Welcome to Santa Barbara d'Oeste, Brazil...

...Where people in a rainbow of colors fly the Confederate flag and celebrate their heritage as post-Confederates. 

Yeah, THAT Confederacy and THAT Confederate flag, the one everyone has been arguing about -- more than ever, I should say -- since Dylann Roof gunned down 9 people (including a black Senator) in the Emmanuel AME church at a Bible study class.

Apparently, some years ago when the Confederacy was still extant, a group of secessionists SECEDED EVEN MORE from the United States and bought some land in Brazil from Emperor Dom Pedro II.  They proceeded to intermarry with the locals -- white ones, members of the local Indian tribes and the descendants of black slaves -- and carried on with their lives as if the race issues that drove them out of the US OF A never existed.  And TO THIS DAY they consider themselves to be proud descendants of the Confederacy, without knowing necessarily what the American Civil War was about.

Now, if everyone in the USA who flew a Confederate flag -- or had a bumper sticker, t-shirt, decal, or customized rifle stock with the Stars and Bars on it -- took this Brazilian attitude said it was about "Heritage, not hate," I might believe them.   But it just seems to me its been a while since I saw a black Amerindian Spanish speaker waving one of those flags in the USA.