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Confederate flag causing a flap in SC

sarge said:
A "real" Duke family (the name itself is ironic in this context), in the deep south of the mid-70s, driving around in a car called the "General Lee", bearing a Confederate Flag and playing "Dixie" when the horn blows - not one chance of them not being white supremecists. Even stereotypical rednecks are not that dumb.
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I'm assuming you're just stationed in Fayette Nam, and didn't actually grow up in the South. You certainly didn't grow up among rural Southerners.
 
MaGZ said:
So you do not think this should be a decision made by the market place concerning the BBQ sauce?

I favor racial separation not segregation. Politically: White Nationalist
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Well we are all the same species and there is more variation between two members of the same 'race' than there between memebers of different 'races', so sort of impossible to define.

'races' is not a consistent and is incoherent geneticaly
 
Tricky said:
Unless you are desperately ignorant, when you display the Confederate Battle Standard, you are aware that it is almost universally (in the US) considered a symbol of racism.
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But that is exactly what some of these folks are protesting.

"Never underestimate the power of denial" </Ricky Fitts>

Revisionist history is not new to the human race. Some of these folks sincerely believe that it's not any more a "symbol of hate" than is a US flag from 1800, and there's an entire body of thought that has developed over the years to bolster that view.
 
Tricky said:
I wonder how the White Nationalists plan to accomplish this. If asking nicely for them to leave doesn't work, do you use force? That might be a problem, consisering how integrated the military and most law enforcement agencies are today.

What's the plan, Magz?
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I just got done reading The Turner Diaries, which would be terrifying if it weren't laughably infeasible.

The plan is 1) Blow up the FBI building 2) Get Nukes 3) Kill half the US population with small arms 4) Have smiling ginger-haired girls in pigtails cheerfully pick apples in the New Age.
 
Piggy said:
I'm assuming you're just stationed in Fayette Nam, and didn't actually grow up in the South. You certainly didn't grow up among rural Southerners.
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Then you did what often happens when you assume.

I live in Fayetteville.
I have been stationed in Fayetteville, 79-86, 98-2000, 2003-2004.
I was born in Fayetteville (not a brat)

I lived from 1961 until 1979 in an unincorporated, rural part of North Carolina about 20 miles from Fayetteville. You "certainly" do not know what you are talking about in this instance.

There are no persons that display the Confederate Flag that remain unaware that the flag represented racists exclusively for the first 100+ years of its existence and that it is an absolute symbol of racism for any aware person that sees it. Any attempts to display this flag while claiming some "Southern Pride" that is not associated with the South of the Civil War is attempting to co-op this flag.
 
sarge said:
A flag is a symbol of racism as soon as anyone uses it as a symbol of racism. A flag is an absolute symbol of racism as soon as everyone recognizes that it symbolizes racism. This symbol was not stolen by racists - its initial use was universally racist, and nothing has occured to change that fact. It is not possible to display this flag in a manner that seperates it from its racist symbolism.
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( bolded ) That's just wrong.

It's initial use, was to identify confederate troops on the battlefield, and much occurred over the decades to make it the racist symbol it is today ..

By your logic, the original flag adapted by the confederacy should still be considered a symbol of racism, but it gets very little attention and is still incorporated in the Georgia ( and maybe other ? ) state flag, even though the battle flag part was removed due to protest .
 
Skeptical Greg said:
( bolded ) That's just wrong.

It's initial use, was to identify confederate troops on the battlefield, and much occurred over the decades to make it the racist symbol it is today ..

By your logic, the original flag adapted by the confederacy should still be considered a symbol of racism, but it gets very little attention and is still incorporated in the Georgia ( and maybe other ? ) state flag, even though the battle flag part was removed due to protest .
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You mean the part that was added as a stick in the eye of anyone who was opposed to Jim Crow segregation? And stayed there for almost half a century until there were enough non-neanderthal voters to browbeat them into getting rid of it.?

That part?
 
Skeptical Greg said:
( bolded ) That's just wrong.

It's initial use, was to identify confederate troops on the battlefield, and much occurred over the decades to make it the racist symbol it is today ..

By your logic, the original flag adapted by the confederacy should still be considered a symbol of racism, but it gets very little attention and is still incorporated in the Georgia ( and maybe other ? ) state flag, even though the battle flag part was removed due to protest .
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Certainly the original flag adopted by the confederacy has racist overtones. Any symbol significantly associated with the confederacy has racist overtones. It's much the same as the Nazi Swastika has racist overtones. These are symbols created and primarily used by extremely racist organizations which did a lot of horribly evil things and only rose to power because of racism.

You think that for some reason incorporating aspects of the Confederacy into State flags isn't disturbing? Just because it is a relatively poorly known symbol by the public doesn't change that.
 
Piggy said:
But that is exactly what some of these folks are protesting.

"Never underestimate the power of denial" </Ricky Fitts>

Revisionist history is not new to the human race. Some of these folks sincerely believe that it's not any more a "symbol of hate" than is a US flag from 1800, and there's an entire body of thought that has developed over the years to bolster that view.
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Revisionism is certainly happening. There are plenty of people that like to pretend slavery was an incidental to the Confederacy. This is manifestly untrue, but people could fly a Confederate flag in ignorance because of this.

That doesn't change its horribly ugly origins or the fact that it is an extremely racist and offensive symbol for anyone with a halfway decent understanding of history and particularly offensive to at least one entire ethnic group.

If there was a flag created for the sole purpose of massacres against Native Americans, then I think it would be equally correct to say it was a horribly offensive symbol and flying it was offensive (even if it was also protected speech). We'd sigh at the ignorance of people who believed some sort of whitewashed history of that flag, because a false history doesn't change anything. If anything, a false history makes it even more offensive since it is a sort of denial of what happened.
 
Piggy said:
You're mistaking very widespread usage with inherent absolute meaning.

For some people, for instance, the Star of David is the symbol of an international conspiracy.

And if you've never seen the Ethiopian flag, then it's not a symbol of anything for you. And if we discover an ancient national symbol in a dig somewhere, but we've never seen it before and don't know what it is, then it has lost its meaning.

In my experience, the St. Andrew's cross is often used as a symbol of racism, but in other circumstances it is indeed a symbol of cultural heritage and a symbol of resistance against a perceived attempt to stifle speech, insult people's memory, and marginalize a culture.

And if anyone wants to say that it's inherently a symbol of racism, being the former symbol of a nation that depended upon, openly embraced, and legally enforced slavery, then early US flags will have to be counted as such, as well. But they are not.
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The difference here is that early US flags were not created to establish slavery, or continue its practice. The confederate flag and the flag or Texas were flags of nations who were founded specifically to perpetuate slavery.
 
quadraginta said:
You mean the part that was added as a stick in the eye of anyone who was opposed to Jim Crow segregation? And stayed there for almost half a century until there were enough non-neanderthal voters to browbeat them into getting rid of it.?

That part?
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Yes that is the part; and I find it curious that the outcry over the battle flag didn't include the national Confederate flag also ..
 
sarge said:
Then you did what often happens when you assume.

I live in Fayetteville.
I have been stationed in Fayetteville, 79-86, 98-2000, 2003-2004.
I was born in Fayetteville (not a brat)

I lived from 1961 until 1979 in an unincorporated, rural part of North Carolina about 20 miles from Fayetteville. You "certainly" do not know what you are talking about in this instance.
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Well, in that case, you're certainly right and I certainly didn't.

It amazes me you can still think that all Duke-ish Southerners are "white supremacists", but hey, that's apparently what you think.

Funny how folks can think things which seem completely implausible to you.

sarge said:
There are no persons that display the Confederate Flag that remain unaware that the flag represented racists exclusively for the first 100+ years of its existence and that it is an absolute symbol of racism for any aware person that sees it. Any attempts to display this flag while claiming some "Southern Pride" that is not associated with the South of the Civil War is attempting to co-op this flag.
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There are 3 possibilities here.

1. Sarge knows what everyone thinks and believes.

2. The human mind is incapable of thinking or believing these things which sarge deems impossible to think or believe.

3. Sarge is wrong.

My own experience and what I've read about the human brain lead me to believe that options 1 and 2 cannot be correct.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Yes that is the part; and I find it curious that the outcry over the battle flag didn't include the national Confederate flag also ..
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Probably because it hadn't been chosen specifically to represent the solidarity of segregationists and other unrepentant bigots when the laws of the land started treating blacks the same as other human beings.

When someone shoves a sharp stick in your eye are you going to listen to them complain that you aren't objecting to any of the other sticks that happen to be lying around?
 
ponderingturtle said:
The difference here is that early US flags were not created to establish slavery, or continue its practice. The confederate flag and the flag or Texas were flags of nations who were founded specifically to perpetuate slavery.
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What in the world are you talking about?

The original USA was a nation that incorporated slavery as a significant component of its economy and law.

So was the CSA.

If you want to try to tell me that the Civil War was a war over the issue of slavery in the South, you're going to have to take it elsewhere. Obviously, it was not, since (a) the key issue under debate at the time was the expansion of slavery into the West, (b) the North had made no moves against slavery in the South at the time of the war, and continued with that pattern for quite some time after the war began, and (c) the Emancipation Proclamation caused widespread civil unrest and military defection in the North.

The issue of ending slavery in the South was a late-comer to the game. (Yes, there were abolitionists, North and South, but they lacked traction.)

So both the early US flags and the various Confederate flags are symbols of nations that sanctioned slavery. Neither nation was "created to establish slavery, or continue its practice" nor was either nation opposed to slavery per se (at least at the outset) and both of them made conscious collective decisions to affirm it.

The difference is simply that no aspect of slavery was an issue in the rift between Britain and the American colonies.

From your statements it seems I'm expected to believe that the Founding Fathers' support of slavery was somehow less eggregious because no one challenged them to a war over the issue of its expansion.

Had slavery been an issue in the Revolutionary War, do you really think the colonies would have supported emancipation?

I mean, before the Proclamation, was the Union flag a symbol of hate because the Union sanctioned slavery in the South and then failed to make such a proclamation at the outbreak of the war -- that is, when the North was insisting that the war was over the issue of union and secession and not slavery? And then suddenly it stopped being such a symbol when the EP was issued?

If so, then the St. Andrew's Cross stopped being a symbol of hate when Lee signed the surrender and slavery ended. If you're going to insist that changes on the ground alter the significance of the flag, then that's where it leads.

And the thing is, the St. Andrew's cross is more widespread now than it was then. It has long been a symbol of the present South, of today's South.

And there is no other clear symbol for Southern identity. A Molly Hatchet poster won't cut it. The St. Andrew's cross is what we're left with. And folks who are raised first and foremost (as I was) to see it as a symbol of the South, and only later learn about its history and the Civil War, it remains a symbol of today's South, regardless of what it used to stand for, just as the Stars and Bars stands for America today, regardless of what kind of government or policies it used to represent, whether that be slavery or killing Indians or invading Mexico in order to get more land.

Granted, it's been widely used for overtly racist purposes, everyone knows that.

But for lots of folks, that's kind of like a mainstream Islamic view of Muslim terrorists citing the Koran -- just because they abuse it doesn't mean they own it.
 
quadraginta said:
Probably because it hadn't been chosen specifically to represent the solidarity of segregationists and other unrepentant bigots when the laws of the land started treating blacks the same as other human beings.

When someone shoves a sharp stick in your eye are you going to listen to them complain that you aren't objecting to any of the other sticks that happen to be lying around?
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Well put, but a tad ironic, seeing as how the state gov't was certainly an instrument of racial repression and they were flying the Stars and Bars.

Both the St. Andrew's cross and the Stars & Bars were flying over the South back when the war was over but the law still failed to treat blacks as human beings.

The St. Andrew's cross gets all the flak because it's an easier target, being so widely used by lower-wage and lower-class people, and flown by the bigots who use violence rather than law to enforce their prejudices. But tell me which is worse.
 
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