That’s certainly true in some cases. However, since there are some people who see that flag as being about things other than racism (whether or not it’s historically justified), when you say anyone who displays it is A, B, or C, there’s more going on that just criticizing a flag.
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But their, inaccurate, subjective, opinion on the topic really does not matter to me, at all. I’m not trying to be rude to you personally. I fail to see why you think that I would care about the subjective opinion of someone on the wrong side of a debate.
No, not saying that at all. The South started the war. I just wish it had not gone that way. There was provocation on both sides. However, in the election of Lincoln, the South perceived provocation that (in my opinion) wasn’t really there.
I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I was defending the southern position or suggesting there was some kind of northern aggression. That’s not what I meant at all. Slavery had to go, I just wish it hadn’t gone this way. I was responding specifically to the comment of “glad the North thrashed the South.” The North HAD to win; the alternative is unthinkable. But I can’t say I’m glad that the south got thrashed. I’m sorry it came to that. That’s all I was saying.
Agreed. But what they did…the Civil War and its aftermath…ye gods, I am still amazed by what an immense horror it turned into.
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The South’s government lost. Many, many Southerners won, by virtue of emancipation.
Sometimes I forget that there are some good reasons for southern pride. Thanks for reminding me.
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I don’t, but I assume you realize that this isn’t a private conversation between just the two of us, right?
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You sound kind of like someone defending their drunk uncle who has been to rehab 7 times. If only you knew how to talk to Uncle Henry he might change…
Seriously? You missed the point I was making by that far?
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And you sound like, because you know my Uncle Henry, you believe that ALL my uncles are drunks.
Here is the part that really annoys me: It’s the little suggestions that all the racists are in the South. My drunk uncle yells in the street, while yours stays quietly inside. You want to talk to me about what I’m going to do about my loud drunk uncle while pretending that you don’t have one.
You can keep calling him a drunk and see if it does any good, but I get really annoyed when the suggestion is that my whole family is a bunch of drunks.
Man, I don’t think I could stretch that metaphor any more if I tried.
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What you said is that pissing of Northerners was a “positive effect” of the flag, and then contrasted that with saying that “intimidating black people” was a “downside.” So, yeah, I’m going to stand by my characterization of your earlier post as being okay with being a dick to Northerners. If you want to walk that back now, I won’t hold you to it, but that’s a pretty clear plain text interpretation of your post.
I’d also argue that the difference between “pissing off” and “insulting” is largely academic, for the purposes of this discussion.
Also the instigating side, and the least morally defensible side. If Southerners are justified in someway over being dicks to Northerners over Reconstruction, it would seem to me that Northerners have an equal justification in being dicks to Southerners over starting the fucking war in the first place.
But there really weren’t that many racist people in NYC. Maybe there are a lot of them in Ohio and North Dakota and Montana and Indiana. Maybe, IDK. But I’m only familiar with NYC, South Georgia and North Georgia. And in South Georgia, not North Georgia but South Georgia there are LOTS of racists. Most of them mildly racist. But lots of them.
What is Alabama like, are the big cities there decidedly less racist?
You’re right. And here we are. Northerners are calling southerners ignorant racists and southerners are waving confederate flags under their noses. And both sides feel totally justified. Awesome outcome.
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Less racist than what? Smaller cities and towns? Generally, yes. However, I don’t think city size is as important as education. So, for example, I would say that Huntsville and Tuscaloosa are less racist than Montgomery. I think Birmingham is somewhere in the middle.
Compared to when I was a kid, there are a lot less “loud” racists and a lot more “quiet” ones. Which is an improvement, I guess.
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It’s actually pretty simple. What’s he’s trying to do is reclaim the symbol, just like black people have with “nigger.”
In fact, using “nigger” would work with your argument. Words are just symbols, after all. Do we let white people go around and say “nigger” means something different to them?
The thing is, the oppressed have the right to try and reclaim a symbol of their oppression and change it’s meaning. The oppressed do not. White people can’t reclaim the Confederate flag any more than they can reclaim “nigger.”
Education level? Really? In this town, Americus Ga, in between Albany, Columbus, Macon, like literally in between that triangle of larger towns. My point is, it is a hub. lots of small towns surround us. The population here is 20,000 in town, 30,000 combined int the county. Maybe it is an anomaly, the way it is here, maybe it is more racist here than in larger towns like Albany, Columbus, Macon and Valdoata. IDK, I’ve never lived in those places. IDK what it is like in these smaller towns around here with 15,000 or 10,000 people or less. My reaction would be to say they are all full of mildly racist people, all of South Georgia but I do not state that as a fact. What I do know is that in this town, where my sister is a school teacher and her husband is a sheriffs deputy, I get to meet a lot of people from all levels of society. Every level here seems to have a lot of mildly racist people. Position and/or education level seem to have very little bearing on whether a person is racist or not.
What does seem to be a factor is their innate personality. Certain people, certain individuals seems to break away from the conformity of growing up here. But not that many. And once again, it is mildly racist people, not severely racist. The amount of people I have met who hate black people is small, almost non existent. The amount of people who are mildly racist, with a derogatory or patronizing view of black people, seems to be, almost all the white people here.
The level of conformity here is stifling. I’ve been told that if I want to make friends here do not let it be known that I am an Atheist, or that I support the NAACP or that ACLU or that I am against the NRA or that I think the 10 commandments do not belong in a court room, I’ve been told to avoid all of those topics in this town. People here are very friendly. They are also very judgmental and clannish.
Would you say that all of rural Alabama and Rural Georgia are this way or is this one town for some reason worse?
Hey, you guys started it. Don’t start a war, or continue it symbolically, if you don’t want people disagreeing with you.
And that flag has fuck all to do with what southerners SHOULD be proud of.
I don’t want to get into the semantics of it, and it would be a hijack to get into it here, but if you’d put post 195 in a Pit thread, I’d have given you a mod note for it. GD isn’t my forum, though, and it looks like tom felt the insults took precedence.
Here’s the problem with this comparison: there is no B in this thread. Nobody (I don’t think) has come in and said, “I fly that flag.” So this is already a very different type of conversation. The Overton window here isn’t over “People who fly the flag,” and “People who don’t,” it’s between “People who don’t fly the flag, and think nobody should,” and “People who don’t fly the flag, and don’t care if other people do.”
Obviously, this could change with the very next post, if somebody who does fly the Confederate flag shows up. But none of the posts you’ve been objecting to have been made in the context of getting a person to stop displaying the flag. They’ve been in the context of what’s the appropriate way for others to react to seeing someone display the flag.
Oddly enough, the only person I see in this thread whose othering Southerners is yourself. You’re the one who keeps having to explain them to us poor ignorant Yankees, like your some species of rare bird. Your bar fight scenarios, for example, are not particular to the South. That’s how people would react to that sort of thing out here, too.
Seriously? Some guy says to you, “Yeah, I’m a Nazi,” and your response is, “Well, let’s hear him out?”
It’s a difficult balancing act. We do moderate for group insults, but we also want to balance that against not suppressing legitimate points of view, and not requiring everyone to post like robots.
You’re still confusing “People who display the Confederate flag,” with “Southerners.”
Smartass: the desire to use a racist symbol, even out of rebellion, is still racist. Let say some black person calls me racist. I still don’t get to call them a “nigger.” I may wish to rebel, but I still don’t get to do that.
And the fact that anyone wants to do so, despite knowing the fact that it is such a gross offense to black people, shows racism. One of those who they are saying “fuck you” to are black people as a whole. And that’s wrong.
Indeed. The thread was started by a Southerner who doesn’t think he’s particularly racist or ignorant. I’m a southerner who does get pretty pissed off when folks from outside the region make sweeping declarations about the South.
But I also think it’s complete bullshit to treat any criticism of any aspect of Southern culture as an attack on all Southerners. It comes across as an attempt to destroy the conversation.