Editor,

I was dismayed and disgusted during the Whidbey Island Fair Parade to see that the South Whidbey American Legion Post’s entry in the parade carried not one, but two large Confederate flags. Add to that the fact that one of the motorcycle riders had a Nazi swastika on his headgear and one could wonder what the American Legion stands for.

Yes, I know about freedom of speech, but to parade with a symbol that has always stood for the South’s insistence on enslavement of other people (Read the Virginia and the South Carolina Declarations of Secession and you will find that they are not about states’ rights, they are about slavery), and that since its re-emergence in the early 1960s, at the beginning of the civil rights era, as a symbol of white supremacy, racial hatred, and the denial of civil rights, is a slap in the face to every person who stood for the passing of the American flag just moments earlier at the parade.

I am shocked that the American Legion Post on South Whidbey would endorse this position by allowing its members to enter the parade carrying the Confederate flag.

I believe you owe the people of Whidbey Island an apology.

Marti Anamosa

Clinton