# Confederate Flags in West Virginia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 2, 2012, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590 "2012-05-02T00:52:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/41 "2012-05-04T04:03:36Z")
> [@Dufus](#): > > There are so many posts here about mental illnesses that no one can keep up with them, but i will list a few if you really care. > > There are so many posts here from fevered finger pointing at “racists” that no one can keep a number of them. > > I’m sorry that I could not help but make a connection between the two. [Moderating] If you want to discuss my moderation, open a thread in ATMB. > [@](#): > > I think you’re really just ticked off about misidentifying the critter in the Panama Canal thread, and looking for an excuse to shit can the only person who knew what it was. :dubious: I assume this must be a joke. If you’re talking about [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=649140) thread, the OP agreed with my identification (initially made by **yabob**. Capybaras would have been possible, but less likely to have been called “little brownish mammals bounding about nearby” or compared to gophers instead of sheep. ---
**Author:** ![supery00n](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f9b8f/32.png) [@supery00n](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/supery00n)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/42 "2012-05-04T04:52:14Z")
The people who fly the Confederate flag are the same people who say the Civil War was fought over states’ rights. In 1860 the United States had spread across to the Pacific Ocean. It had an economy that was on the verge of industrialization, and a future with almost limitless potential. But America knew that a limitless frontier for the expansion of slavery had also been created by that very growth in the nation…if the South won the Civil War, the Old West wouldn’t be about cowboys and Indians, it would be about slave rebellions and lynchings. ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/43 "2012-05-04T05:22:28Z")
> [@supery00n](#): > > The people who fly the Confederate flag are the same people who say the Civil War was fought over states’ rights. In 1860 the United States had spread across to the Pacific Ocean. It had an economy that was on the verge of industrialization, and a future with almost limitless potential. > > But America knew that a limitless frontier for the expansion of slavery had also been created by that very growth in the nation…if the South won the Civil War, the Old West wouldn’t be about cowboys and Indians, it would be about slave rebellions and lynchings. I’m not sure if you’re on my side or another. But people who fly the confederate flag do so because it was specifically reinstated as a protest against desegregation. The flag had been previously canned. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/44 "2012-05-04T08:31:22Z")
OK, now I’m confused. Is the Confederate Flag associated with the Capybaras or with the Agoutis? Are we talking about the Granadine Confederation? How can a Capybara be a racist? ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/45 "2012-05-04T13:39:16Z")
When I see a Confederate flag in West Virginia, I laugh at the historical ignorance that the display is showing. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/46 "2012-05-04T15:32:26Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > It’s about a family named White. Their lifestyle is unbelievably bad. I think the documentary is probably fairly accurate about them, if for no other reason than the potential for a very successful libel lawsuit if the producers couldn’t back up everything they show the Whites doing or is said about the White family over the course of the film. They sound like people i’d never, ever want to meet ! ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/47 "2012-05-04T16:09:03Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > If you liked the Wonderful Whites, don’t miss [The Dancing Outlaw](http://youtu.be/y0h3a7MmMss). I thought it was funny that the Whites documentary made by the same guy who made “Born into Brothels” is basically a real-life episode of Hee Haw, whereas the one produced by freakin’ Johnny Knoxville is actually a somewhat moving examination of the issues facing those people and that community. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/48 "2012-05-04T16:17:17Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > I thought it was funny that the Whites documentary made by the same guy who made “Born into Brothels” is basically a real-life episode of Hee Haw, whereas the one produced by freakin’ Johnny Knoxville is actually a somewhat moving examination of the issues facing those people and that community. Hmm, upon actually investigating this claim, it turns out the only reference to the Dancing Outlaw being made by the Born into Brothels guy is me saying this in another thread. It seems the guy at the video store in the town I went to college lied to me! ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/49 "2012-05-06T02:33:35Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > They sound like people i’d never, ever want to meet ! Agreed, but they are fun to watch at a safe distance. Unfortunately I have encountered some rednecks awfully close, but not quite as bad. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/50 "2012-05-07T14:01:45Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > When I see a Confederate flag in West Virginia, I laugh at the historical ignorance that the display is showing. Please explain… everyone in WV was a Unionist during the war? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/51 "2012-05-08T04:09:28Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > I’m not sure if you’re on my side or another. But people who fly the confederate flag do so because it was specifically reinstated as a protest against desegregation. The flag had been previously canned. While it’s true that several Southern states incorporated the Confederate flag into their state flags in protest against integration, the idea that the flag had faded from Southern consciousness before _Brown v. Board of Education_ (1954) is a myth of recent vintage. > [@](#): > > During World War II some U.S. military units with Southern nicknames, or made up largely of Southerners, made the flag their unofficial emblem. The USS Columbia flew a Confederate Navy Ensign as a battle flag throughout combat in the South Pacific in World War II. This was done in honor of Columbia, the ship’s namesake and the capital city of South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union. Some soldiers carried Confederate flags into battle. After the Battle of Okinawa a Confederate flag was raised over Shuri Castle by a Marine from the self-styled “Rebel Company” (Company A of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines). [Cite.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America#20th_century_popularity) It was also widely used in [marketing](http://www.vintagesignshack.com/product_images/m/246/dixie-motor-oil-sign-795__97971_zoom.jpg) [imagery](http://www.cvcoffee.com/prod_images_blowup/Dixie-Crystal-100-Box---Blo.jpg). It is also a mistake to think that you know definitively why anyone given person display the flag. It has at various times been used as a symbol for the South as a region, and as a generic symbol of rebelliousness (_cf._ the appearances of the flag in the movie _Animal House_, the TV show _The Dukes of Hazzard_). I will grant you that in recent years, those innocuous uses have become more uncommon. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/52 "2012-05-08T13:22:49Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > While it’s true that several Southern states incorporated the Confederate flag into their state flags in protest against integration, the idea that the flag had faded from Southern consciousness before _Brown v. Board of Education_ (1954) is a myth of recent vintage. > > [Cite.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America#20th_century_popularity) I didn’t see anything that directly supports “incorporated the Confederate flag into their state flags in protest against integration”. Maybe in protest of reconstruction of which integration may very well have been the biggest issue. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/53 "2012-05-08T15:15:23Z")
My cite was for the fact that the Confederate flag was in use _before_ the integration battles of the 50s and 60s. So it is wrong to suggest that the flag had faded from memory before the integration battles of the 50s came along. However it is also true that Georgia inorporated the Confederate battle flag into its state flag in 1956, a time when the state was resisting the desegregation of the South kicked off by Brown v. Board of Education. Not a coincidence. It was symbolic defiance of the federal government. But that is not to say that everyone who flew the flag thereafter was doing so to support segregation or to express racism. As I said before, the flag was often just a symbol of Southern pride, or a generic symbol of rebellion. In short, it’s complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/54 "2012-05-08T15:23:53Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > Please explain… everyone in WV was a Unionist during the war? Yeah, Clarksburg native Stonewall Jackson would have found such an assertion amusing. (No, wait, strike that. Stonewall Jackson didn’t seem to find much of _anything_ amusing.) ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/55 "2012-05-08T16:28:06Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > But that is not to say that everyone who flew the flag thereafter was doing so to support segregation or to express racism. As I said before, the flag was often just a symbol of Southern pride, or a generic symbol of rebellion. > > In short, it’s complicated. There are thousands and thousands of people out there who admired the ability to build an ass kicking military out of nothingness in just a few short decades. There are those that believe that the corporatism of the Nazi Germany area was a good model. Many of those abhor the awful things that the Nazi’s did, and rightly so. As the Confederate flag has been largely claimed by racists and other fine upstanding folk, both from the south and other regions, I feel about those folks largely like I would feel about someone who admired the German military flying a Nazi flag. If I were in charge, a US naval vessel flying the CSA ensign would have gotten the captain in some severely hot water, regardless of the name. But then, I’m not in charge, dang it. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/56 "2012-05-08T16:34:33Z")
> [@What\_the](#): > > Please explain… everyone in WV was a Unionist during the war? True. But the whole point of their having a separate state was so they wouldn’t have to join the Confederacy… I suspect most people in WV who display Confederate flags are not Civil War buffs. But that may just be my prejudices about West Virginia showing. I went to Maryland, and Mr. Neville now works at Pitt, you can see where I might have picked up some anti-West Virginia prejudice. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/57 "2012-05-08T17:08:26Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > As the Confederate flag has been largely claimed by racists and other fine upstanding folk, both from the south and other regions, I feel about those folks largely like I would feel about someone who admired the German military flying a Nazi flag. As is your right, this being a free country and all. But this is GQ, not Great Debates, and we are discussing possible reasons for displaying a Confederate flag, not our personal reactions to it. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/58 "2012-05-08T18:15:33Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > While it’s true that several Southern states incorporated the Confederate flag into their state flags in protest against integration, the idea that the flag had faded from Southern consciousness before _Brown v. Board of Education_ (1954) is a myth of recent vintage. And a largely straw myth at that. I have never heard of it being accepted truth among those with negative impressions of the Confederate flag, that it was defunct in the South before integration started to become a reality. It is certainly true that resistance to integration gave the flag a considerable increase in popularity, as evidenced by its incorporation into Southern state flags. Based on my (relatively brief) residence in West Virginia, it appeared that pro-South Civil War romanticism was not common in the state, in fact even less common than in Kentucky where I lived for five years (eastern Kentucky, which has quite a bit in common with WV, was particularly non-receptive to magnolia-colored views of the wunnerful days of Southern pre-war heritage). The only sour note I can recall from West Virginia days was a letter from a Southern sympathizer published in the local paper, which stood out partly because the writer was so ill-informed about his state’s history. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/59 "2012-05-09T02:36:33Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > And a largely straw myth at that. > > I have never heard of it being accepted truth among those with negative impressions of the Confederate flag, that it was defunct in the South before integration started to become a reality. _Argumentum ad ingnorantium_. This idea pops up all the time on these boards, including _this very thread!!!_ [Here it is in another thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12395341&postcount=8), for example. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590/60 "2012-05-09T13:09:32Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > True. But the whole point of their having a separate state was so they wouldn’t have to join the Confederacy… The whole point of some… a major factor to others … totally contrary to the desires of a large segment of the population. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confederate-flags-in-west-virginia/620590.md?page=4)