A black child's birthday party was interrupted by an unexpected outbreak of Southern Heritage Saturday, in Douglasville, Georgia, as a group of at least seven pickups carrying Confederate, Real American, and other flags roared past the family's house and parked in a nearby field, their white occupants adding celebratory racial slurs to the festivities, according to resident Melissa Alford. One of the men driving the trucks told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that in fact he and his friends were just good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm, just out to show The Flag, as people do these days, and also that the blacks started the trouble. Yes, it's another Rashomon in Dixie, it would seem.

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Cell phone videos of part of the incident show trucks idling in a nearby field, and another scene of the trucks departing, their white occupants waving as police hold back the black residents shouting at the guys in the trucks. This video edits out that word, and at the very beginning, one man appears to be holding a rifle (viewing note: when video transitions from the field to the driveway, it gets LOUD):

Alford, the woman hosting a family member’s birthday party, said the trucks drove by several times before parking in the field next to her house.

“One had a gun, saying he was gonna kill the [racial slur],” Alford told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Then one of them said gimme the gun, I’ll shoot them [racial slur].”

Levi Bush, the nice leader of the flag caravan, insists that his group, “Protect the Flag,” is merely helping out the community, and is not the least bit hateful: "They 'drive around and sell flags,' he said, with all of the proceeds going to veterans or toward purchasing new American flags for those in need." And maybe they buy maps, for the U.S. Americans that don't have any, like such as. Apparently, to accomplish this noble goal, it sometimes becomes necessary to roar up and down the street in front of black families' birthday parties, perhaps to enhance brand awareness. Would you believe that he has a completely different story about what happened?

Bush said his group was leaving a nearby event when they drove by Alford’s home and the partygoers started yelling at the trucks in front of him. They then threw rocks at his vehicle, he said.

Bush said he fishtailed while trying to drive away, then ran over a median and got a flat tire. When he pulled into a nearby driveway, the partygoers swarmed and made threats, and his friends backed him up, he said.

“Basically about eight of us had to hold 15 to 20 of them back,” Bush said, admitting that a specific racial slur was likely used by members of his group.

But it was, you know, provoked-like.

Police say they are reviewing several videos to "see if any criminal activity occurred." Neither the truckers nor the party-goers say that any physical assaults occurred, although Ms. Alford does say several times in Facebook posts that she is fearful and praying a lot.

Alford told the Journal-Constitution that she hasn't stayed at her own home since Saturday:

“I don’t have a problem if that’s their culture,” Alford said. “… If they want to make a statement that these flags mean something to them, I’m OK with that. But you’ve got to do it right. You can’t go around just blatantly terrorizing people.”

That seems awfully nice of her to respect the driving-around-in-loud-pickups-with-huge-Confederate-flags culture; we're not sure that particular one has received the attention in sociology journals it deserves.

[AJC via RawStory]