Easily. If you want to fly that flag, you have to deal with the consequences of what that flag represents, and what conclusions people will draw about what you are expressing.
As a political symbol, the Confederate flag was all but dead by 1940; in most of the South, it was something that might get trotted out on Memorial Day or for some solemn observance, but it wasn’t really a symbol of anything happening in the present.
That changed after the war: beginning with the Dixiecrats, the flag started being flown as a symbol of opposition to the feds telling southern whites that they had to integrate their schools and let blacks vote and treat them as equals. It became a symbol of the politics of the day: opposition to civil rights. That’s what it represents now, that’s what you’re expressing by flying that flag. (And I say that as the great-great-granddaughter of men who fought under that flag, with honor. We allowed that flag to be co-opted to stand for an evil idea, and we have to live with the consequences.)
If you want to fly a swastika flag, in America you can do so; you just have to be willing to accept the consequence that people will think you support the Nazi ideology. If you want to fly a Confederate battle flag, in America you can do so; you just have to be willing to accept the consequence that people will think you support the ideology of white opposition to the civil rights movement.
Some people (but not “everyone” by any means) are careful with labeling people “racist” because it’s basically a public-life death penalty. If you’re a “racist”, you shouldn’t be a federal judge, or the Attorney General, and decent people everywhere shouldn’t vote for you. It’s a very serious accusation against someone’s character. That’s why I only accept it when there’s very clear evidence, and attempt to refute it if the evidence is only circumstantial or unconvincing.
There is no evidence that this is true, even though a lot of people seem to believe it.
The country just elected a man despite evidence marking him as racist and the fact that he panders to and embraces racists. And throughout his campaign, he was repeatedly accused of being a racist.
Absolutely you’re wrong about that. What we’re discussing is whether and in what way Sessions is a racist by any plausible definition of the term, and how Sessions’ positions and behavior regarding racial issues may be characterized if we consider that the unqualified assertion “Sessions is a racist” is untrue or unsupported.
AFAICT, nobody here is arguing at all that Sessions should be regarded as a racist solely on grounds of mere complacency/apathy concerning his own white privilege. He’s got a lot more going on than that.
“You’re wrong.” Jeff Sessions, the subject of this very thread, was denied a federal judgeship primarily because he was thought a racist.
When David Duke, an actual racist, ran for governor in Louisiana, against Edwin Edwards, a man who had stood trial on charges of mail fraud, obstruction of justice, and bribery, a popular bumper sticker was “Vote for the crook. It’s important.”
I agree that this is where your analytical path would inevitably lead, sure.
But my interest was in reaching an independent understanding of whether Sessions was a racist, not a redundant confirmation of your views on the subject.
In other words, I never for a moment doubted that you’d oppose the guy, but I’m trying to understand if I should. So far, the answer is ‘no.’
That doesn’t contradict monstro’s rebuttal of your hyperbolic claim that being accused of racism is “basically a public-life death penalty”, which even your own example of Sessions completely fails to corroborate.
Jeff Sessions may have missed out on a District Court appointment in 1986 due to accusations of racism, but he’s remained very active and highly compensated in public life ever since then, and is now being seriously considered for a major national executive office. “Public-life death penalty” is a ridiculously inaccurate description of what those accusations of racism did to Sessions’ career.
You said that being accused of being a racist is enough to kill one’s public career.
If this were true, Jeff Sessions would not be in the running for Attorney General.
If he* is* appointed, I wonder if you will you reconsider how serious the “racist” accusation is really treated.
I’m quite confused how this relates to your point.
Another person whose public career was launched after it was revealed to be a racist:Mark Fuhrman
I would not be surprised if the president-elect nominates Mark Fuhrman to a top-level position in the justice department. Because people don’t care about racism that happened in whatever they be deemed in the distant past, even when that past was never publicly renounced. Americans are a very forgiving people.
I’d content that it’s because the evidence of Sessions’ racism is flimsy at best. But, had monstro said something like “I dispute your assertion and here is my evidence that being branded a racist is not in fact a ‘public-life death penalty’” I would not have lead off with “You’re wrong”. He didn’t say that though. He said, “there is no evidence that this is true.” I believe there is substantial evidence that it’s true (hence, my assertion that monstro is wrong), but I do acknowledge that it’s a point in contention and there is also contrary evidence as well. Monstro did a good job of pointing out that contrary evidence, he just let it lead him to a false conclusion (“there is no evidence that this is true”).
You said that being accused of racism brings with it a death penalty to one’s public career.
I said there isn’t any evidence of this.
You said I was wrong, and you pointed to Jeff Session’s previous failed appointment as evidence.
But that isn’t evidence that his public career was “killed”. It’s evidence that it can deny you of certain job opportunities, under certain circumstances.
But any accusation can derail a career. Like being accused of lying. See Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton, if you have doubts.
And yet few people are reluctant to pull out the “liar” label. In fact, nowadays it is the go-to aspersion. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to pretend that no one is or has ever been a racist unless we have overwhelming proof.
You haven’t provided any evidence in support of your assertion that merely being “labeled” a racist (as opposed to being actually proven a racist) does in fact constitute “basically a public-life death penalty”.
Simply claiming that monstro is wrong to say “there is no evidence” for that assertion isn’t a substitute for actually providing evidence for it.
[QUOTE=HurricaneDitka]
I believe there is substantial evidence that it’s true
[/quote]
We know that you believe that, but so far we haven’t seen evidence that it’s true.
There’s plenty of evidence that being called a racist can damage one’s public image to some extent, but that it actually constitutes “basically a public-life death penalty”? Nah, thanks, I’m from Missouri.
I apologize. My original post was unclear. I should have used a different word than “labeling”. The thought in my mind when I typed it was something along the lines of “being proven a racist” or “being widely-thought a racist”, but the shortened sentence I used with “labeling” was inaccurate / insufficient to express that thought.
No problem, although I would nitpick that even being proven a racist is not automatically tantamount to a “public-life death sentence” in this country.
And you’re probably right. For every example like the '91 Louisiana governors race that I have, you could probably find someone equally (well, maybe not quite in David Duke’s case) asshole-ish who managed to hang on and win an election.
Could we agree that it would be a large obstacle in the path of any would-be public servant, but not always insurmountable?
For public servants at the national level, certainly. I’m not convinced that for lower-level posts it would always even be that much of an obstacle, depending on constituency.