# Do you find the Confederate flag offensive? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 27, 2004, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815 "2004-12-27T20:22:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/61 "2004-12-28T01:34:04Z")
> [@holmes](#): > > I don’t recall a car with a confederate flag driving in Mayberry. I don’t recall a strong Southern flavor in Mayberry either. Then your recollection fails you. Mayberry was in North Carolina, and if you missed Andy’s thick as syrup accent, then your ears failed you as well. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/62 "2004-12-28T01:36:08Z")
> [@archmichael](#): > > Understood. Referencing the whole ‘gotcha!’ aspect of it. > > I will flaunt the use of XXXX, which has a likelihood of upsetting black people. I will feign shock that black people get offended at it. I will explain the real meaning of it. (In one case, no real link. In the other, nothing more than historical revisionism). I will then use said reason, to show that in overreacting I was the one who was wronged. does this mean I can’t wear jewelry? ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/63 "2004-12-28T01:41:10Z")
> [@spectrum](#): > > What good was the banner of a bunch of traitorous, America-hating, racist scum like the Confederacy ever used for? Ratchet it back, **spectrum**. This isn’t the Pit. Veb ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/64 "2004-12-28T01:53:17Z")
As a born and raised southerner of southern lineage I find it offensive in the context in which it is generally used (which, make no mistake, is intended to be offensive), i.e. pick em up trucks, spit stained cut-off t-shirts, klan hoods, etc. brief hijack - on a board that takes pride in fighting ignorance I am constantly floored by the number of folks that refer to the confederate naval jack and the confederate battle flag as the stars and bars. It is not, don’t call it that unless you want to sound ignorant. For those in the know it comes off as a tragic attempt to appear hip to the lingo. BTW, most folks in the south (in my experience) DO know the difference, especially since the issue has been covered so much in the past few years. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/65 "2004-12-28T01:55:02Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/66 "2004-12-28T01:57:58Z")
Yes, I do find it so. ---
**Author:** ![Abbie\_Carmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/67 "2004-12-28T01:59:03Z")
Generally, no, it doesn’t offend me. It’s all about context. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/68 "2004-12-28T02:02:07Z")
Yes. I find the flag offensive. I am the granddaughter of a Confederate soldier. He didn’t own slaves. He probably fought because his older brothers were fighting and that’s what Southern men did. (Comparable, I think, to why many U.S. troops are serving in Iraq) He spent most of the war in a prison camp more deadly than Andersonville, but few remember the name. He was intelligent and kind and said that it would never have done for the South to have won the war. I have no reverence for the Civil War, although I have a general interest in history which includes the Civil War. I have refused to join any organization of descendents or to live in the dorm available for descendents at Peabody (Vanderbilt) when I was there. I remember a time when the flag was _not_ a disgusting symbol and if it was racist, I was unaware of it. It was just _Southern._ That time has come and gone. I wish I could be as rational as **Loopydude** and as open and reasonable as \*\*ZebraShaSha \*\* (whose stripes I can see through the snow), but I have seen the flag used as a spiteful symbol of bigotry too often to ever associate it with anything else. I try not to make assumptions, but they are there anyway. I don’t think that very many Southerners still see the flag as anti-Union or anti-North. (We really don’t sit around and bemoan our miserable fate at being forever part of the Union.) Many Southerners do see the flag as pro-South which is an entirely different attitude. But I’ve seen it used to hurt too many people. Symbols just aren’t worth it. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/69 "2004-12-28T02:03:05Z")
> [@wiggumpuppy](#): > > does this mean I can’t wear jewelry? Look, his point is that nobody had even heard of the word niggardly until the controversy in D.C., so whenever somebody uses the word now, any idiot could tell that he’s trying to be “cute” and is hoping for some type of reaction. Of couse, when he gets the reaction he’s trolling for, some sort of charge of racial insensitivity, he has the right to pretend that his accusers are nuts, since technically the word has nothing to do with anything racial. Of course, in reality it does, since despite its history, the word was so archaic that most people heard it first in the context of the city official mistaking the word for a racial slur. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/70 "2004-12-28T02:11:41Z")
**pizza brat** , I am unfamiliar with whatever happened in DC, but I’ve been familiar with the word _niggardly_ for forty years – since sometime during college, I suppose. It is not uncommon. SDMB is about _fighting_ ignorance, not fostering it – right? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/71 "2004-12-28T02:32:58Z")
As mentioned before, the problem’s not the flag, it’s the people that use it and what they use it for. And many times rather than offended I’m left shaking my head in dismay. Heck, in the last election here in PR I had the distinct discomfort of finding some folks at a _pro-statehood_ rally carrying the Battle Flag… they were under the actual impression that this was some sort of symbol of hardcore Americanism. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/72 "2004-12-28T02:36:55Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > **pizza brat** , I am unfamiliar with whatever happened in DC, but I’ve been familiar with the word _niggardly_ for forty years – since sometime during college, I suppose. It is not uncommon. SDMB is about _fighting_ ignorance, not fostering it – right? Not to sound crass, but…if you were college forty years ago, you’d naturally be familiar with terms that I’d consider to be archaic (I’m 22). Search Google for “niggardly” and see how many pages it takes to find a _genuine_ usage of this “common” term. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/73 "2004-12-28T02:37:21Z")
> [@](#): > > **JRDelerious** : Heck, in the last election here in PR I had the distinct discomfort of finding some folks at a pro-statehood rally carrying the Battle Flag… The _Confederate_ Battle Flag? Are you serious? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/74 "2004-12-28T02:43:04Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > I wish I could be as rational as **Loopydude** … Hey, don’t get me wrong: I’m not a fan of flying the Stars and Bars by any stretch. I just figure I shouldn’t assume whoever chooses to do so is a knuckle-dragging bigot, because I’ve come to know some folks who, while I wouldn’t exactly call them kindred spirits, really did not strike me as being motivated by racial hatred. To them (these were high-school buddies of my ex who I must say were quite cordial to me), the Confederate flag was pretty much about that Southern-style rebel spirit some folks keep alluding to here. Anyone could join in the hellraisin’ fun, so long as they didn’t put down Southerners for being Southern, and it that regard, I suppose these folks saw the flag as antidescriminatory in a way. I’m not saying I buy into it, I’m just saying they do, and I think these folks were sincere, just like they sincerely loved country music. For better or worse, the confederate flag was to them, apparently, a symbol of what they felt was good and distinct about Southern culture. Maybe in their minds it had outgrown the slavery issue, I don’t know. But were these folks bigots? Nahhh, my ex is too much of a good person to put up with bullshit like that, and never did an ugly word about anybody come out of these folks’ mouths. And if these folks were bigots and out to hurt somebody, they must have a _whole lot_ of like-minded peers all around them, and I just find it difficult to come to grips with the idea of that many blatant racists running around the South (and a few in the North, actually). I figure there must be something more to it. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/75 "2004-12-28T02:52:54Z")
[quote] **pizzabrat** : Not to sound crass, but…if you were college forty years ago, you’d naturally be familiar with terms that I’d consider to be archaic (I’m 22). Search Google for “niggardly” and see how many pages it takes to find a genuine usage of this “common” term. You don’t sound crass at all. And I don’t expect you to be familiar with all of the words I’ve learned in a life time. But at the same time, you mustn’t assume that I have some hidden agenda when I use the word _niggardly_ correctly. I’ve paid my dues, **pizza**. And I won’t insult the people I have taught by dummying down my vocabulary because it is similar to another word which does not pass my lips. 61,100 hits on Google. That’s only a fair amount. But there are enough that I won’t go through to count the legitimate uses. When _Webster’s_ says that it is not legitimate, I will throw up my hands and give in. I did notice that the word _niggard_ is obsolete. Maybe _niggardly_ will soon follow. I mean you no personal offense, **pizzabrat**. It’s important to me that you know that. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/76 "2004-12-28T02:57:29Z")
**Loopydude** , I’m being sincere. I think that your viewpoint is the one that I aspire to. Just as I suggested to **pizzabrat** that she shouldn’t make assumptions about people who use the word _niggardly_, I know I shouldn’t make assumptions about people who fly the Confederate flag. _But I do._ It is flexive. I flinch. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/77 "2004-12-28T02:57:45Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Not to sound crass, but…if you were college forty years ago, you’d naturally be familiar with terms that I’d consider to be archaic (I’m 22). Search Google for “niggardly” and see how many pages it takes to find a _genuine_ usage of this “common” term. I first was introduced to the word “niggardly” in one of my favorite Christian devotional books (_[God Calling](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1557488991/ref=lpr_g_1/002-1036558-7407240?v=glance&s=books)_—written in the '30s, I think). I’ve seen this book in many (many, many) Christian bookstores and as far as I know it is a very popular book amongst certain circles. I’d daresay that a lot of other books use the word “niggardly.” Also, some famous [quotes] ([Niggardly quotes & quotations](http://en.thinkexist.com/keyword/niggardly/)) use the word. Many of us who sometimes read older literature (I’m a big fan of Jane Austen, for instance) sometimes pick up older words or terms. They’re still correct words, just a little older. I see nothing wrong with this. It sort of happens unconsciously when you read a lot, as I’m sure most here know. You pick up words. It’s called The English Language. I speak it. (Well, most of the time . . . ;)) I use other words that some people don’t understand (I’ve been asked what “cathartic” and “wrath” mean), but just because _some_ people don’t understand my pretty average vocabulary, doesn’t mean that I need to alter my vocabulary, or that something is wrong with it. ---
**Author:** ![Adoptamom\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Adoptamom\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Adoptamom_II)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/78 "2004-12-28T02:58:43Z")
I’m a white adoptive mother of two black children and foster mother to another. We live in the deep south. Yes, I’m offended by the flag. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/79 "2004-12-28T03:03:45Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > The _Confederate_ Battle Flag? Are you serious? Darn tootin’. I was able to determine that they wanted some symbol that would tell that were they to achieve the condition of full-rank Americans, they would be hardcore conservative full-rank Americans. I suggested that at next rally they bring a large red inflatable elephant. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2004, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815/80 "2004-12-28T03:07:37Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > I have refused to join any organization of descendents or to live in the dorm available for descendents at Peabody (Vanderbilt) when I was there. You will then be pleased to hear it has been (or is being) renamed. How long ago was it reserved for descendants of Confederates? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-the-confederate-flag-offensive/281815.md?page=5)