But just because a subgenre rap derives from the south and therefore is named after the south, doesn’t mean its an expression of Southern Pridetm. I’m talking in the sense of “I’m a Southern and proud of it, and I will fight you if you say something bad about it!”. This is not something black folks generally do. But maybe you’re whooshing me a little.
I know a black guy with a Confederate flag tattoo. I know a guy with a tattoo of the Confederate flag, except that it’s done as a rainbow/gay pride flag overlaid with the stars and cross. I dated a (white) girl for a little while who listened to nothing but hip hop, dated mostly black, butch women (I was bit of a departure there) and felt that anything looked better when decorated with a Confederate flag and/or a pot leaf. All three consider themselves leftist liberals. All three will freely acknowledge that the flag has a long-standing history of racist meaning, and I have seen all three look slightly embarrassed when trying to explain why they use that symbol on or for themselves to people who do not know them.
A lot of modern southerners, black and white, have a complicated emotional response to the flag, encompassing slavery, the Civil War, the Dukes of Hazzard, state flags, the KKK and other racist groups, bullheaded underdog regional pride, things picked up from older generations, music video usage (country, rock, and hip hop included), sports team support, Pantera tshirts, and a hundred other little bits of info on the subject. We each make our own choice on what we pull out of that stew and whether it’s a design element we’re comfortable displaying.
For the record, it’s not for me. I happen to feel that the racist use of it, over and over, has stained the Confederate flag to the point where I’ve got no use for it. The heritage, by and large, is hate. But, that being said, I do not assume that a southerner displaying the flag in one form or another is doing it because they are racist or they want to show a racist message. It all depends on context.
Nah, not whooshing. The fact that the “Dirty South” genre got named for a region rather than a particular city suggests to me that there is a sense of cultural connection across state lines, and that it engenders some regional pride of place. I.e., “Southern pride.”
I could mention some of my black friends who exhibit Southern pride (sans rebel flags), but I don’t want to play the “I have black friends” card, and besides, there’s no way to link them for a cite. 
Despite the (ahem) vehemence of your post , I sort of agree with this point. However the flag has been used in the past, and however its display in the present may be intended, I think the flag is so tainted by its associations at this point that I wouldn’t display it.
But to reiterate my main point, even though I wouldn’t display it, I would be a little cautious in leaping to conclusions about what someone who does display it intends to convey.
At least indirectly it did. It reinvigorated the KKK (which was dead or very close at by the time of the film) and the KKK venerated that flag, and it’s probably not a coincidence that the flag became popular in the 1920s just a few years after the movie (and when Birth of a Nation was still touring the small town movie house circuits).
D.W. Griffith’s father, Colonel “Roaring Jake” Griffith, headed a regiment whose flag was the square version of the rebel flag (which was among the most common flags of the war). Only the Navy routinely used the rectangular one throughout the war, though a few regiments did here and there. I’m not quite sure how it went from square to rectangular in the public memory.
Wow. Speaking of bizarre arguments. If anything TV and movies in the 70s were awash in white liberal guilt.
Maybe it’s pride associated with having a unique subgenre that evolved from club music that happened to be playing in the region, and a sense of unity and community comes out of that which correlates with being a southerner, because people recognize elements are their specific subculture in the music and like it because of that. But just because the New York Yankees have the name they do, doesn’t mean being fan of them is an expression of Union pride.
It’s hard to cite Dirty South Rap as a ‘southern pride’ thing, because hip hop comes with a tremendous amount of baggage that has zero to do with the Confederate states.
Hip hop was born in NYC. It was with great pride that east coast rappers elevated hip hop to an art form. When Southern rappers started rapping, they had not quite mastered the art in the way that east coast fans considered good hip hop. We often either used them for drunken party dance songs where girls were expected to pop their coochies* on the floor, or we just outright mocked them and their inablilty to master both English and black slang to the extent that we thought we could.
The Southern rappers took up ‘southern pride’ to fight back about that. It was strictly southern hip hop versus east coast…nothing at ALL to do with Southern History; everything to do with battle rhyming in the tradition of East Coast / West coast battles.
Ludacris once came out to perform at the Vibe awards with the Confederate flag wrapped around him. At the end of the performance, he dropped the flag to the floor and stomped it, revealing a red black and green version of the flag, red black and green being the colors associated with the pan African movement.
I would interpret that as a symbol of him wanting to be clear that the Dirty South rap movement does not = Southern Pride in the way that folks think of when they see the confederate flag.
ETA: *Pop That Coochie was an early Southern rap song. I hate Southern rap, but that song was pretty good and lots of fun, actually.
See, to me this says he is rejecting the Confederacy (for obvious reasons) but still asserting Southern pride.
ETA: Actually, I have always liked the idea of the red, gold and green (or red, black and green) version of the flag. If it were up to me we would all just adopt this version as a more inclusive symbol of the South.
But if you want to be inclusive, why is it just the South? Like, why does one region need to differentiate itself?
Because the South has a common cultural heritage that goes all the way back to Jamestown, encompassing food, music, religion, language and literature.
Wherever grits are served, there you will find us.
Right. Huggy Bear is an example of white liberal guilt. The only way you can seriously make this statement is if you’ve never done any kind of critical studies on Film and TV history. It’s not common to get that type of detail on the history unless you do a film or tv major in college, so unless you’ve done that, I’m just going to have to assume you don’t know what you’re talking about.
If you want the cites to back up my statement, I’m happy to provide, but I’m feeling it might be somewhat of a hijack of the thread. You pick.
No, it doesn’t. It has several distinct cultures with distinct origins. Creole culture has nothing to do with Jamestown. Neither does S. Floridian culture.
I’ll grant you South Florida. 
But Creole culture is a blending (as the name implies) of Southern culture and French Acadian culture.
And they serve grits.
With shrimp.
As a North Floridian, I assert that South Florida is not, in fact, part of The South. Despite it being to the south.
Oh, well, if you studied 70s TV in a college class, who am I to argue?
I’m not sure what exactly you’re referring to here when you say “Southern culture,” but the grits reference makes me think you are referring either to Savannah culture of Appalachian culture. Appalachian culture is a Scots-Irish culture, which is not confined to the South, doesn’t extend over the entire South, and has little to do with Jamestown. And Savannah culture is a localized culture which I suppose one could tie to Jamestown, but again, doesn’t extend over the entire South.
But why don’t you show me how Jamestown culture ties to Creole culture? Perhaps a recipe book from the time showing the use of grits (since you seem to think that’s the defining thing about “Southern culture”). Or clear walk-through of this evolution.
And given that I find your statements about the film and tv industries in the US to be completely ahistorical, I’m going to start needing credible cites for these assertions before you can convince me.
All this does is show that you have no idea what you’re talking about (and I did offer to put up cites). And that’s where we get to it. You can’t be bothered to pick up a history book, so you’ve decided to proffer ahistorical definitions in order to defend the use of the flag. If you want to do that, feel free, but I’m certainly not going to think the flag is not racist because someone who has no idea what he is talking about claims it isn’t.
(Psssst. Your ignorance is showing.)
That’s obviously a typo. But I’ll rewrite:
“I’m not sure what exactly you’re referring to here when you say “Southern culture,” but the grits reference makes me think you are referring either to Savannah culture or Appalachian culture.” But again, where is the walk through showing how all these cultures have unifying elements?