# The white hood: heritage, not hate! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 21, 2015, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050 "2015-06-21T02:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/241 "2015-06-24T01:16:11Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > We understand each other perfectly, we just don’t agree. No, I understand you, but you’re _really_ misunderstanding me, because you think I’m defending the confederate flag, or that I support people waving it around or wearing it on their hats. I’m not, and I don’t. But we’re not going to get southerners to change by insulting them, or suggesting that the South stands for nothing but slavery. That’s my point. That’s my WHOLE point. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/242 "2015-06-24T01:18:54Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I mean that it has already been tried before, many, many, many, many, many, many, times. Please stop pretending that it hasn’t. 50+ years and it is still an issue. How much more time/patience do you need? I don’t need any. Please feel free to continue with your attempts to browbeat southerners into taking down their flags. And, seriously, good luck. I won’t mind at all if you succeed. I’ll just be REALLY surprised. -VM ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/243 "2015-06-24T01:19:15Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > Well, there’s a positive effect: It really pisses off northerners. And I don’t think you can underestimate how satisfying that is to some southerners. I doubt that one “Northerner” in a thousand cares enough to be pissed off, so whatever number of Southerners are behaving that way for the purpose of insulting “northerners” are spinning their wheels to no purpose. There are a number of people in every part of the country who have problems with the Confederacy and its symbols. Such people may be found throughout the nation and anyone who is attempting to insult any geographically identified group by waving the Confederate Battle Flag is going to simply fail in their endeavor. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/244 "2015-06-24T01:23:54Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > No, I understand you, but you’re _really_ misunderstanding me, because you think I’m defending the confederate flag, or that I support people waving it around or wearing it on their hats. I’m not, and I don’t. > > But we’re not going to get southerners to change by insulting them, or suggesting that the South stands for nothing but slavery. That’s my point. That’s my WHOLE point. > > -VM > [@Smartass](#): > > I don’t need any. Please feel free to continue with your attempts to browbeat southerners into taking down their flags. And, seriously, good luck. I won’t mind at all if you succeed. I’ll just be REALLY surprised. > > -VM I’m not interested in changing a racists mind. In the year 2015 that is no longer relevant. In 1965 or 1985 it was very relevant. In 1965 or 1985 it was a worthwhile, realistic goal. But if someone is still a racist in 2015 they are that way simply because they choose to be. At this point bringing social pressure, massive amounts of social pressure, to bully them into keeping their racist inclinations to themself is the only thing that will work. This is 2015, not 1965 or 1985. If they would of changed without social pressure, they would of done it by now. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/245 "2015-06-24T01:23:57Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > At least, your post made me laugh. > > Yes, please, do stop going soft on us… > > -VM It’s been said before, but if you want to secede, I’m OK with it. Def take Texas with you. Or they take you with them more likely. What a country we’d have. The economics of it don’t favor you. So i guess “soft” to me is the economics of supporting a lot of bad local economies and pandering to the hypocritical political prejudices therein. It’s states rights until something bad happens ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/246 "2015-06-24T01:25:00Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > But there is no such thing as a regional identity. Well, there is, but to tie your personal identity to where you are from and from the norms of that culture is not really defining YOU. Believe me, I know what I am talking about. I am a progressive and I lived in NYC for 15 years. I got heavy duty identity out of being a “New Yorker” but since moving away I realize it is foolish to define yourself by a region of where you live. Or by the books and music and movies you like. Or by your Job. External methods of identification are flawed, severely flawed, not only is it an inaccurate way to define yourself, it also leads to tribalism and thought of my group vs other groups. There is just one group. People. It’s a good way of looking at things. But my memories of growing up in the South are part of the me on the inside. By the way, paragraphs like this one aren’t bad. If THIS sort of conversation were how southerners were being approached, I guarantee you’d get a better result. Instead what we get is, within the group of people who fly this flag, there are only 3 kinds of people… And, just remember, this cultural clash is NOT because southerners insist on making northerners feel like outcasts. We can pretend northern racists don’t exist, but the south must answer for their racists, because they fly flags. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/247 "2015-06-24T01:25:44Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > Well, there’s a positive effect: It really pisses off northerners. And I don’t think you can underestimate how satisfying that is to some southerners. The downside is that it also is a message of intimidation to black people. What we have to do is convince more southerners that the pleasure of pissing off northerners isn’t worth the price of suggesting that we have racist beliefs. I don’t think insulting southerners is going to get us there. So, it’s okay if Southerners insult Northerners, just not the other way around? Also, why is it okay to insult Northerners as a group, but not black people as a group? Both are affiliations based on birth, not character or conscious choice. And if you view “pissing off Northerners” as a positive effect of the flag, it seems to me you’ve just ceded a lot of your standing for complaining about being insulted back. ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/248 "2015-06-24T01:28:09Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I doubt that one “Northerner” in a thousand cares enough to be pissed off, so whatever number of Southerners are behaving that way for the purpose of insulting “northerners” are spinning their wheels to no purpose. Well, based on the uproar over the confederate flag, I have to disagree. If no one cared enough to be pissed off, it wouldn’t be all over the news, and this thread wouldn’t be so active. That being said, if we could convince more southerners that no one cares if they fly their ridiculous flags, they’d probably start losing interest in the practice. Am I the only one who’s noticed how much ignorant southerners like to be on the news? -VM ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/249 "2015-06-24T01:30:45Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > It’s been said before, but if you want to secede, I’m OK with it. Def take Texas with you. I think you’ve got me confused with someone else. I don’t want to secede, and I definitely don’t want Texas. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/250 "2015-06-24T01:32:57Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > Well, one is a subset of the other. And there’s no tall fence separating us. So, when you (the general “you”) insult confederate flag wavers, you’re not insulting me specifically, but you’re insulting family and friends. Some of them ARE ignorant racists. Some of them aren’t. > > -VM So? Name one group engaged in a questionable practice that isn’t a subset of a larger, generally inoffensive group. Nazis are a subset of Germans. Al Qaeda is a subset of Islam. Dominionists are a subset of Christians. Nation of Islam is a subset of African Americans. And every member of these groups also have friends or family members that are not members of that group. So what makes Confederate flag wavers so special, that characterizing them in a negative way justifies the direct, personal insults and threats of violence that you have employed in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/251 "2015-06-24T01:35:24Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > It’s a good way of looking at things. But my memories of growing up in the South are part of the me on the inside. > > By the way, paragraphs like this one aren’t bad. If THIS sort of conversation were how southerners were being approached, I guarantee you’d get a better result. Instead what we get is, within the group of people who fly this flag, there are only 3 kinds of people… > > And, just remember, this cultural clash is NOT because southerners insist on making northerners feel like outcasts. > > We can pretend northern racists don’t exist, but the south must answer for their racists, because they fly flags. > > -VM Did you study Ballet? interpretive Modern Dance?You’re feinting and pirrouetting like Isadora Duncan. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/252 "2015-06-24T01:36:36Z")
This thread has pretty much gone to shit; there’s no longer enough substantive discussion happening to make it worthwhile. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Thanks to folks who contributed in a thoughtful way, even those I disagreed with. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/253 "2015-06-24T01:37:53Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So, it’s okay if Southerners insult Northerners, just not the other way around? Also, why is it okay to insult Northerners as a group, but not black people as a group? Both are affiliations based on birth, not character or conscious choice. And if you view “pissing off Northerners” as a positive effect of the flag, it seems to me you’ve just ceded a lot of your standing for complaining about being insulted back. Here here. And there are Black Northerners. Do you want to piss them off too; or intimidate them?; or mutilate and hang them? ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/254 "2015-06-24T01:40:55Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So, it’s okay if Southerners insult Northerners, just not the other way around? If you’re going to carry the argument this way, I’m going to have to insist that you not replace my words for convenience. I said it “pisses off” northerners. I did not say that it insults them. I also did not say that it’s okay. I said that pissing off northerners is satisfying to southerners, primarily BECAUSE northerners get so much joy out of insulting and making fun of southerners. Remember, the South was the losing side. White men (northern AND southern) oppressed black people. After the Civil War, the north oppressed the South, and many northerners continue to disdain southerners. The desire to piss off northerners is not some random southern urge to be insulting, it is a desire to RESPOND to insults. > [@Miller](#): > > And if you view “pissing off Northerners” as a positive effect of the flag, it seems to me you’ve just ceded a lot of your standing for complaining about being insulted back. I have personally been made fun of by northerners (not heart-breakingly so, but enough to be annoying), so I _understand_ the satisfaction that comes from pissing them off. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s _okay_ (going a little Chris Rock here). And flying that awful flag to achieve is certainly not worth it. Not to me. But it is to some southerners, and they’re not much interested in evaluations of their “standing”. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/255 "2015-06-24T01:41:39Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > It’s a good way of looking at things. But my memories of growing up in the South are part of the me on the inside. > > By the way, paragraphs like this one aren’t bad. If THIS sort of conversation were how southerners were being approached, I guarantee you’d get a better result. Instead what we get is, within the group of people who fly this flag, there are only 3 kinds of people… > > And, just remember, this cultural clash is NOT because southerners insist on making northerners feel like outcasts. > > We can pretend northern racists don’t exist, but the south must answer for their racists, because they fly flags. > > -VM Well, as stated, we are in a basic amount of agreement and a basic amount of disagreement. The only thing left, I think, is to understand that when “people” criticize the the flag they are not criticizing the south. To say that southerners don’t have a “reputation” as being racist would be false. That stereotype exists, incorrectly so but it exists. But it is also false to say that people who criticize “the south” can’t see the difference between “good southerners” and “bad southerners”. And, to clarify, if I am standing in line at Wal Mart and I see someone with a confederate flag on their T Shirt I am not going to think bad things about them. I’m going to dislike the flag but I am not going to dislike them. I view that as being a product of their environment. As you said, most southerners are friendly, helpful and pleasant. People here are much more relaxed and friendly than people in NYC. To say that people in the south are nicer than people in NYC would be inaccurate, because people in NYC are nice, and helpful, but they tend to be cynical and self absorbed, southerners are DEFINITELY more relaxed than people from NYC. Anyway, I got distracted, my point is when I see a confederate flag on a T shirt or a pickup truck I don’t think “bad person” I think “product of their environment”. But in this town I see crosses and confederate flags virtually everywhere (church crosses not KKK crosses, my point is people are super religious here too). It wouldn’t make sense for me to go around getting upset every time I saw the confederate flag or a billboard saying jesus loves you. Not in this town. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/256 "2015-06-24T01:42:16Z")
> [@](#): > > I really wish it hadn’t happened. Slavery was unsustainable, and the cracks were already starting to show. If it could have been done peacefully…but the rhetoric kept ramping up until the South was spoiling for a fight. > > Much like the arguments over the confederate flag…the rhetoric keeps ramping up, and southerners just get angrier, pretty much as you’ve suggested. I just don’t see how it’s not obvious that you you’re not going to win over anyone to your side when you lead with, “The evidence clearly shows that you are racist, ignorant, or just an asshole. If you just study history more closely, you’ll see that I’m right.” What I’m getting out of this is that it’s all the free-soilers/abolitionists faults, because they said insulting things about _slavery/slavers_ and provoked the South into starting a war? Because, of course, it’s not like Southerners/Slavers ever said bad things about Northerners/Free-Soilers/Abolitionists. Give me a break. The South controlled the federal government for half a century (in part due to the very unfair three-fifths compromise). When they looked like they were going to lose control, they wanted to leave. It was fine for them to make Federal laws against free states, but lord forbid the shoe be on the other foot. Davis said if any Republican was elected President, he’d revolt. Nothing but blackmail - the actual election procedures laid down weren’t good enough - his party won, or the whole region would walk. Not to mention that the uneasy peace of slave-state-v-free-state of the Missouri Compromise was overturned by legislation passed by future Confederates. It was a fight a long time in the coming - the issue of slavery and the expansion of slavery had been a contentious one for decades, at least. But the slavery-friendly party had controlled the house and senate and at least had sympathy from the President for most of them. The balance of power was shifting and it scared them and they didn’t want to be on the losing end - to ultimately end up _outvoted_ within the existing legal framework. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/257 "2015-06-24T01:48:14Z")
> [@Smartass](#): > > I just don’t see how it’s not obvious that you you’re not going to win over anyone to your side when you lead with, “The evidence clearly shows that you are racist, ignorant, or just an asshole. If you just study history more closely, you’ll see that I’m right.” No, he’s not trying to win them over. He’s insulting them by stating a fact. Insults can be true. > [@Miller](#): > > So what makes Confederate flag wavers so special, that characterizing them in a negative way justifies the direct, personal insults and threats of violence that you have employed in this thread? Well, it all started with chivalry and _Waverly._ Some folks think that’s how you settle arguments. I believe the correct response is a glove across his face and his choice of weapons at dawn. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/258 "2015-06-24T01:51:32Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > That one guy with questionable Jewish ancestry (and non-Jew according to Judaism) became a Field Marshal in Luftwaffe? Or that \*\*one \*\*Jew bizarrely joined a neo-Nazi group? Rare exceptions. A black person actually flying a Confederate flag personally is an equally rare exception, if not more (if one accounts for all the _Mischlings_ who were NSDAP members or served in Wehrmacht). Also considering white admixture into the American black population, it may very well be that the Confederate flag displayer in question is about as proportionately black in heritage as Feldmarschall Milch was Jewish. > [@](#): > > What about 27% of black citizens of South Carolina that support flying the Confederate flag where it is. You can hardly call that a rare exception - can you? Some of the may “support” it due to not being aware of what the Confederate flag actually is. Others may “support” it in the sense that they don’t want the political fighting associated with taking it down as occurred the last time South Carolina tried to at the start of the millennium. ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/259 "2015-06-24T01:52:01Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So? Name one group engaged in a questionable practice that isn’t a subset of a larger, generally inoffensive group. Nazis are a subset of Germans. Al Qaeda is a subset of Islam. Dominionists are a subset of Christians. Nation of Islam is a subset of African Americans. And every member of these groups also have friends or family members that are not members of that group. So what makes Confederate flag wavers so special, that characterizing them in a negative way justifies the direct, personal insults and threats of violence that you have employed in this thread? Just to be clear, I’m pretty sure I haven’t threatened anyone. What I have tried to do is illustrate the way southerners think about the arguments being made. Southerners are not unique in that we respond poorly to insults. However, we may be uniquely ornery. Seriously, how can anyone think that a conversation is going to go like this? A: Based on that flag on your buckle, it’s clear to me that you’re ignorant, a racist, or an asshole. B: Of course, you’re right. I’ll take it off now. Don’t you think it’s more likely to go like this: A: Based on that flag on your buckle, it’s clear to me that you’re ignorant, a racist, or an asshole. B: Are you calling me an asshole? Come a little closer, so I can hear you better. And southerners are a subset of Americans. If you want them to change, I recommend treating them that way, instead of the strange foreign “other”. I’ve said it several times. I’m not in favor of flying the confederate flag, certainly not in public places. I am in favor of not assuming the worst about every member of a group you don’t know. And that would be true of every group you’ve named. And I think it’s interesting that the moderators step in when a single person is insulted, but don’t comment when an entire group is. Not saying it’s wrong, just…interesting. -VM ---
**Author:** ![Smartass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@Smartass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smartass)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050/260 "2015-06-24T01:54:52Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Did you study Ballet? interpretive Modern Dance?You’re feinting and pirrouetting like Isadora Duncan. I don’t dance at all, but thanks, I guess. I am trying to remind myself that I’m not annoyed with everyone here, just certain ones. -VM [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-white-hood-heritage-not-hate/723050.md?page=14)