# Kudos to Mississippi **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 19, 2001, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467 "2001-04-19T00:44:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Needs2know](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5e925/32.png) [@Needs2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Needs2know)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/21 "2001-04-19T12:39:44Z")
I’m sorry Badtz but I just don’t think you have an idea what you are talking about. Purely from personal experience, being a Southerner myself, I will say something that’s gonna piss a lot of people off. MOST SOUTHERN APOLOGISTS ARE LIARS, when it comes to racism. Publicly they state that their treasured symbol does not represent their racism but amongst each other their lack of sensitivity and hell bent desire to fight for this disgusting symbol speaks worlds about their true motives. They may SAY when it’s convienent for them that racism isn’t their motive, but their ACTIONS speak volumes. (And often they will flat out tell me they are tired of the n\*ggers trying to “take over” simply because they think every white will agree with them. What a shock to find out that I don’t need a “symbol” to be proud of who I am. Nor do I agree with their assessment that the you-know-whats are trying to run things or ruin our Southern pride.) What we should all really be proud of is how far so many of us have progressed from this way of thinking. Needs2know ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/22 "2001-04-19T13:15:18Z")
**Needs** : hear! hear! Now, back to the important issues—[ul][_]pork, or beef?[_]dry or wet?[_]slaw or stew?[_]sweet tea or Coca-Cola®?[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Needs2know](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5e925/32.png) [@Needs2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Needs2know)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/23 "2001-04-19T13:44:08Z")
Ok Xeno… pork wet or dry (depending on where you’re standing or sitting) slaw sweetened ice tea Needs2know ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/24 "2001-04-19T13:44:34Z")
Why all these false dichotomies. I say go with Pork and Beef! Iced Tea and Coca Cola! Dry and Wet! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/25 "2001-04-19T13:50:33Z")
I can’t really think of symbols of my Yankee heritage per se… Hmmm, perhaps this needs to be remedied. ---
**Author:** ![tourbot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@tourbot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tourbot)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/26 "2001-04-19T13:51:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Badtz Maru \* > \*\*Well, the South definitely needs some kind of symbol, what could they use? > \*\* Why do they need one? To my knowledge, no other region of the country has one. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/27 "2001-04-19T13:59:27Z")
N2K is absolutely correct. Reeder and his kind are not celebrating iced tea and barbecue, stock car racing and church league softball, playing ‘fort’ in mimosa trees, or any of the memories that are part of my wonderful Southern heritage. They are celebrating a nation that was founded upon the principle of slavery. It was the flag of a nation that believed in white supremacy over the black man. If you’re talking about Southern pride and heritage, don’t you think you should focus on pride for all Southerners, both black and white? To black Mississippians, the Rebel flag represents generations of their ancestors chained and beaten to grow cotton for their white masters. The flag represents the people who made them second-class citizens in their own state. There’s no pride in the Rebel flag for them, nothing but the memory of oppression. You can’t say that the Stars and Bars was stolen by hatemongers; it’s a flag created by and for hatemongers, and it has always stood for an evil cause. Any decent Southerner who believes in the dignity of all people should be ashamed of Mississippi’s vote. ---
**Author:** ![Ivorybill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ee59a6/32.png) [@Ivorybill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivorybill)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/28 "2001-04-19T17:02:25Z")
Woo Hoo!! 100th post, and Ah git tuh spend it in a Suthern thread! How about two flags for the South? Barbeque 'n sundries for usn’s in their right minds and… …a variation on the Bonnie Blue Flag (rectangular blue background with one large white star in the center for the uninformed). Replace the star with a saltine and presto… The Cracker Flag. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/29 "2001-04-19T17:17:07Z")
Amen, **goboy**. I said it in the previous thread, and I’ll say it again whenever a Confederate apologist shows up: the Confederate battle flag is NOT a symbol of Southern heritage. It is a symbol of the Confederacy, which existed for approximately one percent of the history of the American South. To claim that the stars and bars, or any other token of the Confederacy, somehow symbolizes 400 years of Southern heritage is absurd on its face. And **xeno** , I’ve softened my stance on your pork BBQ heresy. I’ll let the pork ribs slide as long as you put some Dr. Pepper on the flag for us Texans. 😃 minty green Anxiously awaiting **Reeder** ’s inevitable suggestion that we should some Confederate history :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/30 "2001-04-19T17:30:02Z")
Proud Virginian here. [My flag](http://legis.state.va.us./vaonline/vc4.htm#Great%20Seal) depicts: - Graphic depiction of death - Nudity - False idolatry - Latin We can get away with it because my flag celebrates freedom from tyranny, while Mississippi’s flag celebrates _the exact opposite_. There are many of us who feel that the Southern Cross and its cousins should be reviled every bit as much as is the swastika. Your flag sucks, Mississippi, but your actions remind us that the battle against racism is not yet won. That might just be a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![brad\_d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@brad\_d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_d)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/31 "2001-04-19T18:22:50Z")
**To me** , personally, the rebel battle flag does not represent racism. I don’t recoil in horror and revulsion when I see it. It seems that there are those here who would claim that: [list=a][li]I’m lying; [_]I may not even realize it, but I’m a closet racist, or; [_]I’m flat-out wrong about what it means - my opinion is in error.[/list=1][/li]Sadly, it _does_ represent racism and cause horror and revulsion among many. That’s the way it is, regardless of my personal feelings about it. _For this reason only_, I support its removal from official emblems. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/32 "2001-04-19T19:25:59Z")
I’m with **brad\_d**. The flag has (for me at least) always just been a symbol of the South as well as rebellion in general. See, that’s the funny thing about symbols. They mean different things to different people. (Notwithstanding the remarks of **Needs2Know** - She Who Knows the Innermost Thoughts of All Southerners). Like **brad\_d** , though, I recognize that others do take offense at the flag, and I fully understand their reasons. So yeah, it makes a lousy state flag, as it does not fairly represent all citizens of the state (and indeed provokes outrage among many of them). I would never display the flag myself, out of consideration for the feelings of others. I have to say this, though. It is interesting to me that only in the past ten years or so have folks decided to get offended by the Confederate flag. Am I the only one who has noticed this? The flag was all over the place in the seventies (as noted by **Badtz Maru** ), and it didn’t seem to occur to anyone to get offended by it. Now please pardon the cynic in me for observing that the flag debate has been a helluva fund-raising tool for the NAACP. (I’m sure Needs2Know will accuse me of racism for daring to notice this…) On to more important things:[ul][li]Pork[/li][li]Dry[/li][li]Slaw and stew[/li][li]Sweet tea[/ul][/li] And I’ll take some hush puppies with mine. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/33 "2001-04-19T20:36:15Z")
This issue is not merely some cynical, latter-day fundraising tool. Here’s one example of opposition to the flag dating to the 1970’s. [http://www.udayton.edu/~mpa/EHALLWAY/ConfedFlag.htm](http://www.udayton.edu/~mpa/EHALLWAY/ConfedFlag.htm) I’m sure there are others. And I personally remember it being an issue that other schools used the flag as a symbol for their sports teams back when I was in junior high in the early 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/34 "2001-04-19T20:38:40Z")
Gees, now I guess that lynching will become a new pastine again in Good Ole Miss. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/35 "2001-04-19T20:41:30Z")
Pork Dry Slaw and corn bread Sweetened tea and I’d like a Moon Pie, thank you. Regarding why it took so long to protest the retention of the Stars and Bars on state flags, maybe there have always been protests and it’s only been recently that white folks have listened. And I’m not sure that symbols mean diferent things to different people: if you see a guy flying a swastika, you know how he feels about Jews; if you see a cross on a building, you can be sure it’s not a bar; and if I see a guy waving the Rebel flag, I’ll bet I know how he feels about blacks. The Rebel flag has, from its creation, been the banner of white supremacy over blacks. How can the Rebel flag represent pride and heritage to a black Southerner? How can white people support a flag that causes such hurt in their neighbors’ hearts? The rebel flag should not fly over a statehouse that is supposed to represent all the citizens of Mississippi. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/36 "2001-04-19T20:41:30Z")
**spoke** , I can recall many times in the 70’s and 80’s having people patiently explain to me how the South was racist because “look at their flag [sic]”. I don’t think the outrage is anything new; I’d say it started right about 1956 (at least in Georgia)… More critically, though, _how could I have forgotten to mention hushpuppies!!_ \ ---
**Author:** ![brad\_d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@brad\_d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_d)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/37 "2001-04-19T21:27:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by goboy \* > \*\*And I’m not sure that symbols mean diferent things to different people: if you see a guy flying a swastika, you know how he feels about Jews; if you see a cross on a building, you can be sure it’s not a bar; and if I see a guy waving the Rebel flag, I’ll bet I know how he feels about blacks. > \*\* I strongly disagree with this. **goboy** , it appears that you so closely associate the rebel flag with racism that you cannot conceive that somebody else would not. Maybe everybody _should_ - that claim has been made here by several. However, the fact remains that many people, myself included, do not. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/38 "2001-04-19T21:29:12Z")
**minty green** , the article you linked does not support your position that there was opposition to the flag in the seventies. It says that one Alabama legislator pointed out that the flag should be flown below the US flag, but does not state that the legislator voiced any opposition to the flag flying _at all_. The article goes on to say, “For the remainder of the seventies, the issue received little attention.” Hey all I can say is that I was here in the seventies, I saw the flag being flown all over the place, and heard not one gripe about it from anybody. I attended an integrated school, and hung out with a biracial gang. (It was not unlike the atmosphere in the movie Dazed and Confused.) Nor was it just a local phenomenon. The flag was everywhere from TV shows (the aforementioned Dukes of Hazzard) to movies (Animal House, e.g.) to rock concerts, to bandanas, to flags on car antennae, to bumper stickers to decals. As I mentioned in another thread, pull out an old seventies comic book or magazine and look at one of the ads for decals or embroidered patches in the back. You’ll see the rebel flag right there next to the ecology patches and the Woodstock decals. _Shocking!_ (At least to our current sensibilities.) Best I can tell, this issue erupted circa 1988. I challenge the readers of this thread to find a reference to the “offensiveness” of the flag in any article or editorial prior to that date. Sorry, but I’m still cynical. **goboy** wrote: > [@](#): > > …if I see a guy waving the Rebel flag, I’ll bet I know how he feels about blacks… And in today’s world, you’d more likely than not be right. The people waving the flag these days are _mostly_ (but not all) racist yahoos. However, if you took your time machine back to the seventies and made the same bet about someone flying the flag, well, there’s as good a chance as not that you’d bet wrong. I can tell you from first-hand experience that no one in my crowd had any racist sentiment. And I would also be willing to bet you that if you could take your time machine back to the seventies and poll blacks about the flag, their attitude would range from apathetic to mildly dismissive. I think you would’ve had a hard time finding someone who was genuinely worked up about it. Would I fly the flag in today’s world? Nah. It’d be rude and insensitive. But the level of sensitivity to this issue that we’re seeing today is, I maintain, a fairly recent development. And I think I’ll have me one of them Moon Pies, too. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/39 "2001-04-19T22:19:16Z")
When did Mississippi incorporate the CBF into its flag? Wasn’t it in the 1950’s or therebouts? ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2001, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467/40 "2001-04-19T23:11:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spoke- \* > \*\ ***minty green** , the article you linked does not support your position that there was opposition to the flag in the seventies. It says that one Alabama legislator pointed out that the flag should be flown below the US flag, but does not state that the legislator voiced any opposition to the flag flying _at all_. That’s pretty disingenuous, **spoke-**. The page (which I can no longer seem to access) was about opposition to the flag in Alabama. This legislator (African-American, if I recall) was clearly opposed to the flag itself, not merely what position it assumed on the capitol flag pole. That they used a technicality in the law as legal footing in that fight hardly discredits their motives for doing so. Or do you seriously think somebody was just outraged that the flags were all mixed up in the order they were flown? > [@](#): > > The article goes on to say, “For the remainder of the seventies, the issue received little attention.” When you’re still working your ass off to get the _effects_ of racism fixed (this was a mere 10 years after the Civil Rights Act, and schools had barely begun to be desegregated in many parts of the country), taking care of the _symbols_ of racism might be a little lower down you list of priorities? > [@](#): > > Best I can tell, this issue erupted circa 1988. I challenge the readers of this thread to find a reference to the “offensiveness” of the flag in any article or editorial prior to that date. You’ve already read my personal testimony that it was a real issue circa 1981-84, as well as **xenophon** ’s recollections from the 70’s and 80’s. Clearly, somebody was upset prior to 1988. **sqweels** : Mississippi adopted its current flag in the 1890s, unlike the other southern states that gave it official status in the 1950s-60s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kudos-to-mississippi/62467.md?page=3)