# The Confederate Flag in public schools. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 4, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934 "2006-02-04T01:33:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/61 "2006-02-05T23:48:53Z")
It’s true that not everyone who displays a Confederate flag _intends_ it as a symbol of racism, but it’s still inherently foolish to try to make the official symbol of an avowedly racist regime into a non-racist symbol of something else. It’s also true that many people who display Confederate flags and claim no racist intent also have demonstrably false beliefs about what the ideals of the Confederacy really were; that those people may be sincerely ignorant doesn’t mean they aren’t still wrong. ---
**Author:** ![AFAIKnow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a6a055/32.png) [@AFAIKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AFAIKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/62 "2006-02-05T23:58:15Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > It’s true that not everyone who displays a Confederate flag _intends_ it as a symbol of racism, but it’s still inherently foolish to try to make the official symbol of an avowedly racist regime into a non-racist symbol of something else. It’s also true that many people who display Confederate flags and claim no racist intent also have demonstrably false beliefs about what the ideals of the Confederacy really were; that those people may be sincerely ignorant doesn’t mean they aren’t still wrong. And maybe they are like **monstro** and " don’t think of the bad stuff, or at least try not to." ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/63 "2006-02-06T00:49:09Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Actually Mississippi [incorporated the Confederate emblem into its state flag back in 1894](http://www.mississippi.gov/frameset.jsp?URL=http://www.its.state.ms.us/et/portal/MSFlags/flags.html). Mississippi also made it darned clear [why it chose to secede](http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/missec.htm) in 1861, so I don’t think it can just be a matter of opinion as to what the Mississippi state flag and other Confederate emblems stand for. Most other states had similar documents, which I always wondered if the “That war was about state’s rights, not slavery!” crowd is familiar with. (Yes, it was about state’s rights… specifically state’s rights to _condone slavery_- I’m well aware there were many other causes, but that was at least among if not the single biggest biggie.) From a speech given to Alabama’s legislature before the vote on its own secession (61-39 in favor of, if interested, resulting in the extension of an invitation to delegates from all “slaveholding states” [its words] from Delaware to Texas to come to Montgomery and form a new nation): > [@Rep. E.S. Dargan on why war is unavoidable and a confederacy must be formed](#): > > Mr. President, if pecuniary loss alone were involved in the abolition of slavery, I should hesitate long before I would give the vote I now intend to give. If the destruction of slavery entailed on us poverty alone, I could bear it, for I have seen poverty and felt its sting. But poverty, Mr. President, would be one of the least of the evils that would befall us from the abolition of African slavery. There are now in the slaveholding States over four millions of slaves; dissolve the relation of master and slave, and what, I ask, would become of that race? To remove them from amongst us is impossible. History gives us no account of the exodus of such a number of persons. We neither have a place to which to remove them, nor the means of such removal. They therefore must remain with us; and if the relation of master and slave be dissolved, and our slaves turned loose amongst us without restraint, they would either be destroyed by our own hands-- the hands to which they look, and look with confidence, for protection-- or we ourselves would become demoralized and degraded. The former result would take place, and we ourselves would become the executioners of our own slaves. To this extent would the policy of our Northern enemies drive us; and thus would we not only be reduced to poverty, but what is still worse, we should be driven to crime, to the commission of sin; and we must, therefore, this day elect between the Government formed by our fathers (the whole spirit of which has been perverted), and POVERTY AND CRIME! This being the alternative, I cannot hesitate for a moment what my duty is. I must separate from the Government of my fathers, the one under which I have lived, and under which I wished to die. There were similar speeches in every state. The Confederacy was formed to keep slavery legal, blacks in their place and the status quo of the races. That’s what this flag symbolizes. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/64 "2006-02-06T04:48:27Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I probably would ignore it, **MGibson** , because I’m a grownup. But if we’re talking about kids, then I don’t think it’s wise to expect them to just ignore blatant jackassery. And if we’re talking about an environment where people are expected to interact with one another respectfully and civilly, I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to restrict controversial symbols in that environment. 😉 It’s nice to see that we’re both grownups. I was in Gatlinburg, Tenn is mid-December this past year and walked by a young man wearing a hoodie with a bright red swastika on the left breast. First time I’d ever seen someone wearing a swastika in public that I could recall. I’m curious about other controversial symbols. Wearing a black armband to protest the Vietnam war was certainly controversial but that isn’t enough to stifle free speech. How about being disruptive? Well, if I wear a t-shirt supporting gay rights and a bunch of people feel the need to make a big deal out of it isn’t that disruptive? Marc ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/65 "2006-02-06T06:24:43Z")
Symbols are tricky things. Is one completely free to define the meaning of a symbol as one sees fit? Or is it ultimately futile to dismiss any associations that others may draw upon viewing it. Is there a preponderance of cultural influence which defines a symbol’s meaning despite one’s intentions OTOneH and someone’s PC paranoi OTOtherH? After all, if you’re displaying it you undoubtedly mean whatever you think the viewer will see it as meaning. The flag in question is one of the primary emblems of the Confederate cause. And the preservation of slavery in at least part of the North American continent is central to the Confederate cause. It is therefore disingenous for anyone to distance the flag from the issue of slavery. And **Sampiro’s** point was an excellent one: Many Southerners are Black; any acceptible definition of “Southern Heritage” must be inclusive rather than exclusive to this segment of the group in question. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/66 "2006-02-06T06:49:59Z")
I’ll tell you why white rural working-class guys wear or display the Confederate flag: Because you’re not supposed to. They know it pisses people off. It’s a symbol of defiant pride. It’s far less about racism than it is about spitting in the face of “the man.” Goes all the way back to the old Scottish and Irish peasants being pissed off at their lords. There is a spirit of masculine bravado in the Scots-Irish whom so many of these Southerners are descended from, and that spirit is still among them today. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/67 "2006-02-06T07:31:51Z")
> [@](#): > > cracker bling bling I’m lovin’ it. Intend to steal the phrase (I don’t know why I never came across it before…) ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/68 "2006-02-06T07:37:24Z")
> [@AFAIKnow](#): > > The same could be said of the Christian cross. I never get the fact that so many otherwise intelligent people on these boards have the attitude that things should be regarded only how they regard them because it is their opinion. In the South the Rebel Flag has been seen as a symbol of Southern Pride my whole life. I should regard it only as how you see it because why, you say so? **SOUTHERN PRIDE//** what the fuck are you proud of, losing? (actually, that was your smartest move–had you won, you would be a white replica of Haiti, only less educated.) ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/69 "2006-02-06T07:39:29Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#): > > I’ll tell you why white rural working-class guys wear or display the Confederate flag: > > Because you’re not supposed to. > > They know it pisses people off. It’s a symbol of defiant pride. It’s far less about racism than it is about spitting in the face of “the man.” Goes all the way back to the old Scottish and Irish peasants being pissed off at their lords. There is a spirit of masculine bravado in the Scots-Irish whom so many of these Southerners are descended from, and that spirit is still among them today. No, they wear it because they know that they have no future, and therefor hope to create the illusion that he once had a past ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/70 "2006-02-06T08:09:13Z")
**Alaric** , I suggest you take it to the pit if you’re going to be so damn rude. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/71 "2006-02-06T09:20:51Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#): > > **Alaric** , I suggest you take it to the pit if you’re going to be so damn rude. I take it then that you have no substantive reply. Sorry 'bout your tender feelings, southern man…(pace Neal Young…) ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/72 "2006-02-06T09:25:23Z")
- white rural working-class guys\* The snaggle tooth cream rises to the top… ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/73 "2006-02-06T09:34:10Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > - white rural working-class guys\* > > The snaggle tooth cream rises to the top… note to mods: I am not implying that Doper Towers, (or any other poster to whom I responded) is, him or herself, guilty of poor dental hygeine. Nor would I accuse any doper here present of having no future… My reference is restricted to the snaggle toothed rednecks whose personal frolics include the display of a detested, despised and disgusting symbol of a detetabble, despicable and disgusting system. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/74 "2006-02-06T12:14:30Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#): > > I’ll tell you why white rural working-class guys wear or display the Confederate flag: > > Because you’re not supposed to. So white rural working-class guys have the maturity of pissed off teenage boys? Explains the monster trucks and stripper mud flaps. All the anti-black, anti-Jew and anti-Arab paraphernalia I saw at the Greer flea market would seem to indicate defiant hate rather than just defiant pride. I mean if it’s just pride, why all the anger? Any successful ethnic-themed shop runs the possibility of having some product that’s racist towards some other group. But when a casual glance at the offered ware reveals most of it’s bigoted and racist, that tells me a lot about the mindset of the storeowner and the clientele. Jewish vendors sell anti-Palestinian newspapers and literature. Palestinians storeowners rail against Zionist Israel and the morally bankrupt America. Black racists have books revealing the “truth” about Jewish conspiracies and white folks. White racists hate everybody, including liberals, feminists, kikes, fags, redskins and sand-niggers. No bulked-up Marine-cut white man with hate group ink selling eight foot tall Nazi flag swastikas roadside while urging white customers not to by produce from the Mexican co-op next door is gonna convince me that’s just Scot-Irish bravado. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/75 "2006-02-06T15:38:04Z")
> [@AFAIKnow](#): > > No one still alive has levied war on behalf of the CSA… OK, and this means what? > [@AFAIKnow](#): > > …The CSA is not, I repeat not, an enemy of the United States… Is not? The CSA ceased to exist when the last of the Confederate forces surrendered in June 1865, right? You tell me what it was, if it wasn’t an self declared enemy of the USA. Ya know, the Battle of Fort Sumter and all. > [@AFAIKnow](#): > > …Even if there where such a place, it surrendered. Again, not an enemy… If there where such a place? The CSA did exist, right? Had a Constitution (with references to the formation of a “permanent federal government”), President, Vice President, Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, and Navy, a Postmaster General, an Attorney General, a Senate and House of Representatives, printed currency, engaged in international diplomacy (Pope Pius IX addressed a letter “to the Illustrious and Honorable Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America”) etc. (It looks like a country to my eyes! I don’t know what else you’d call it. ) Was taking control of military/naval installations, ports, and custom houses within their boundaries not an act of war? If Mexico had acted similarly wouldn’t that have made them an enemy of the USA? > [@AFAIKnow](#): > > …Also, would you consider someone displaying the Iraq flag during the start of the war treason?.. Who, where? At an anti-war or a pro-war rally? Which Iraqi flag? The [1963](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Iraq_flag%281963%29_large.png) flag at any rally could be seen as being in support of the Iraqi people. The [1991](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Iraq_flag_large_1991.png) Ba’ath party flag? Not so much (to say the least!). Some have argued these words,"…in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort…", would make it treason, “…No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court…” but I think it’s a big stretch to call displaying a flag, an overt act of aid and comfort. What would you make of a German (post reunification) proudly displaying this [flag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_East_Germany.svg), I’d question his patriotism. > [@Sampiro](#): > > …the [successor](http://attitudecentral.blogspot.com/iraqi%20flag.jpg) flag… Iraq never adopted that one, this is probably going to be (if it isn’t already) the new [flag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Iraq.svg) > [@AFAIKnow](#): > > …The same could be said of the Christian cross… Give me a break. How’d you like it if you couldn’t wear the symbols of your religion without people thinking your a [Nazi](http://www.adl.org/hate_symbols/Pagan_graphics.asp)? > [@AFAIKnow](#): > > …I never get the fact that so many otherwise intelligent people on these boards have the attitude that things should be regarded only how they regard them because it is their opinion. In the South the Rebel Flag has been seen as a symbol of Southern Pride my whole life. I should regard it only as how you see it because why, you say so?.. Aren’t southerners doing the same? Haven’t they been the ones redefining the meaning of the Rebel Flag? Unlike the symbols the Nazi’s co-opted, the Confederate flag has no history beyond the civil war. If you want to be a Germanic/Viking inspired neo-pagan your stuck with the baggage attached to the symbols. What other choice do you have? Southerners do have a choice, they can chose a symbol without the baggage. > [@MGibson](#): > > …Not according to the United States. If the soldiers were citizens of the CSA and not the USA then Lincoln wouldn’t have bothered to come up with his 10% plan and pardon the vast majority of those who rebelled… Since Lincoln’s position was,[ > [@](#): > > Abraham Lincoln > First Inaugural Address > > …Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?.. > > …It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances… ]([http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html](http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html)) calling them anything other than US citizens would have been an acknowledgment that secession had occurred. If that was done, what was to stop another group of states from trying it again in the future? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/76 "2006-02-06T17:39:06Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > Any successful ethnic-themed shop runs the possibility of having some product that’s racist towards some other group. But when a casual glance at the offered ware reveals most of it’s bigoted and racist, that tells me a lot about the mindset of the storeowner and the clientele. Jewish vendors sell anti-Palestinian newspapers and literature. Palestinians storeowners rail against Zionist Israel and the morally bankrupt America. Black racists have books revealing the “truth” about Jewish conspiracies and white folks. White racists hate everybody, including liberals, feminists, kikes, fags, redskins and sand-niggers. > > No bulked-up Marine-cut white man with hate group ink selling eight foot tall Nazi flag swastikas roadside while urging white customers not to by produce from the Mexican co-op next door is gonna convince me that’s just Scot-Irish bravado. Fine, but we’re referring to different groups of people. Not everyone with a Confederate flag is the kind of evil racist you’re describing. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/77 "2006-02-06T18:55:45Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > - white rural working-class guys\* > > The snaggle tooth cream rises to the top… As the descendant of several generations of white rural working-class guys, and as the possessor of an interesting orthidontic signature (i.e. my in_denture_ documents would be quite unmistakable) and as somebody who like most living people in my family and my demographic has never waved a rebel flag or burned a cross, might I courteously invite y’all to (what forum is this… not pit? okay then) shove a pipin’ hot seasoned cast iron skillet filled with sizzlin’ bacon grease up y’all’s bee-hind. So do you speak to the blue-gummed wooly-headed stereotypes of black guys and Coke-bottle glasses revenue hoarding stereotypes of Asians you disagree with or jost to rural white guys? As for the Southern Pride crack, I’ll give the benefit of a doubt that it’s limited to those who use the Confederate naval flag as it’s symbol, though I will say that the South does not now and has never held a monopoly on any evil or injustice. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/78 "2006-02-06T19:01:43Z")
Hear, hear. I’m sick of these slurs. These rural white working-class Americans we’re referring to have been shit on so much throughout this country’s history, from the day their Irish ancestors came here as indentured servants (white slaves) all the way up until the present day, and they’ve taken it all and continued grinding away and keeping our country’s rusty machinery going. Why is it acceptable to throw insults and stereotypes their way, but all other ethnicities are out of bounds? ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/79 "2006-02-06T21:18:51Z")
_white rural working-class guys,_ White:race Rural:location Working Class:economic status perhaps the “white” part may be construed to support a protest from the Cracker Anti-Defamation League, but I submit that it is too broad a category to be thus suspect. The other two characteristics have NOTHING to do with ethnicity but EVERYTHING to do with social mores. Hell, some of my best friends are southern. I’ve even fucked a few… ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934/80 "2006-02-06T22:03:40Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > _white rural working-class guys,_ > > White:race > Rural:location > Working Class:economic status > > perhaps the “white” part may be construed to support a protest from the Cracker Anti-Defamation League, but I submit that it is too broad a category to be thus suspect. > > The other two characteristics have NOTHING to do with ethnicity but EVERYTHING to do with social mores. > > Hell, some of my best friends are southern. I’ve even fucked a few… 1. _Cracker_ is a racial slur, in case you’re not familiar. Even if you’re white, I resent its use. 2. I grew up in rural Alabama- VERY rural Alabama- knowing people ranging from middle class to poverty of all genders and ages. Let me absolutely and as an expert witness assure you that there is **NOTHING** that is uniform among these people. I’ve known working class rural whites who were Christlike and who were objectively evil, who were brilliant and who were retarded, who were well educated and who were illiterate, who were ardently racist and who didn’t have a racist membrane in any cell of their body. \*DON’T YOU DARE PRESUME TO TELL ME WHAT **I** as somebody who was raised working class rural white Southern male think about race, nationalism or any other Og damned thing! (I’m from a family of three children who grew up in the same house with the same parents and we have three very different sets of views on all major social issues- there’s little to nothing that’s true of all members of this or any other social grouping.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-confederate-flag-in-public-schools/342934.md?page=5)