During an interview promoting his latest film, The Hateful Eight, director Quentin Tarantino said that he considers the Confederate flag to be the “American swastika” and said that it was “about damn time” that people started to question the use of the flag.
“All of a sudden, people started talking about the Confederacy in America in a way they haven’t before. I mean, I’ve always felt the Rebel flag was some American swastika,” he said during an interview with The Telegraph in which he pointed to the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the church shooting in South Carolina, as a turning point in race relations in the United States.
“And people are starting to question about stuff like statues of Bedford Forrest [the Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard] in parks. Well, it’s about damn time, if you ask me,” he added.
Tarantino’s new film, The Hateful Eight, is set after the American Civil War and tells the story of a black Union soldier Major Marquis Warren, played by Samuel L Jackson, who is thrown together with former Confederate soldiers. While the film is not entirely about race relations, the story and the setting shed light on the state of race relations in the United States.
Below is footage of residents cheering as the Confederate flag is removed from the South Carolina state capital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0tArvY1FaA