believe what you need to believe, sir. But no, I cannot pay you for your services. Thank you, have a good day.

Michael later told the publication that his siblings had bought the flag at a market asked him to fly it, and he insisted he "doesn’t support slavery and neither do my siblings".

He added: “If [the family] wants to take offence, they can.”

People online praised Allison's calm refusal of service.

Why is the Confederate flag considered racist?

The Confederate flag was made to represent the Southern states who fought to preserve slavery during America’s civil war, and is widely seen as a nod to an era of racial discrimination, the Ku Klux Klan and the violent era of Jim Crow.

It is a flag steeped in racism and racist hate, with ADL, the leading anti-hate organisation in America writing: “While a number of non-extremists still use the flag as a symbol of Southern heritage or pride, there is growing recognition, especially outside the South, that the symbol is offensive to many Americans.

However, because of the continued use of the flag by non-extremists, one should not automatically assume that display of the flag is racist or white supremacist in nature.

The Confederate flag is associated with white supremacy outside of America, with right-wing pockets across Europe, including Poland, waving the flag as a form of white pride.

In fact, in Germany, white supremacists display the Confederate flag as a proxy for the Nazi swastika, which is banned in the country.

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