Dear Connecticut African-Americans, you may be going a bit overboard here
http://www.courant.com/news/local/h...0,3178212.story
Coffee Mug Fuels Controversy
By TRACY GORDON FOX | Courant Staff Writer
July 26, 2007
A coffee mug used by Department of Public Safety Commissioner John A. Danaher III showing the Confederate flag in a Civil War battle has angered black leaders who said it was insensitive to display a symbol of hate, particularly when the state police have been under fire for complaints of racism.
The issue arose Wednesday night after the NAACP met with members of the Commission on African American Affairs to discuss how to address recent allegations of rampant racism within the state police and state Department of Correction. The African American Affairs Commission is a group of citizens appointed by the legislature to improve and promote the well-being of African Americans in the state.
After the meeting, Dawne Westbrook, the attorney for the NAACP, said she was contacted by a state trooper who was offended by the mug, which she saw Danaher drinking from when she met with him in his office over the racism issue and other problems within the department. Danaher has written a letter of apology to the trooper.
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Danaher said he has used the mug for seven years since his sons bought it for him as a gift when they visited Gettysburg.
"There are pictures of soldiers on horseback in retreat having lost," Danaher said. The flags were the "size of a postage stamp," he added.
He said his sons, who were 9 and 12 at the time, wanted to buy him a souvenir because he always bought them ones. He said he explained that to Freeman and she seemed satisfied with the answer.
"I wrote her a letter saying we discussed this and that I explained its origin," Danaher said, adding he also said that he took the mug home once he learned it had bothered her.
But black leaders said Danaher should have been more sensitive about the symbol, particularly when he was meeting with a black trooper.
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"If this is true I find it very hard to believe someone of such a high position of power wouldn't recognize the significance of the symbol," Westbrook said. "It's been a symbol of racism and hate."