Is the Confederate flag a symbol of racism? CMV debates. One user objects, "They saw more in the flag than slavery and racism, why can't you? Probably because you are closed and symbol minded." (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
101 ups - 30 downs = 71 votes
257 comments submitted at 15:33:44 on Feb 26, 2014 by RC_Colada
Ah yes, Northerners must be able to feel superior to Southerners and their damn slavery flags.
Hi there, Texan here, working in Oklahoma, marrying a Virginian. The stars and bars is a repugnant symbol of racism, popularized by the KKK, and only vaguely reminiscent of the Confederacy (which, in and of itself, was a ridiculous and doomed thing, predicated on defending states' rights. The main states' rights in question, of course, being the states' rights to allow slavery).
[deleted]
That's exactly what I said. Read the next sentence. I was trying to demonstrate the absurdity of the states' rights argument, since the main State right involved was the right to allow owning other human beings.
D'oh, sorry about that.
No worries, don't apologize for NOT being racist in this thread.
I think a lot of black people on both sides of the mason dixon might also have a few things to say
Yeah, like these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8hPo6mYnks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR-qqovlgiY
Of course that doesn't inherently change anything about it, but don't act like it's a plain black-and-white thing.
The flag may have a racist history, but symbols change and have different meanings to different people.
It's not just northerners. There's plenty of people in the south who have issues with it.
Hell, where I'm at there's anger over it all the time, and we sure have the confederate history to back it up (probably as much or more than anywhere else) if we really wanted to.
Edit: Clarifying, I don't think we should be flying the flag so there's my bias, just saying where I live has probably among the best claims to fly it based on history and it's still a divisive issue. Even among the southerners here. If it's an issue in the capital of the south, it's probably an issue in lost of places too.
I don't see anything wrong with disliking a flag that is synonymous with treason and human bondage
Nobody cares whether a person is from the South or the Nawth. They care about bad information being used to justify a symbol of fervent racism and/or cultural ignorance.
Hell, my roommate in college was from New Jersey and loved the Confederate Flag. He also loved the n-word and tried to find a way to shoehorn it into every conversation. His point of origin didn't stop him from being insanely racist; the fact that he migrated down to Allerbammer to get comfortable doesn't reflect well on us, though.
Eh, you're going to find racists and decent people in every state, the South included. I get annoyed by a lot of the stereotypes about it that you hear, so I can understand the reaction, even if these people confuse statements about Southern history with attacks against the modern South. I've known Mainers who display that flag, and you really can't get farther from the former Confederacy than that. Still, I can only hope the ghost of Joshua Chamberlain is haunting the shit out of them to this day.
I used to get reflexively defensive whenever someone would make a "the South is a backwards hellhole" joke, but it keeps getting harder to argue the point. Those of us that aren't crazy are apparently statistically insignificant considering the sort of mutants that get elected to office around here, so to a certain extent we can't really complain about the public perception of the places that elect them. Like I said earlier, our governor got into office by winning a "who believes in science less" campaign. This place is a mess.
Granted being a trainwreck isn't exactly exclusive to the former Confederacy; Arizona seems to be trying really really hard to make up for lost time.
>Arizona seems to be trying really really hard to make up for lost time.
Now there's a state with interesting priorities.
No kidding. I was reading an article earlier about how the NFL would consider relocating the Superbowl if Arizona signs that blatantly unconstitutional gay discrimination jamboree law (for the record I suspect Brewer will veto it; she's a crazy asshole but she's not THAT crazy and even the authors are trying to disown that trainwreck) and came across an interesting factoid.
Apparently the Superbowl has only been relocated one other time in the entire history of the NFL, and it was because the host state was making a big show of refusing to accept Martin Luther King Jr. day as a holiday.
You get three guesses which state it was, and the first two don't count. Like you said, interesting priorities.
>blatantly unconstitutional gay discrimination jamboree law
They're just trying to appease the Volcano Gods. Everyone knows that gays anger the Volcano. As a gay person myself, I should know. That last Icelandic volcano eruption occurred the day after my boyfriend moved in with me.
But seriously, I hear that Apple is also pulling the plug on a proposed facility pending the outcome of that debacle. I'm not a gung-ho Apple fan, but that's reassuring to see.
Sad that any state is even trying to move in that direction.
Well it's hard not to feel superior to someone sporting the symbol of a racist, treasonous movement so deeply invested in the idea that an entire race was sub-human that they decided to tear apart the Union rather than give up slavery.
I'm a lifelong Southerner whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy, and I'm getting pretty tired of seeing ignorant history revisionists waving the Hillbilly Swastika around and pretending to be too stupid to know what it represents. The war was 150 years ago, we lost, thank God for that because our cause was vile, get over it and move on with your life.
Let's be honest: There's no way a Southerner can spin that they're actually superior when they support slavery and racism.
I'm Southern by the grace of god, and I think displaying the the stars and bars either makes you a revisionist or a racist.
There might be some truth in that, but I think a lot of the younger generations use it mostly as a fashion statement. I mean, I have a scrunchie in my room somewhere (it was a gift; don't hate me) with the rebel flag printed on it ffs. I don't think most people express strong political or social views via hair accessories.
Fashion statement? Shit, it's not like wearing Che's face. The Civil War is heavily taught in schools and anyone, regardless of their generation, knows what it means.
Some schools paint the Civil War in a very different light. See the thread above about schools in the South.
And even so, that doesn't necessarily mean they're not ignorant to its current cultural significance. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way in favor of flying the flag anywhere, or wearing it on t-shirts or scrunchies or license plates or anything else. I just don't think that an individual wearing it necessarily means that they're reminiscing about "the good ol' days."
I'm from the north. 9 times outta 10 someone up here sporting that means they miss those good old days. sometimes it's a southern transplant. those aren't mutually exclusive.
I'm from the South, and 9 times out of 10 someone who's wearing or flying it is racist, too. My brother has a rebel flag tattoo (with a duck head... double classy) on his shoulder and I can't tell you how many times I heard that certain individuals should "go back" to continents from which they may or may not have ancestry.
But I also have friends who just... don't think about it. You can't throw a rock without hitting a rebel flag around here, and some people just kind of go with it without considering what it means or who it might offend. Some grew up hearing that, yeah, it's just a sign of Southern pride and those goddamn liberals are hell bent on taking offense at everything. I can't really get mad at that kind of ignorance any more than I can really get mad at rural, uneducated Christians who insist that evolution is a lie. I get mad at the culture that promotes the bullshit, but I can't feel much for the individuals but exasperation.
You don't see young Germans emblazoning everything with swastikas as a "fashion statement," and the ones that do swastikize everything do so with full knowledge and more often than not full support of what it stood for.
The only reasons for thinking flying the stars and bars of oppression is OK are being massively racist or stupefyingly ignorant. Anyone who both knows what they stood for and doesn't support what they stood for will know better than to take pride in one of the most shameful episodes in our nation's history.
>stupefyingly ignorant
That's pretty much what I'm arguing.