As the Confederate battle flag was removed from the state Capitol grounds in South Carolina, news crews interviewed supporters and opponents of the decision. One of the latter appeared on a major news network wearing a T-shirt that few in attendance may have recognized as the ultimate irony.

The woman holding a large “Stars and Bars” flag and championing “heritage” was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a white tiger. White tigers, of course, are not a result of the heritage of the free-living tigers of the world but are (with a few rare exceptions) the result of breeding by slave traders and exhibitors in the entertainment industry who treat animals as commodities.

Although some circuses have pledged to remove elephant acts eventually from their shows, tigers and other animals have not been promised a pardon, despite their massive suffering.

As our nation still grapples with white-supremacy delusions, we should also examine the continuation of animal slavery in circuses.