# Dukes of Hazard dropped from TV Land schedule
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 1, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962 "2015-07-01T16:05:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/41 "2015-07-02T01:36:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Beg pardon? The flag of the CSA _was_ the [Stars and Bars](http://www.usflag.org/confederate.stars.and.bars.html).
>
> As for the Dukes of Hazzard, just why were they bearing a white supremacist emblem on the roof of their car? One could argue that maybe they didn’t actually have anything against blacks… but such an argument would be quite difficult, considering the number of black people actually seen on the show. If Hazzard was, as it appears to have been, a sundown community, then yes, the show is racist.
From the link (not a reflection on you, **Chronos** , just reflecting on the attitude given on the site):
> [@](#):
>
> Note: It is necessary to disclaim any connection of these flags to neo-nazis, red-necks, skin-heads and the like. These groups have adopted this flag and desecrated it by their acts. They have no right to use this flag - it is a flag of honor, designed by the confederacy as a banner representing state’s rights and still revered by the South. In fact, under attack, it still flies over the South Carolina capitol building. The South denies any relation to these hate groups and denies them the right to use the flags of the confederacy for any purpose. The crimes committed by these groups under the stolen banner of the conderacy only exacerbate the lies which link the seccesion to slavery interests when, from a Southerner’s view, the cause was state’s rights.
Uhhhh, yeah. The South is a monolithic bloc that decries any use of the flag because it’s not truly representative of a racist attitude. Remember, it was all about State’s Rights!
On topic, I watched the Dukes of Hazzard during its original run, and saw some version or other of the General Lee at car shows. I’ve tried watching the show again from time to time, and frankly, I’d rather spend the night with food poisoning. Not funny, every episode has the same plot (pretty consistent among TV shows, I admit), and…it just wasn’t funny. So I have no problem if TVLand, or any other network, wants to take it off the air. It’d be nice if they put on quality old TV, like Ernie Kovacs, but I know that’s above the average viewers head.
---
### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/42 "2015-07-02T01:41:09Z")
> [@Spoke](#):
>
> Guess _Animal House_ can’t be shown either. Confederate flag on a dorm room wall.
>
> Also, [Tom Petty](http://muzyka.kulichki.net/tom_petty/tom_petty1.jpg) will need to be interrogated and [possibly reeducated](https://youtu.be/OoV-awiHpuM) before his old concerts can be shown.
>
> And I can’t sell [my](http://s.ecrater.com/stores/64059/4829e7607a340_64059n.jpg) [old](http://pds1.egloos.com/pds/1/200510/29/24/c0039224_2342093.jpg) [comic](http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110902235804/marvel_dc/images/f/f8/GI_Combat_Vol_1_279.jpg) [books](http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/3/31666/2366065-cover.jpg) on eBay?
The next time TV Land shows old Tom Petty concerts, you should totally write them a letter calling them out on it. That would teach them.
---
### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/43 "2015-07-02T01:43:13Z")
> [@Spoke](#):
>
> The first notes of discontent about the flag that I recall were in the late 1980s. Maybe someone can find some earlier protest or complaint about it, but I kind of doubt it.
It was earlier than the late 1980s. In 1982, John Hawkins, the first black cheerleader at Ole Miss, refused to carry the flag at football games, saying that “some black students see [the flag] as a symbol of white supremacy” and that it was offensive to blacks because it represents the days of slavery.
Additionally, in 1971, at Dixie Hollins High School in Pinellas, Florida, there was a debate and referendum over whether or not to remove the Confederate flag from the school and change the school song from “Dixie” that actually turned violent and got the school closed temporarily. At the same time, at Nathan Bedford Forrest High School in Jacksonville, Florida, some black students walked on on a school football game when the band played “Dixie” and some others burned the Confederate flag, which led to protests and pickets outside the school by about 100 white students and parents.
A lot of the 1971 stuff, has to be seen in the context of the controversy in Florida over desegregation and bussing, with both Dixie Hollins and Nathan Bedford Forrest being formerly white schools that were being integrated, and the whole controversy over that.
That being said (and I’m sure there were more incidents, but I have to look for them), you’re right that the big controversy over the flying of the Confederate flag dates from the late '80s and '90s, which is when you started to see a bunch of protests and calls to stop flying the flag in public places.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/44 "2015-07-02T01:58:04Z")
Also, one more I found. Apparently, in 1973, there was a lawsuit that led to a decision by a district judge that Escambia High School in Pensacola had to get rid of Confederate symbols and change their football team’s name from “the Rebels”. The judge ruled that the symbols were “racially irritating”, and that “the symbols were not chosen as racial irritants, but they do carry an offensive racial connotation to a substantial number of black as well as to a minority of white students.” The case went through the court system, and in 1976, while it was still going through the courts, the school board responded to a Court of Appeals suggestion to have a referendum of the student body. They did, and the “Rebels” name couldn’t get the 2/3 vote it needed to change the name back. In protest of the results (and because there were about 300 students absent on the day of the vote who didn’t get to vote), some white students hoisted a Confederate flag on the school’s flagpole. Some black students responded by throwing rocks and bricks, and, in the words of Finnegan’s Wake, a row and a ruction soon began, which led to three people shot, 27 others treated for minor injuries, and five adults and three juveniles arrested.
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/45 "2015-07-02T02:03:22Z")
Good research skills, **Captain Amazing**. Thanks for expanding my knowledge.
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### Author:  [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/46 "2015-07-02T02:26:39Z")
In a 1951 editorial in _The Chicago Defender_, the author noted the new interest in confederate symbolism and attributed it to an “ugly reaction to our (black Americans) progress.” [The History of the Confederate Battle Flag - The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/why-is-the-flag-still-there/396431/)
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/47 "2015-07-02T02:37:03Z")
Also useful information.
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### Author:  [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/48 "2015-07-02T02:39:29Z")
It wasn’t that there was no negative reaction to the Confederate battle flag before the 1980s, it’s that our culture didn’t particularly care what non-whites thought before then.
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### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/49 "2015-07-02T02:45:29Z")
> [@madmonk28](#):
>
> It wasn’t that there was no negative reaction to the Confederate battle flag before the 1980s, it’s that our culture didn’t particularly care what non-whites thought before then.
I think there’s more to it than that. We didn’t have the internet or the 24-hour news cycle then. So a protest at a high school or an editorial in a distant city might simply go unnoticed on the national scene.
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### Author:  [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/50 "2015-07-02T08:03:22Z")
> [@madmonk28](#):
>
> Well, the Nazis were the bad guys in Hogan’s Heroes, but I doubt you’d see a show with the good guys flying a Nazi flag.
>
> I don’t understand why we are supposed to take the concerns of old white viewers who get offended when a show they like is taken off the air seriously, but the concerns of everyone else who finds the display of a pro-slavery flag offensive are not valid.
Young non-white people watch the Dukes of Hazard, too.
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### Author:  [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/51 "2015-07-02T09:26:51Z")
Confederate flag aside - I don’t recall seeing anything that would be considered racist in The Dukes of Hazzard.
Not that I watched every episode through the attitudes I have now - but was there ever any dialogue or stuff like that you would consider racist?
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/52 "2015-07-02T10:41:24Z")
> [@Spoke](#):
>
> Guess _Animal House_ can’t be shown either. Confederate flag on a dorm room wall.
I love _Animal House_ but frankly the flag is one of the _least_ offensive parts of that film. IIRC Pinto didn’t actually have sex with the 13-year-old girl but he did leave her, drunk and giggling, in a shopping cart on her own front lawn.
---
### Author:  [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/53 "2015-07-02T12:18:58Z")
> [@Spoke](#):
>
> As **Captain Amazing** points out, in the 70s, and actually well into the mid-80s, the rebel flag was a common [pop culture](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/brendala/18379288/142697/original.jpg) [image](http://40.media.tumblr.com/bbe37ae26f850457663c22646dafddc5/tumblr_mezbncAdn81rmiziuo1_1280.jpg). I lived through those times, and I don’t recall anyone back then voicing any objection to the flag.
>
> The first notes of discontent about the flag that I recall were in the late 1980s. Maybe someone can find some earlier protest or complaint about it, but I kind of doubt it.
[1970s-1980s — Black lawmakers and others call for the flag’s removal.](http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/history-confederate-flag-statehouse-grounds-31948548)
[Or from Rall_y 'round the Flag, Boys!: South Carolina and the Confederate Flag_
By K. Michael Prince this excerpt:](https://books.google.com/books?id=i9hxCSn7q_wC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=1975+south+carolina+confederate+flag&source=bl&ots=mpzDCz-jEa&sig=HRKl98gWn9yS8pwqINElh0WyDyY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_SmVVfaEI8ODsAXS3oPwDw&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBzhQ#v=onepage&q=1975%20south%20carolina%20confederate%20flag&f=false)
> [@](#):
>
> HIs encounter with Confederate heritage came early and was long-lasting. Back in 1969 (Brett) Bursey was a twenty-year-old student at the University of South Carolina in Columbia and an activist with the Souther Studen Organizing Committee and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). He and others had been trying, unsuccessfully, to find someone in the all-white state legislature who would agree to promote the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House dome. And in February 1969 he helped organize a workshop on racism at the USC campus to commemorate the killing of three black students at South Carolina State the year before, during the Orangeburg Massacre.
> SNIP
> As part of that protest, the students burned a Confederate battle flag. Bursey, as organizer of the action, was arrested and charge with violating a state law (16-17-220) that made it illegal to, among other things, “publicly mutilate, deface, defile, jeer at, trample upon or cast contempt, either by word or act, upon” the U.S., state, or Confederate flags.
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/54 "2015-07-02T12:52:22Z")
“Jeer at”? You’d think that would be solidly covered by the First Amendment, but 1969 was a different country altogether.
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### Author:  [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/55 "2015-07-02T13:05:05Z")
> [@bengangmo](#):
>
> Confederate flag aside - I don’t recall seeing anything that would be considered racist in The Dukes of Hazzard.
>
> Not that I watched every episode through the attitudes I have now - but was there ever any dialogue or stuff like that you would consider racist?
No, it was just a typical stupid show of the era, which makes the flag stand out even more. It’s like if there was an Isis flag in Monica’s apartment on Friends and no one commented on it.
---
### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/56 "2015-07-02T13:28:24Z")
> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> I love _Animal House_ but frankly the flag is one of the _least_ offensive parts of that film. IIRC Pinto didn’t actually have sex with the 13-year-old girl but he did leave her, drunk and giggling, in a shopping cart on her own front lawn.
Pinto left her alone when she passed out in his bed at the toga party - that’s when he delivered her to her house in a shopping cart. But he almost certainly did have sex with her in the football stadium, after she told him she was only 13 - why else would she tell her parents “We have to get married.” ?
---
### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/57 "2015-07-02T13:32:46Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#):
>
> Young non-white people watch the Dukes of Hazard, too.
Apparently not enough to make it so profitable that TV Land would rather make excuses at the unhappy than to pull the show.
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/58 "2015-07-02T13:34:53Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#):
>
> Pinto left her alone when she passed out in his bed at the toga party - that’s when he delivered her to her house in a shopping cart. But he almost certainly did have sex with her in the football stadium, after she told him she was only 13 - why else would she tell her parents “We have to get married.” ?
Ah - I’d forgotten that part. So, yeah - never mind the flag when there’s statutory rape blithely handwaved away (not to mention that poor horse).
---
### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/59 "2015-07-02T13:46:54Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> My bad. I had that name attached to the orange/cross design.
None of those Confederate flags have orange in them. The General Lee was orange, but the flag is red.
> [@madmonk28](#):
>
> No, it was just a typical stupid show of the era, which makes the flag stand out even more. It’s like if there was an Isis flag in Monica’s apartment on Friends and no one commented on it.
Nonsense. As already pointed out, the flag has a strong symbology of cultural heritage which does not necessarily indicate racist intent. Though it is a bit disingenuous to say it’s all about rebelling against authority or simply state’s rights. The one right consistently claimed by the rebelling states was the right to have slavery. But slavery is not on the mind of many people displaying the flag.
At the time, I was a bit young to really get the issue of the Confederate flag on the General Lee, or even the name of the car. It was a fun show about jumping cars around.
But someone on, say, “Parks and Rec” (to name a more contemporary comedy closer in timeframe to ISIS) displaying that flag would not have nearly the cultural heritage connection. That would be a wholly different thing.
On a personal note, I have always appreciated the simplicity and beauty of the blue stripe of stars on a red field. Too bad the symbology associated is the Civil War, and the pro-slavery side. It’s pretty, but I don’t want to be thought a racist just because I like the arrangement.
---
### Author:  [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2015, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dukes-of-hazard-dropped-from-tv-land-schedule/723962/60 "2015-07-02T13:52:31Z")
> [@stpauler](#):
>
> [1970s-1980s — Black lawmakers and others call for the flag’s removal.](http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/history-confederate-flag-statehouse-grounds-31948548)
Again, first I remember seeing that in the paper (remember newspapers, kids?) was in the late 80s. Not to say it didn’t happen somewhere in the 70s, but if it did it wasn’t making any wire reports that I saw. There aren’t enough specifics in this link for me to judge.
> [@](#):
>
> [Or from Rall_y 'round the Flag, Boys!: South Carolina and the Confederate Flag_
> By K. Michael Prince this excerpt:](https://books.google.com/books?id=i9hxCSn7q_wC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=1975+south+carolina+confederate+flag&source=bl&ots=mpzDCz-jEa&sig=HRKl98gWn9yS8pwqINElh0WyDyY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_SmVVfaEI8ODsAXS3oPwDw&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBzhQ#v=onepage&q=1975%20south%20carolina%20confederate%20flag&f=false)
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > HIs encounter with Confederate heritage came early and was long-lasting. Back in 1969 (Brett) Bursey was a twenty-year-old student at the University of South Carolina in Columbia and an activist with the Souther Studen Organizing Committee and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). He and others had been trying, unsuccessfully, to find someone in the all-white state legislature who would agree to promote the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House dome. And in February 1969 he helped organize a workshop on racism at the USC campus to commemorate the killing of three black students at South Carolina State the year before, during the Orangeburg Massacre.
> > SNIP
> > As part of that protest, the students burned a Confederate battle flag. Bursey, as organizer of the action, was arrested and charge with violating a state law (16-17-220) that made it illegal to, among other things, “publicly mutilate, deface, defile, jeer at, trample upon or cast contempt, either by word or act, upon” the U.S., state, or Confederate flags.
Now that’s meatier, but a little before my time. Anyone remember if this made news reports?
It sounds like the dissatisfaction was out there, but maybe it just wasn’t making it into the news media until the 1980s, when I remember it first becoming a thing. And I suspect a lot of Southern blacks (including the ones I ran with at the time) didn’t want to make waves about a symbolic issue when they had more concrete issues to worry about.
I don’t think the Confederate flag would have been all over pop culture as it was in the 1970s-mid 80s if it was commonly perceived as a racist emblem. Tom Petty is practically rolling around in one in that 1980s video I linked, and his black backup singers are dancing and singing in front of a huge rebel flag. (Granted, they may have been financially constrained.) I’m pretty sure Tom Petty just understood the flag as a lot of us did at the time, as an emblem of the South and of generalized rebellion.
A [CNN poll out today](http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/politics/confederate-flag-poll-racism-southern-pride/index.html) says a majority of Americans (not just Southerners) _still_ think of it that way.
> [@](#):
>
> American public opinion on the Confederate flag remains about where it was 15 years ago, with most describing the flag as a symbol of Southern pride more than one of racism, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. And questions about how far to go to remove references to the Confederacy from public life prompt broad racial divides.
>
> The poll shows that 57% of Americans see the flag more as a symbol of Southern pride than as a symbol of racism, about the same as in 2000 when 59% said they viewed it as a symbol of pride.
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