The complete text of a bumper sticker (with obligatory Stars and Bars, naturally) I saw on the back of a beat-up pickup truck Sunday afternoon as I was driving with some of my children.
I love the South. Born and raised here. Lived my whole life here. Wonderful place. The humidity’s a little high, sometimes, but I don’t want to live anywhere else.
Idiotic sentiments like those embodied by the bumper sticker make me rethink my devotion, though.
It boggles my mind that 1) a bumper sticker with that sentiment was actually produced, and 2) apparently there was (or perhaps is) a market for it.
Sad, and frustrating, and anger-inducing, and not at all worthy of the human race.
Wow. That’s poor. It beats the “American by Birth, Southern by the Grace of God” shot glass that my roommate picked up in Savannah.
All I can say is: Please don’t rethink your devotion to the South. I’m glad to know that the South contains not only creepy redneck shit, but also people who recognize it for the crap that it is.
perhaps it was a reference to the “Stars n’ Bars,” which has caught a lot of flak lately. It may be a (poor choice of words, granted) different way of saying “Heritage, not hate,” a sentiment I’ve seen fairly often.
That’s not to say it isn’t tacky. Making the assumption that this is what the sticker is about, it’s still worded in an inflammatory way.
At least it’s not the one I saw six months ago: a rebel flag with the motto “I stand with Forrest.” No way to rationalize that one!
Well, there are a couple of levels that are problematic here. Fist off, the Confederate flag has a very strong association with slavery. By displaying the confederate flag, and then making sweeping statements that “It’s a Southern Thing” the driver is basically helping to perpetuate some unfortunate and false stereotypes about the south. This is what we thinking people tend to call “A Bad Thing™”
Complicating that is the reference to hate crime. Hate crime covers a lot more ground than just the Confederate flag. This might include such things as dragging someone to death behind your car because they are gay, beating someone up because they are black or a whole host of unacceptable behavior.
Naturally, the paragraphs above will no doubt be lost on you, as you seem to be somewhat of a bigot.
But the bumper sticker said “It’s not a hate crime”. Given what we have to go on, which admittedly isn’t much, it seems to be saying “The confederate flag is representative not of a hate crime, but of a general cultural identity unique to the South.” Along the lines of what blessedwolf said. Of course, it could be worded better, but it doesn’t sound to me as though it was intended to be racially offensive.
I have never before seen someone refer to the Confederate flag as a “hate crime.” A symbol of oppression, sure. A hate crime? Nope.
My interpretation of the bumper sticker (which, admittedly, could be off-base) caused me to believe it was saying “Beating, dragging, lynching, etc. a gay person/black person/whoever isn’t a hate crime. It’s just something we do in the South.” The Stars and Bars were just there as a reiteration of the “pride” this “person” feels in the South.
A certain group of people is expected to interpret it as Sauron says:
What the sticker is actually saying is “go ahead and feel that way, about me and my Confederate flag. I don’t give a crap because you just don’t get it.”
I’m southern. I detest racism. I am not the exception. To me, my “southern identity” is about food, music, religion (well, I’m not real good at that one), and dialect. The confederate flag is a symbol of the Confederate states, which ceased to exist 138 years ago. Most of the people I grew up with only thought of the cofederate flag as an object of historical significance, not a current symbol for the south, though their parents and grandparents were less likely to share that view.
Our hateful bigots are just more streotypically noticable than other places, not more plentiful or more hateful.
What’s wrong with that? I don’t see how that’s offensive to anyone…
Now, Sauron’s bumper sticker is badly worded. I have to agree, now that blessedwolf explained it, I DO think that’s what the bumper sticker was referring to. Not racism, not slavery, but the flag. But have you seen some of the flags they made to replace the ones that were voted out? The new GA flag is particularly hideous. I know it’s not a popular PoV, so don’t bother flaming me, but I liked the flag the way it was. I didn’t see it as a flag of slavery, I saw it as a flag of history, good and bad.
Actually, if they are talking about Nathan Bedford Forrest, perhaps they mean his position during the last years of his life.
I read in a history of the Civil War that Forrest (who founded the Ku Klux Klan) became a Christian during the last years of his life, and attempted to disband the KKK.
Actually, I took this wording differently than anyone else-
I saw it as (perhaps) incredibly caustic sarcasm- saying that all “southern things” are as reprehensible as hate crimes. This is probably less likely than the other interpretations (about the flag, justifying hate crimes, etc), but it’s what I thought when I read the OP.
finette, who can’t believe the amount of ‘stars’n’bars’ crap she sees in Upstate NY!
Here in my upper-class Connecticut suburb, I regularly see a late-model Buick with the multiple “Stars n’ Bars” bumper stickers including one that says “Confederate Americans have rights too”. This stupidity is no longer restricted to the the stereotypical poor white southerner.
I too was under the impression that “It’s a Southern Thing” was a way to somehow say that it [the hate crime] was somehow different in The South because they’ve been doing it for a while.
My SO and I were watching a show about the KKK and at the rally there was, of course, a confederate flag draped over the podium and prominately displayed elsewhere; SO didn’t miss a beat and said “oh look, they’re having a heritage meeting”. I almost busted a gut I laughed so hard. The swastika was a Native American symbol long before hitler, but guess what, they figured out that it had become about hate not heritage along about 1939, go figure huh.
