My coworker snapped a pic of me confronting these douchebags. Here's the email I've sent all over town but there's not actually anything I can do about it.
Hello,
I am a local educator with a personal experience I’d like to share with the groups who may be interested in hearing it.
We had guests to the school where I work to present their historic civil war cannon. The presenters were two men dressed in Union uniforms while displaying a large confederate flag from the back of their trailer. The truck it was attached to had a large Trump face sticker in the window, obviously visible to everyone attending the presentation. Multiple parents in my social media were wondering why the confederate flag was flying in our front lawn (I chose not to comment).
Out of curiosity, I went out front to talk to the presenters during a class break. I stayed kind and professional. They did as well. As union soldiers they told me that they “captured” the Confederate’s flag and that’s why they were flying it. This doesn’t make any historical sense whatsoever. They then proceeded to give me a lesson on the history of confederate flag designs. They sure did love and defend that flag, knowing it inside out and using every old justification mixed with a load of word salad to explain away why the Confederate battle flag is actually good (immediately negating their original excuse of stealing it from their enemies). They proceeded to tell me that the main cause of the Civil War was states’ rights and not at all slavery. I absolutely promise with every fiber of my being that you can ask anyone with a brain, AI, and Civil War experts among experts and they will all say that the main reason for the civil war was slavery, states’ rights to own slaves, and economics having to do with owning slaves. Next, they told me that slavery was “NOT THAT BAD! Some bad things happened, yes, but overall, slaves were treated pretty well and slavery just wasn’t that bad.” I was aghast. I was livid. I was disturbed.
Once again, they somehow parroted every overused talking point of the average slave-owner apologist, including such hits as “Africans did slavery first” and “they took care of their slaves.”
They got to this point with me, a non-white woman, within 5 minutes of polite conversation. I am so worried about what our students might have learned from them.
To be sure, there are topics that may be too taboo to discuss with students. But I will not trust any white man to tell me that rape, lynching, separating families, whipping, hobbling, psychological torture, branding, mutilation, skinning, and selling their body parts “wasn’t that bad.”
I do not know what can be done, but I believe at the very least these men should have the guts to represent themselves honestly and join the Confederacy (famous American traitors). I shudder thinking that they are in our community, spreading deeply false information about this very real historical topic--in West Virginia, of all states, where our secession from the south is our reason for being.
Thank you for your time and understanding.
We have a yearly, two night one shot with college friends that I DM. For this year I have created a simplified but new game system for people who don’t play DnD regularly.
And created / printed 50+ custom minis…
The game could be terrible for all I know…
We just got back from 5 days at Disney World and on the whole had a great time. On our second day my wife and I were on Tower of Terror and we got stuck coming off the elevator, they had to evacuate us off the ride and take us down a real elevator. The ride was broken so they gave us a LL redo, which was fine. Bummer was my dad was waiting with the three kids so a bit of a headache for him.
Two days later we were at Animal Kingdom and had a LL pass for Everest at 10am. At 9am it was converted to an anytime pass as the ride was down, no big deal. It was up at 10am and we went to get in line, as we were about to tap in the ride closed. Now it’s 1130am and we see it’s open and go over before lunch. My daughter and I sat down in the car, restraints on and we got taken off as the ride was down again. They reissued the LL pass and at this point we figure we’ll no big deal, we likely won’t get it.
As we are getting ready to go to Hollywood studios about 230pm we see it’s open again and say why no try. Well ssswhy not try again…
Well here’s why you don’t try a 4th time on a ride that’s been breaking all day. Because we got stuck at the very tip top of Everest, sat in sun on a 90° day for 20mins, and then walked through the inside of the ride down 14 floors (this was actually pretty cool to see).
When we got to the bottom they had people handing out water as well as giving re rides. At that point I asked if there was somone else I could talk to, and they directed me to the guest experience person who was standing off to the side waiting to someone just like me. I explained the situation, that multiple issues I had run in with this ride alone, and that for the second time in 3 days I had been evacuated off a ride. They asked what they could do to make me feel better about things which I appreciate, but don’t really know what’s in the scope of appropriate to ask for. So I said I just want to feel good about the resolution and walk away happy. I also noted that it’s not about the money but the time I won’t get back. Also empathize with them as I had worked for WA for many years and completely understand the position they are in, and apologized for being “that guy”.
She was very nice and helpful and ended up pushing back the LL times we had for the day booked elsewhere, and then refunded all my LLs and Single LLs for the next day for my family of 5. Since we were going to Hollywood Studios right after this she also added 4 passes for Rise of the Resistance that afternoon.
I walked away feeling good about things and absolutely appreciate them working with me on the issue. When people are spending thousands of dollars on a trip, they didn’t hesitate or negotiate on the appropriate resolution. And I feel the final outcome was very fair to me.
I will note though that if you have to evacuate people from a ride 4+ times in one day maybe don’t reopen it? Maybe it’s got a bigger issue?