[QUOTE=Zoe]
Most of the South wasn’t settled during the Revolutionary War. I guess that’s why we feel some distance in general.
We are not about to apologize for our abundant interest in history. family, story-telling, football, cooking styles, black sheep, the Celts, the sacred and the irreverent. Every Southerner here could add to that list or disagree with it.
[/QUOTE]
Sugar, if you’re ever in Montgomery or I’m ever in Tennessee (which ironically I will be soon on a Civil War tour [ah the irony]) I would be dee-lighted to buy you your choice of co-cola or sweet tea and some chicken, grits, and biscuits at the place of your choosin’!
[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
I would guess that the 7th grader didn’t “know” what the flag meant, but rather knew the more recent hype about the flag and it’s connotations to the people who shared their ignorance with the child. It is the same way with any supposed controversial symbol.
[/quote]
The children who were offended by it knew it was a racist symbol from the South. The child displaying it did not, he just thought it was a Dukes of Hazzard thing. If I had not been there to intervene and defuse the situation, his ignorance of it’s meaning might not have saved him from getting an ass kicking. Which would have been bad, because it would have reinforced an us v. them mentality that it already so divisive in our community.
[QUOTE=control-z]
That’s a really stupid analogy. I don’t see any Southerners blowing themselves up in NYC.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=buttonjockey308]
That IS a really stupid analogy. I mean, Al Quaeda sort of wants to take over the world, as opposed to, y’know “you leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone”. Plus, I’m not sure many people would know what all that right-to-left chicken scratch meant.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, they don’t. Their stated reason for existence is to get the West to leave the Middle East the fuck alone. Their appeal to many of their recruits is that joining up is perceived as a way to strike a blow against what they see as American oppression.
I don’t see that as necessarily worse than anything the Confederacy fought for, and idealizing one is as repugnant as idealizing the other.
This sort of thing makes me wonder: Do people in places like India or Kenya or Egypt see the British Flag as some sort of hateful symbol, or have they simply relegated it to the “History” section and moved on?
[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
This sort of thing makes me wonder: Do people in places like India or Kenya or Egypt see the British Flag as some sort of hateful symbol, or have they simply relegated it to the “History” section and moved on?
[/QUOTE]
In India, by the time that independence came, the Indians were so busy hating each other, that the British really were in a way the most popular group. I’ve never heard an Indian today express any resentment against the British. I don’t recall ever seeing a British flag displayed in India. I suspect it might be viewed as strange to see a British flag being displayed, but not offensive.
A BUMP to update this thread without having to start a new one on the same subject as several old ones.
The Soceity of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (KKK, or NAMBLA) is erecting the world’s largest Confederate flag where Interstates 75 and 4 join near Tampa, Florida. The flag is 50 x 30 and will be on a 139 foot pole, the tallest permissible under Florida law. Story.
And that is completely true. When switching from one extremely busy and fast Interstate (if you’ve never driven on I-75, I think most people think of 75 as the minimum speed limit) to another, how many of us stop to reflect about the sacrifices and the struggles of the men who fought a war 145 years ago to bring that Interstate to Tampa, piece by piece past the Union blockade? And what is an interstate anyway, but a Confederacy of roads?
Well, at least it’s a bit more relevant than usual. Tampa was at least a naval port and that damned flag was a naval flag. I just get irked by the “it’s to honor our ancestors, not because we’re bigoted assholes desperately in need of attention but too cowardly to scream ‘Nigger!’” self justification of it. (How long before the flag is vandalized you suppose? I see a compact bow with a flaming arrow in its future.)
Answer: They’re relying on branding. But too bad for you, stupid Floridian Sons of Confederate Veterans: your brand has been tainted beyond redemption by racist assholes. You guys might just as well try to bring back AYDS weight-loss candy.
The American Civil War was fought over the the issue of slavery, no matter how it is spun. The confederate naval battle flag (the Stars and Bars) was for a very small navy. Few people have an ancestor who was in the confederate navy, the army used a different standard.
I consider people who today fly the stars and bars to be celebrating treason, racism, and slavery. The asshats who want to ban flag burning by constitutional amendment had better include the stars and bars, because I want to burn every one I see.
[QUOTE=The Second Stone]
I consider people who today fly the stars and bars to be celebrating treason, racism, and slavery.
[/QUOTE]
I consider people who post like you to be idiots.
I don’t really understand “pride in your heritage” in the first place, unless you personally were part of it. But I really don’t get why so many folks with pride in their “Southern Heritage” seem to concentrate on the South at its very worst, losing a Civil War of their own causing, fought by poor white people to preserve an abominable way of life for a small elite of rich white people.
[QUOTE=danceswithcats]
You are correct-I misspoke regarding the Stars and Bars-the flag to which I referred was the Confederate Battle Flag.
For the record-a person doesn’t magically become an asshole by association with a flag, a song, or any other symbol. You’re to be pitied, if you believe otherwise.
[/QUOTE]
So, people shouldn’t judge someone who drives around with swastikas on their truck? Interesting notion. Sounds like it comes under the category of “trying so hard to keep my mind open that my brains fall out.”
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
So, people shouldn’t judge someone who drives around with swastikas on their truck? Interesting notion. Sounds like it comes under the category of “trying so hard to keep my mind open that my brains fall out.”
[/QUOTE]
Well, as amply demonstrated by this thread, there’s some ambiguity about the symbolism of the Confederate Battle Flag in the U.S. To me it symbolizes all sorts of bad things, but to many it just means good-natured redneck sassiness. There’s nothing ambiguous about the swastika, at least in this country.
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Well, as amply demonstrated by this thread, there’s some ambiguity about the symbolism of the Confederate Battle Flag in the U.S. To me it symbolizes all sorts of bad things, but to many it just means good-natured redneck sassiness. There’s nothing ambiguous about the swastika, at least in this country.
[/QUOTE]
Did you not read what he was replying to even though he quoted it? danceswithcats said that there is no such thing as any symbol which indicates the bearer is an asshole. Do you agree?
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Well, as amply demonstrated by this thread, there’s some ambiguity about the symbolism of the Confederate Battle Flag in the U.S. To me it symbolizes all sorts of bad things, but to many it just means good-natured redneck sassiness. There’s nothing ambiguous about the swastika, at least in this country.
[/QUOTE]
I suspect you could ask white people who display swastikas what they mean and get the same sort of answer from a few (in addition to the much larger group that would presumably say something about preserving the white race, white power, etc.)
I would be very sympathetic to the (nonracist) “protect/display the Confederate Flag” movement if the Confederacy itself had no racist tendencies. Despite the oft-mentioned claim that the Civil war “wasn’t all about slavery”, I think we can safely say that blacks were likely to have been treated even more poorly under Confederate rule than they were under Reconstruction and the subsequent Jim Crow society.
[QUOTE=Ensign Edison]
Did you not read what he was replying to even though he quoted it? danceswithcats said that there is no such thing as any symbol which indicates the bearer is an asshole. Do you agree?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I read it. No, that is not what he said. If he had, I would quite, quite disagree, for as noted, the swastika is (in the Western world) always and in every context associated with something bad.
I am a Yankee. I was born and raised in new York. I had a chance to live in Texas for a while and feel sort of qualified to talk about this without being accused of being a “wild eyed southern boy” or a “redneck”.
The flag does not necessarily mean hatred and bigotry. it can and usually does mean a rebellious “we had the guts to fight” attitude. The Civil War, despite what they teach in Yankee schools, ws not just about slavery. It was about power. Southerners will say it was about states rights to determine their own laws, their own way of doing things. Northerners will say (because they are taught to believe it) that it was alll about slavery, when it was really about who would be giving the orders - the industrial North, or the agricultural South.
It was (once again) all about power. Except for the abolisitionists, sadly most people didn’t give a damn about slaves except as a “talking point” or propaganda tool.
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Yes, I read it. No, that is not what he said. If he had, I would quite, quite disagree, for as noted, the swastika is (in the Western world) always and in every context associated with something bad.
[/QUOTE]
That’s exactly how I feel about the Confederate battle flag, its apologists notwithstanding. (I’m multi-generation southerner on both side of my family, I KNOW this crap.)
