I wouldn’t die on this hill either, but I’m white. I don’t feel qualified to judge a black person who engages in non-violent defacement of a racist symbol on government property. Even if it’s (hopefully) coming down soon on its own – it’s still much later than it should have.
Fair enough. Surrendering afterward makes the affair that much more “speech-like” and less “vandalism-like.”
Interestingly, I’ve just learned that there are some confederate-ish tile patterns in the Times Square – 42nd Street subway station. I’ll be in NYC in a few weeks and I’ll snap a pic if I get the chance.
As a pure side note, in the course of planning this visit, I’ve haven’t read this much about the NYC subway system since Pelham One Two Three. It’s quite a network, makes Montreal’s four-line system look like a hobbyist’s HO project.
So the article leads off saying it’s to honour some guy with Southern ties and finishes with a MTA spokesman saying it’s just some design with similar ones in different colours in other subway stations. How fucking lazy does a reporter have to be not to check out which is true.?
So now a flag is so dangerous? I am sure you are in much more danger from actual criminals, than from a 152 year old flag. this is PC at its best.
It is a rallying point, a symbol that is used to invoke action by bigots and racists. It was born of bigotry and has been used as a tool to rally bigots to action as shown here.
Richard Butler, former head of the Aryan Nations
David Duke
To claim it is meaningless is just absurd.
Well, it’s the New York Post, so…
I do agree that, so far, Ebay has been catching precious few criminals. Seems very hypocritical of them.
:rolleyes:
Ah, yes - because there are murderers and bank robbers out there, we shouldn’t bother with speeding and jaywalking.
All found under the “Only Tax/Enforce/Fund Things That Are Important To Me” heading.
Bryan noted he would seek photos.
I found photos.
For information, I would place the New York Post only slightly above World Net Daily.
I wasn’t directing any criticism at you there, fyi, nor thought you meant that article to show anything other than what Bryan was talking about. Sorry if you took it that way.
Well, actually, I was planning to take photos. The existence of the tile patterns was not something I doubted (it’s on the wiki page), it was just something I was planning to check out during my upcoming visit to NYC if I got the chance.
I look at the link and thought “Well no shit. It’s a giant rebel flag hanging in the subway station! How can someone deny the purpose!”
Then I read that the flag was an inlet to the picture. The tiles are what is important. :smack:
Skipping the flag part of the debate and just going to the eBay part — do a like search on the Confederate flag next year and you will get the same kind of results. In other words, your music and toys are safe. Like with the swastika (which just returned 6,924 results for me on eBay) they aren’t banning the symbol or the hate so much as certain representations/uses of it. Show it on a coin or stamp and you will be fine; try to list an actual cloth flag and you will almost certainly get your listing pulled.
Put it down to most business decisions made in the heat of something like this; PR and posturing more than actual meaning or results.
(On the good side - Elvis Hitler only yielded 4 results. 
)
Looks like another example of the flag being used as a marker for Southern identity. I know some of you are boggled by the idea that the flag ever means anything other than “Racism!” but here it is again.
Try for a moment to understand a perspective other than your own.
Also, this once again puts the lie to the argument I have seen some make here that the flag was in mothballs until Brown v. Board of Education. It was always around.
Gives the lie, I meant. Or puts paid. Or some combination of the two. Mix and match at your discretion.
It was always around, but it wasn’t prominently and commonly displayed. And it didn’t become prominently and commonly displayed (both on Southern state and local government buildings/property, and by individuals) until it was adopted as the symbol of opposition to integration and Civil Rights.
nm
Swastikas are widely used by Hindus and Buddhists in India as religious symbols and general symbols of good luck. Should Hindus and Buddhists in the United States start openly displaying them like they do in India? On the exteriors and in entryways of of buildings, on the backs of taxis, on shopping bags, on restaurant signs, menus, and napkins, etc.?
Or should they instead understand that the symbol (even if it appears slightly different) has extremely negative connotations in this country and would cause offense. And would to Jewish Americans specifically give the impression that these are people who hee to an ideology that would seek to oppress or kill them?
The difference is that as a small minority in this country, Hindus and Buddhists would face a harsh backlash and would suffer severe social and economic consequences of they were to do that.
White people in America have no such fear from displaying a symbol that to many people around them indicates adherence to a worldview that seeks to separate, oppress, or eliminate them. But it’s a minority of people and one that generally has weaker societal power. Here’s your privilege.