No, you don't understand!

[ghini]

Seen today at Stone Mountain:

A teenage girl wearing a t-shirt that had a confederate flag on it, and said "It's a white thing, you wouldn't understand"

Comments

[notgruntled.livejournal.com]

Ah, Stone Mountain. Birthplace of the modern Ku Klux Klan and the largest Confederate memorial in existence. It is to redneck behavior what a Hellmouth is to vampires.

The mountain itself and the surrounding land were once owned by the Venable family, which spawned more than its share of dragons, and wizards, and whatever other titles those sad little twits gave themselves.

I can remember when the Klan still had its Labor Day rally near Stone Mountain -- not on the property itself, which was and is a state park -- but on nearby land still owned by the Venables. They posted signs, a white arrow cut out of plywood, painted with the letters "KKK" because that is probably about as much as the intended audience could read at one sitting, and directing traffic toward the rally site.

In a bit of crowning irony, The city of Stone Mountain now has a majority-black population. The Venable name has been stripped from every local landmark, save one -- Venable Street, a rutted little quarter-mile of asphalt lined with run-down houses on muddy lots. The only noteworthy destination on Venable Street is the state prison at the end of it.

All that said, don't write off Stone Mountain Park. There's a lot more kitschy and theme-parky stuff than there used to be, but the park also has miles of good hiking and cycling trails, fishing and canoeing spots, and a parking pass costs $35 a year. If you're not driving, it costs nothing to get into the park.

Oh, and in a few weeks (Oct. 21-22) they'll be hosting the Highland Games -- aka "Scots on the Rock" -- which is a must-see if you're into men in kilts throwing telephone poles and stuff like that.