The white hood: heritage, not hate!

The BBQ Pit
1

Some folks have seen the white hood on the head of southerners and other rebels, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that those wearing the hood are racists. I disagree: wearing a white hood no more indicates racism than flying the Confederate battle flag indicates racism. It’s simply a celebration of southern culture, that rebellious “nobody tell me what to do” spirit that makes the South so great.

But, you might object, the white hood is a symbol of a terrorist group! Well, sure: the white hood is a symbol of a group of white people who engaged in murderous violence in order to preserve white supremacy. But that’s what the confederate flag is as well.

But the confederate flag symbolizes rebellion in the face of an overreaching federal government, you might say. Again, sure: so does that white Klan hood. The Klan formed during Reconstruction, when the federal government was more deeply involved in running southern states than it’s ever been since. Surely if the Flag is a symbol of rebellion, the white hood can be the same thing.

Truly, I see no argument for the waving of the confederate flag that cannot also be applied to the Klan hood. Am I missing something, or should head shops start selling white pillowcases?

(In case a moderator is having trouble seeing the debate: I resolve that arguments in defense of the confederate flag are spurious, and that the validity of the same arguments applied to the Klan uniform will help people see this. People who see a substantive difference between the two symbols are invited to point it out).

2

Um…ok. Sounds good to me.

Anyone like pie? I’m a cake man, myself, but pie is ok sometimes, especially if it’s baked in a wood fired oven with a good tomato based sauce and sausage and peperoni and fresh mozzarella on it (with a bit of basil and some olive oil)…

3

You’re very clever, and we all applaud that about you. Clap! Clap!

Now that we’ve acknowledged you, perhaps someone else cares to address the OP.

4

I buy it. I think many who embrace the battle flag disassociate the disgusting aspects from those that they find appealing: all that Southern pride bullshit, the rebellious spirit, etc. (Though many–most?–find the racist aspect just as attractive.)

But they’re kidding themselves. It’s like someone flying a Nazi flag because they admire German efficiency. Anyway, I think your argument is logical.

5

“Southerners and other rebels”? It seems to me that you left out a determiner there. Not all of us from the South are rebels.

And, yes, anyone seriously sporting a KKK hood is a racist.

6

And what about anyone seriously sporting a confederate flag?

7

So are you referring to the Battle Flag (which was never adopted by the CSA but was used by Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia) or the Stars and Bars (which was a real flag of the CSA) or the Stainless Banner or the Blood-Stained Banner (which were also officially adopted)?

I ask because you used both “Confederate battle flag” and “Confederate flag” in the OP.

8

If you fly the Confederate flag it means you support slavery, racism, etc. Makes sense.

If you fly the American flag it means you support Iraq, Vietnam, and international neo-liberal policies that crush the powerless all around the world, not to mention racist institutions inside the country. Makes sense.

My ancestors are German and English. Flying either of their flags wouldn’t be kosher, either.

Better to divest oneself of all patriotic emblems and tribalistic instincts. Maybe there’s a small tropical country somewhere with a flawless human rights record, but why chance it?

9

Or maybe you fly the American flag in support of the Bill of Rights, the Union Army, the men who fought and died at Normandy Beach and Iwo Jima, the Freedom Riders and the folks who marched to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Thomas Edison and Jonas Salk and the Apollo Program, and of course motherhood and apple pie.

Apart from seceding for the defense of slavery and white supremacy and then losing the ensuing war, what were the accomplishments of the Confederate States of America?

10

The Confederate States of America was not a country that happened to have a flawed human rights record. It was a country that formed in the first place for the specific purpose of perpetuating a human rights violation. That makes any symbols associated with its nationhood inherently problematic in a way that American, English/British, and German patriotic symbols are not. (For all the squeamishness Europeans, especially Germans, have about patriotism today, any unfortunate implications of their expressions of patriotism are more ambiguous than those of the CSA.)

11

I believe that the devil’s advocate position would be:

A lot of arguments fail because the person making the argument starts out by deciding that A means Blah. For example, he will say that, “Republicanism is the hatred of Gay People.” And subsequently, he’ll have lost the argument because there’s people who hate homosexuals on both sides of the political spectrum and those who are supportive of homosexuals on both sides.

Almost any statement he could make, to try and define “Republicanism” is going to fail because we’re not talking about a sharply defined thing. There is no real definition beyond, “It’s a group that people self-identify as Republican, each based on their own belief as to what that participation means.”

What is a woman? That’s a question that many have been asking themselves recently, since there’s also the theory that men and women are no different and should not be treated any different. Yet we have people who strongly insist that they be called and identified as. Ultimately, we all have to take a step back and assume that anyone who wants to be called a woman has that right.

What the Confederate flag means is not something that is decided by you. Sure, if everyone decides to cede control of the definition of American symbology to you, then you can say that, “The Confederate Flag stood for racism and evil.” But last I heard, there was no arbiter of American symbology, let alone choosing you to be that person.

So unless you think that it would be impossible to find someone who says, “No, the flag just means ‘state’s rights’.” or, “No, the flag just means ‘being respectful to people who died to protect their homes’.” Then I would have to say that your entire argument shrinks down to No True Scotsman. So while I personally would agree that the Confederate flag is pretty heinous, and anyone who thinks otherwise is probably being pretty cherry-picky with their history, that still doesn’t mean that your argument is a good one.

12

Your post mirrors Southerners who when challenged for flying the stars and bars launch into a loquacious defense of Southern culture and wax poetic about their heritage while ignoring all the horrible parts.

You can tell yourself you don’t support the bad things, just like Southerners will tell you they don’t support slavery or Jim Crow and so on.

13

Let’s distinguish between two kinds of meaning. (Ultimately, I’d love to be able to argue that the distinction I’m about to make actually falls apart on analysis but I won’t go that far here.)

There’s what a symbol means to someone, and then, there’s what the use of the symbol means. I’ll call the former relative meaning and the latter objective meaning.

Lots of people think that what relative meaning is all the meaning there is. Others think that the only objective meaning there can be is some kind of aggregation of all the relative meaning.

Both views are wrong, (though the second will often do for a quick rule of thumb). Alongside and in addition to and not determined by all the relative meanings, there is also a separate objective meaning. The objective meaning is determined, not by all the relative meanings, but rather, by the effects of the ongoing use of the symbol.

Even if every single person, black white or whatever, were saying, and truly believing, that what the flag means to them is freedom from undue governmental control, we could still check and see whether the use of the flag tends to reinforce racist structures. If it did, then that would be part of the meaning of the symbol, whether anyone affirmed it or not.

The actual case, of course, is much less fantastic. Use of the flag has direct, racialized effects, at least as shown by the facts about its meaning relative to almost all black people and a large swath of non-black people as well (relative meaning is a psychological fact, and what the psychological facts are is objective, so the facts about relative meaning can in this way contribute to the psychological meaning), and that’s not to mention the way its use reinforces associations, institutions, and attitudes which have viciously racially disparate effects.

A confederate flag wearer may genuinely have not a single racist thought in his head, but this will not change the facts about the objective meaning of the symbol he is using. The objective meaning is to be found in the way the use of the symbol creates negative feelings and circumstances for black people, as well as in the way it gives him a sense of pride or whatever. Once it’s all weighed in the balance, the only decent thing for him to do, whatever its meaning relative to him, is to stop using the symbol, on account of its objective meaning.

14

Saying “I support the Confederate States of America, but I don’t support slavery” is about like saying “I fly the United States flag because I love America…but of course I don’t support the Declaration of Independence, or the American Revolution, or the Constitution, or a republican form of government, and naturally I think George Washington and company should have been hanged as traitors. God save the Queen! (But, uh, baseball’s a pretty good game, and I do like hot dogs.)”

15

No, saying, “I support the CSA but I don’t support slavery” is like saying, “I support the USA but I don’t support slavery.”

Slavery was legal and practiced in all 13 colonies at the signing of the Declaration of Independence (1776). Slavery existed far longer under the USA than it ever did under the CSA: 1776-1865 for the U.S., 1861-1865 for C.S. Slavery was practiced in more states in the U.S. than in the C.S.: 22 versus 11. And the U.S. Constitution enshrined and protected slavery in our founding document way before the Confederacy even existed.

There’s a reason that there is a 13th Amendment: because that was what was required to change OUR Constitution to outlaw the perfectly legal institution of slavery! (And it wasn’t adopted until AFTER the Civil War was over.)

16

Those aren’t comparable as pointed out by several others in this thread. The American Revolution did not happen and the United States of America was not founded for the purpose of preserving and expanding the institution of human slavery-the Confederate States of America was. By this sort of nonsense, the United States is fundamentally misogynistic since women (apparently with the exception of New Jersey) had no right to vote when it was founded.

17

I’m sympathetic to the OP, but being a damn Yankee, I might be biased. If one accepts the OP’s logic, does one have to accept that a Catholic wearing a Christian Cross is showing support for the Inquisition?

18

Quite.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

That is the ideology which the founding fathers of the United States claimed to be basing their new country on. (Of course they were being hypocrites. They made a claim which wasn’t even close to being true for another century, or arguably closer to two.)

The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union: “We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union: “In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.”

A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union: “[Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time…We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable. That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.”

Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, March 21, 1861: “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

That is the ideology which the founding fathers of the Confederacy claimed to be basing their new country on.

19

Sage rat, I know you were playing Devil’s Advocate, but bring your argument back to the OP. Does that same logic apply to someone who sports a KKK hood, but claims to do so for similar non-racist reasons (however likely it is to kind such a person claiming not to be racist)? If yes, I’d say we’re stretching the True Scotsman reasoning to ridiculous limits. If no, why not?

20

Well you’re quite obviously missing that your comparison in the end relies on comparing and finding equal:
A) The klan = all the states of the Confederacy
B) Klansmen = every confederate soldier and non-slave citizen of the Confederacy

I’m not saying that it doesn’t work as an analogy to illustrate some of the problems of the arguments for the confederate flag, but these are question of emotion and what weight various arguments have. By the same rules, as has already been pointed out, the stars and stripes is the symbol of massive land theft, attempted genocide etc. etc.