The Confederate Flag, and Charleston

[Darcs]

@darkwolf687The debate is really more about whether or not local governments should be banned from using it. I think we all agree that people can use whichever flag they want.

[Vilageidiotx]

And not so much a national ban on local governments using it so much as whether it is generally acceptable. People aren't necessarily wanting the federal government to step in, they are wanting those municipalities to step down and stop flying it on their own. The debate is, in essence, whether a government flying the confederate flag is acceptable because of its association with local heritage or inappropriate due to its association with hate groups. Don't confuse all that with the Wal-Mart and E-bay decisions, those'll probably be lifted when national attention moved away from this issue again.

[darkwolf687]

Local governments get that right too due to association with history, unless these local governments are using it explicitly for the purpose of inciting racial tensions or insulting black people within the community then I see no reason at all why it wouldn't be acceptable. The intentions of the flier is what matters, not the flag its self, and I think its safe to say most uses are innocuous, for example the Confederate Battle Flag was flying over a memorial for reasons other than racism.

[Vilageidiotx]

Intentions can be cloudy, and interpretation is rarely straight forward. Your average person might look at a confederate flag flying over state property and shrug, but how does something somebody who's had to deal with by racial hate see it? Or for that matter, how do the racists themselves see it?

[darkwolf687]

If is a disheartening event when someone has been the victim of racial abuse, but still offence is never given, only taken. Sure, you can try to offend people, and if you do try to give offence to someone based on race you're scum, but taking offence is the reaction of the person. People shouldn't take offence at the existence of a historical flag and if they do I'm afraid the onus is on them to deal with their problem; put less eloquently, grow thicker skin.
As for the racists, they'll see it the same way they see everything, through a lens of racial hate, paranoia and outright insanity "aw, those fuckin' niggers taking our flag! Aw, those fucking nigger loving ministers defacing our flag! What? You disagree? You nigger loving Jew!" Etc. They're insane people, we shouldn't let crazy, deluded, insane people bog everyone who is sane and has two brain cells to rub together down because crazy people see things a different way to the rest of us.

[TJByrum]

When Dylann Roof shot 9 people at an African American church, everyone assumed it was because of the rebel flag. Those same people see that flag flying over a Confederate memorial and start protesting to take it down. Then you have a horde of crazy rednecks getting riled up wanting to keep it up, cause they love that flag.

The debate is whether or not the flag should fly. One says it should not, as it is racist and promotes segregation, while the other side says it represents heritage, a region of the US, and commemorates fallen soldiers.

Unfortunately, the debate has caused a lot of waves in the south. TVLand even took the Dukes of Hazzard TV show off of TV. The General Lee cars are not allowed to have it. Where I live, you're not even allowed to have it on your shirt or your car. If you dare fly it in your yard, someone's going to steal it and the next day you'll see a group of African Americans burning them on Facebook.

[Darcs]

@darkwolf687The problem is that a lot of people don't feel as if its them taking offense, but as if they're being literally attacked. These are recent scars for a lot of people and I think say "oh get over it" is a little unfair, the last lynching took place in the 60s, racially based crimes still continue in the US, in fact I think something like 56% of our domestic terrorist activity comes from extremist right wing racist groups-- hell, people can, will, and do see the church shooter who started this discussion, and associate him with the confederate flag and the hatred some who fly it might harbor.

[Vilageidiotx]

Last recorded lynching was in the eighties. I say recorded because every few years you'll hear about suspicious suicides that might be much more.

You know, I understand the thicker skin argument completely, and most of the time I would probably get behind it, but this issue is more complex then that. The problem is the question of who is truly winning. Racism is an awkwardly multifaceted problem, and you can't really break it down into something as simple as Skinheads vs their Victims. I am inclined to agree with the Avenue Q song and say that, really, everybody is racist in some sense and racism is a cross that everybody who lives in a racially divided society has to bear. If you want to understand the problem, you have to imagine racism as two (or more) waves of unconscious racial preconception playing for control of the general population in an almost meta-physical sense. In this mess is the Neo-Confederate movement, which are those who are more comfortable imagining slavery through the rose-colored lenses of Gone with the Wind and Song of the South. The more you absolve white-European culture of having done anything wrong in the past, and the more you condense the crimes to a view easily abandoned wing-nut racists, the easier it is to unconsciously blame the effects of this history on black society.

So there is the question. When you fly the confederate flag over state property, what are you saying? Are you proclaiming pride in the Confederate past and the crusade that nation fought to protect racial slavery? What type of message does that convey to the decedents of slaves, or to young people about the nature of the past?

You can imagine the same problems in Germany arising if the government chose to bring back the Nazi-flag for limited use amidst a strange culture of Fascist romanticism. What would such a movement say to the Jews in Germany? What would such a movement say to the Germans? It's one thing to have a symbol used by individuals, but it is quite another for it to be adopted officially by a government, and symbols can never just mean only what you want them to mean. At the end of the day, you can't just up and decide to reclaim 'Porch Monkey'.

[Revans Exile]

United States flag flew over a slave nation for over 85 years.

The United States flag is linked to slavery a hell of lot more than any flag used by the Confederacy and it's military forces.

Emancipation only affected the three million slaves in the Confederacy, the one million slaves in the Union were still slaves. It was a totally empty gesture.

The North fought the war over money. Plain and simple. When the South started Secession, Lincoln was asked, "Why not let the South go in peace?" To which he replied, "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?" Sensing total financial ruin for the North, Lincoln waged war on the South. The South fought the War to repel Northern aggression and invasion. Quote from the Address to Virginia Compromise Delegation in March 1861.

[Vilageidiotx]

The Emancipation Proclamation was a war move, but remember that it was followed up by the 13th amendment done my the same administration. Slavery was already illegal in most of the north, save for a few border states where slaves were already being confiscated or freed based on martial law.

The North fought the war for the sake of national prestige and stability, which in a convoluted sense means money as well(though saying it was only for money is lazy history). I'm definitely not saying that the war was over slavery. Your average northerner at the time wasn't necessarily abolitionist, and the thought of freeing slaves caused people to fear for their jobs, since freed slaves would be used to worse conditions and willing to work more hours for less pay.

But to call it the War of Northern Aggression is embarrassing. Hell, I think the American Revolution was a just revolution but I don't blame the British for their part in it. When a group of people try to destabilize and tear apart the nation for personal gain, it would be irresponsible to shrug it off. The South would have mostly likely evolved into a fucked to death banana republic, and the North would have found itself in competition that would have stunted its growth. They would either have came together sometime in the future, or they would have remained apart and all of us who live in the states would have been poorer for it.

Seriously, i'm not hatin' on these people. They were wrong, but many of them did see it as an attack on their homes. Robert E Lee might just be the most brilliant military mind the American civilization has ever produced, and his eastern campaign is one of the most fascinating war stories in world history where you can't help but root for him. However, if we are to be adults about this thing, the larger southern cause was all negative. Tear apart the country for the economic benefit of a couple wealthy men who's wealth was based on plantation slavery? Fuck them.

[Darcs]

United States flag flew over a slave nation for over 85 years.

@Revans Exile

Yes. That's a shit flag too.

For a shit country.

In fact; Most countries are shit-- the very concept of having a country is p much shit.

Remove slavery flag over Charleston, remove slavery flag over DC.

Eat the rich, flag wars now.

[Marik]

So I’m from North Carolina, but I a bit of an outsider considering I dislike southern culture save for the food. (You haven’t lived until you’ve had real cornbread.) So I may not have the best perspective in this discussion.

Firstly, why are we even talking about this? A young man decided that he’d do something very terrible to a minority group, and he just so happened to have a picture of himself with a flag that had roots in undermining said group. Even if the movement that used it for hate died off long ago (There are still movements that use it for hate purposes though), there is now fuel in the fire and it makes this flag a very heated topic. While the state doesn’t use it for hate purposes, it still has recent use colluding with individuals that spread hate, and it’d be stupid for them and anyone claiming “Southern Pride” to instantly deny that and wave the “Stars and bars” or whatever it’s called around like Charleston and centuries of oppression never happened. Go ahead and wear the flag if you must, but please don’t forget the negativity it holds. Because while it represents every proud southerner, it also represents every African man and woman that died under it. If anything, the black community deserves their time to air their grievances, no matter what transpires in the future.

[Revans Exile]

When they air their grievances they riot, loot, & murder. That is not how civilized people air their grievances.

[Vilageidiotx]

When they air their grievances they riot, loot, & murder. That is not how civilized people air their grievances.

@Revans Exile

Well, you just proved a lot of points you didn't intend to prove.

Also...

[Revans Exile]

Well, you just proved a lot of points you didn't intend to prove.

@Vilageidiotx

Such as?

[Vilageidiotx]

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>Such as?

@Revans Exile

That the confederate flag often associates itself with dimwitted racism.

[Revans Exile]

That the confederate flag often associates itself with dimwitted racism.

@Vilageidiotx

That's me alright the dimwitted racist. Just like you admit to being the village idiot.

[Vilageidiotx]

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

That's me alright the dimwitted racist. Just like you admit to being the village idiot.

@Revans Exile

I'm not advocating anything evil. There is a wide gap between muttering madness in the town square and shooting up churches.

[Revans Exile]

I'm not advocating anything evil. There is a wide gap between muttering madness in the town square and shooting up churches.

@Vilageidiotx

Neither have I. At least those who advocate evil are capable of being productive while muttering madmen are just leeches on society. Now go mutter something retarded in the town square, like a good little leach.

[Vilageidiotx]

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

Neither have I. At least those who advocate evil are capable of being productive while muttering madmen are just leeches on society. Now go mutter something retarded in the town square, like a good little leach.

@Revans Exile

Oh my god. This is, like, the cutest shit i've seen in this entire forum.