increase in people getting racist tattoos/ confed flag tats removed

[Demovictory9]

Kyle Boykin got his Confederate flag tattoo covered up this year. George Floyd's killing in May was the "initial wow factor moment," he says.


And in a similar reckoning, tattoo artists around the country say that as protests took off this year, requests to remove or cover up racist tattoos did, too.

Kyle Boykin was 17 when he got a tattoo of the Confederate flag that covered his upper arm. "Growing up in rural, small-town Ohio, that was kind of the cool thing," he says. To him, it was about being proud of his family's history in the South.

But as Boykin got older, he began to understand that as a white man, the same Confederate flag that to him represented pride held dark reminders of slavery and white supremacy for many Black Americans.

Boykin says he was careful to wear sleeves long enough to cover his tattoo at work. He is a safety supervisor for the transit agency in Zanesville, Ohio, where he has lived his entire life.

"I work with everybody, of all races, sexes, everybody, rich to poor," he says. "... I never wanted somebody that I was trying to lend a hand to in the community to, for any reason, feel uncomfortable by anything I had on my body that was never meant for that purpose."

A few years ago, he got the words "Heritage, Not Hate" added to the tattoo to clarify his intentions.

Then came George Floyd's killing in May, which was the "initial wow factor moment" for Boykin.

----------

The nonprofit Atlanta Redemption Ink, which helps victims of sex trafficking, former gang members and people with self-harm marks, with cover-ups and removals, tells NPR it received an influx of applications specifically from people with racist tattoos.

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/951178996/as-statues-of-americas-racist-past-were-removed-this-year-so-were-tattoos.

[Wounded Bear]

1. That's at least a promising sign...

[Aristus]

2. Still: "Heritage, Not Hate"?

Slow-thinking fuckhead…

I'm proud of my Southern roots, but I don't go around tattooing to my body the emblem of slavery advocacy...

Oh well, baby steps, I guess...

[whopis01]

5. He had it covered up after that.

The entire tattoo, including the flag and the "heritage not hate" text have all been covered now.

[NutmegYankee]

8. Many whites were raised believing that.

The two realities thing we complain about has always existed in some form. The confederate battle flag was a classic example. Whites thought of it as a source of regional pride while Blacks saw it as a symbol of terror.

I grew up in the south.

[Aristus]

9. Me too.

I was never once told that the Confederate flag was anything other than the battlefield symbol of the people who lost a war to preserve slavery.

My family is a bunch of JFK liberals, so I'm sure we were pretty rare in the South back then. I hear it's getting better. But it's still easier to get my liberal on in the Pacific Northwest.

[NutmegYankee]

12. That's very rare for a few decades ago in the South.

Even the schools pushed the state's rights lost cause BS. I turned against it myself around 15 or so.

[Aristus]

13. Oh yeah.

We were taught to believe that horseshit about Robert E. Lee being this kindly, grandfatherly guy who hated slavery, but loved Virginia more than the U.S.

I was born and raised in San Antonio, and was nearly grown when I learned that the defenders of the Alamo were trying to expand slavery into Mexican Texas. That's why they were fighting for "independence" from slavery-banning Mexico.

[BlueNProud]

14. You know you're doing the wrong thing when your tat needs a disclaimer

[Aristus]

15. Good point.

It's all part of the mutton-headed rationalization these guys have been doing for 150 years...

[brewens]

3. I'll remove some. Maybe try this method on some.

[TheBlackAdder]

4. In a tough job market, it's kind of tough getting and keeping a job if you're an open Nazi.

[Wounded Bear]

6. I certainly hope so...

[Hekate]

7. I'll take any hopeful signs that come along

[Iggo]

10. They'll still be racist dicks. They just don't want to get fired.

[Demovictory9]

11. Giy featured in article seems to have become "woke"