One user in /r/oldschoolcool associates the Confederate flag with racism. This doesn't sit well with one user, who then threatens to "knock [him] the fuck out." (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
113 ups - 0 downs = 113 votes
203 comments submitted at 22:43:27 on Aug 11, 2014 by IAmAN00bie
No one cares about the Confederate government. That flag is just a Southern thing. Flying the flag has nothing to do with the civil war, it has to do with Southern pride.
Edit: Guys, I don't support the Confederate flag, I don't fly it, but I'm proud to be from the south. To say the only reason to fly the flag is to "Support Racism" is projecting your knee-jerk rationale on an entire group of people. Some people want to show their pride in the southern states (Southern hospitality, hard working, fun loving people, not the "Confederate, slave owning" south) and have no other way to show it. I'm sure if there was another flag not related to the Civil war that symbolized the South, people would fly it.
The pride isn't in the Southern States who seceeded to own slaves, the pride is in the CURRENT South.
Edit 2: I appreciate everyone who is taking the time to listen to what I'm saying and not immediately downvote and call me an idiot. I know it's hard to go against the popular consensus in such a hot topic.
I'm sorry but you cannot disaccoiate the southern flag from racism and slavery. You are literraly picking a flag that glorifies some of the worst in American history.
> you cannot disaccoiate the southern flag from racism and slavery
But people still do...
And those people are plainly ignorant enough about the history of the South to have forfeited any legitimate claim to representing "Southern pride."
Well, the thing is, if enough people have the same thought process, it becomes a socially accepted thing. You may think "Racist" when you see a confederate flag, but when I see it I think "Person proud to be southern". If the person acts like an ass, then I think they're probably racist too.
The boys from the "Dukes of Hazard" were all about Southern pride. I don't remember any slaves on that show...
You have a point and speaking as a black man in Arkansas I have no problem with people flying the flag. The fact is not that all people who fly it are racist but that racist fly it. I've dealt with racist by peers and family of my friends (girlfriend to be exact) and I just brush it off because I see it as fear. I have mostly country friends and they fly it. It's true meaning is southern pride but, like the bible, people interpret it several ways.
Well when most Americans see the confederate flag as racist in the south and the north then you have to be willingly ignorance of American history to do so.
The thing is, everything has history. There are many things in every day life that have terrible histories that people ignore.
You don't boycott Bayer because of their association with Nazi Germany in WW2, do you?
No one ignores Bayer history if they actually know about it. However no one looks back on bayers history with the Nazis nostalgia pride. However people still do that with the confederate flag.
So you're saying it's okay to not be knowledgeable in the full history of something? I do understand the Bayer thing would be less predominate in the US as opposed to the Civil war, but you're comparing apples to oranges.
Looking at the confederate flag today with pride would be like looking at Bayer medicine today with pride. One represents southern pride, the other a great medicine beneficial to millions.
Looking at the confederate flag with Nostalgia for what it used to mean in the Civil War would be like looking at Bayer for Nostalgia of what is used to be in WW2.
Things change, and as the involvement with the Nazis should not be forgotten with Bayer, the history of the flag should also not be, but both things have changed.
If you disagree with me, disagree, but don't try to bury my comment because you do.
I dont downvote people for disagreeing with me. Symbols do change. That being said if you choose a racist symbol do not be surprised if people think you are racist.
I can agree with this. Thanks for being calm and nice during this.
> Flying the flag has nothing to do with the civil war, it has to do with Southern pride.
Flying the battle flag of the Confederacy has nothing to do with the civil war?
The South has pride in a group that seceded to defend their right to own other people?
No, I'm saying that when some people see the flag, they don't think about the civil war. I'm not saying it's okay or it's right, but that's some people's thought processes.
>No, I'm saying that when some people see the flag, they don't think about the civil war.
What they think doesn't matter. The fact remains the majority of people who know the flag's history associate it with racism and prejudice, and treat those who fly it accordingly.
> the majority of people
The majority or people you know.
I know tons of nice people who aren't as negative and at least hope to think someone with the flag flying is proud to be southern, and not a fan of slavery.
Look up Dixie Outfitters clothing. My sisters had a ton of those clothes and weren't hoping for the "South to rise again" but were proud to be girls that hunt and fish and like to go mudding on fourwheelers and such.
> The majority or people you know.
I don't know if it's possible to do a study but I'm pretty sure we can say with certainty that the majority of people associate the Confederate flag with the Confederacy.
A smaller amount if you narrow it down to the south eastern US, though. That's the whole point. To a person outside of the South, it's ludicrous, and I agree, but to people down here, less so.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see any justification there. Why does that make it okay ?
If you read farther up, I said it doesn't make it okay, it just makes it a fact as to why people think the way they do. There are tons of things that are socially acceptable when in a small group, but few things that are socially acceptable across all groups.
Ok, ok. The majority of people outside the South. And maybe (hopefully) a good number of people within it as well.
>I know tons of nice people who aren't as negative and at least hope to think someone with the flag flying is proud to be southern, and not a fan of slavery.
I don't think you would have much success with convincing most non-southerners that a person can fly the Confederate flag and not be a gigantic racist prick.
Unless you live in the Deep South, it'd probably be best to not fly the flag on your truck, in your house, on your social media account, etc. just to avoid the inevitable confrontation and pissing people off.
Why the hell would they take pride in it? The only reason to take pride in it is if you're proud of being able to own black people, there's no other reason to be proud of the flag
They're not proud of the flag. They're proud of southern hospitality and the "hard working southern man". The flag is really the only universal way to say "Southern USA"
If there was another flag for the south not associated with the Civil War, I'm sure people would fly it. I know I would, and I don't even like the Rebel flag.
It's just that nobody has come up with an attractive alligator flag yet.
Bingo, get me a killer Alligator flag with some Sweet Tea on it and I'll rock it.
.....I'm confused, what "hard working Southern man" are you referring to? I don't remember that coming up in the late 1800's or 1900's, so was it hard work making sure the people you whip can't run away?
We're not talking about then. We're talking about now. Come on, man. Take a second and breathe and try to listen to what I'm saying from the other side.
There ARE people who fly the flag and yell "THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN!!" while they fuck their cousins and swear at black people, but there are also people who are proud to be from a warm state where people work hard on their farms to make a living and treat others kindly.
If your only idea of the south is a backwoods hick from Alabama swearing and shooting his guns, you can't really comment on southern rationale.
But that's what the southern flag represents! I'm not saying all of the south are inbred racist hicks, I'm just saying the only people stupid enough and uninformed enough to take pride in the flag are inbred racist hicks, there really aren't two ways around it
It represents multiple things. Again, I'll say that I've never owned anything with the flag on it and probably never will, but a lot of southern people just don't see it that way. You might, but they don't. Let's not confuse Reddit, or even the majority of the internet's beliefs with actual real-world beliefs. The internet, and Reddit in particular are a much younger, liberal, Northern demographic.
Well since there's a lot of people here that hate the southern flag and see it as a symbol of oppression, we appear to also have a majority of non-inbred equal opportunity middle class people
What exactly is there to be proud about in the south today?
-someone that got the fuck out of the south as soon as he could.
> . Flying the flag has nothing to do with the civil war, it has to do with Southern pride.
That is why store owners in the south would hang it up in their store windows to make it clear that black people were not welcome in their property during the Jim Crow era, right?
There are seriously people still alive today who would see this flag hanging up in store windows as a sign that if they were to enter the premise they would be arrested by the local authorities, simply because of the color of their skin. For idiots like you to claim that the flag is simply about "southern pride" is fucking ridiculous.
no personal attacks in SRD
Thank you.
This isn't the Jim Crow era, and I would appreciate it if you didn't call me an idiot.
How long ago do you think the Jim Crow Era was?
Jim Crow laws ended in the 60s.
Yet you don't find it a bit odd that an icon of racist Jim Crow policies is being held up by some certain segments of southern society as a "symbol of southern pride"?
Correlation does not imply causation. Because something represented something else, it does not mean that it can't represent something entirely different and they don't have to be connected.
I don't think you are familiar with how icons and symbols work. They dont magically stop representing one thing and start representing another over the span of a few years.
I'm actually very familiar. An icon or symbol has a meaning given to it by the person seeing it. Different people have different ideas attached to it.