I agree with you on the equivalence. But I doubt we arrive at the same conclusion.
No, because the Inquisition was not the core concept of Christianity. Slavery, OTOH, was the Confederacy’s Jesus Christ. Without it, it had no reason to exist.
I’d venture to guess that anyone wearing a Klan-hood for non-racist reasons is either crazy or a modern artist trying to make some inane point. But at the end of the day, it’s not on me to decide why someone is doing something. If a person says that he’s not racist, he’s not hurting anyone of a particular race, and seems to genuinely believe whatever contrived logic got him to the point where he’s wearing a Klan hood and yet working for the NAACP, then well…fine. Personally, I have better things to do than convince people that certain configurations of colors and lines are magically soul-eating and eternally wretched.
Up to the point where someone’s going around shooting people, blowing up churches, poisoning wells, or lobbying for discriminatory laws, I’m not seeing any value in declaring that the things people do aren’t for the reasons they say that they are.
I’d keep 'em on a watch list and double-check that list with people who are buying lots of fertilizer. But I wouldn’t call them a racist if they’re seemingly resolute that they’re as color-blind as a ray of sunlight. There’s just no value in doing so. Either you’re right (surprise!) and haven’t accomplished anything, since they’ll still be a racist. Or you’re wrong, and you’ve been harassing someone who isn’t a racist.
And where did the people of Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri get the brilliant idea of holding Africans as slaves? From their fucking friends in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.
Also, the notion that the CSA was fundamentally different from the USA is belied by the fact that they had the same Constitutions. The major difference being that the South’s constitution specifically referred to “slaves” rather than using the North’s euphemism.
Moreover, this obnoxious argument that the CSA was worse than the USA is predicated on what? The belief that it was better to be a slave in Kentucky than a slave in Mississippi? Were slaves in Missouri supposed to feel better about being owned because they were still in the Union and inheritors of the Declaration of Independence while slaves in Arkansas were stuck being owned in that evil Confederacy?
I think being a slave was pretty shitty either way.
And thank God Washington wasn’t a racist, or a white supremacist, or a slave owner. What kind of country would a man like that have founded?
FYI: A Pew Poll from 2011 reports that 9% of Americans have a positive reaction to the flag, with 30% having a negative reaction, and 58% having neither a positive nor negative reaction (Surprisingly, 45% of black people polled had no reaction).
My perspective (first gen. American, lifelong Northerner): The biggest difference between the hood and the flag is the difference between active racism and passive racism. I think of someone who supports or affiliates with the Klan as actively involved and committed to furthering white supremacy. It’s a lot more of a personal investment than putting a flag decal on the back of your pickup. There’s a singular purpose to putting on that hood, whereas the flag could have more than one meaning to an individual.
TBH I never even saw one of those decals in person, but it puts me in mind of a certain stereotype: Uneducated/low income, fervent gun rights advocate, reactionary right wing politics. I wouldn’t be surprised if such a person was misinformed or ignorant of the true history beyond what they were told by equally ignorant friends or relatives. If you read the comments section of the latest articles about the issue, you might think the main reason for supporting the flag is to “stick it to the gun grabbing PC liberal/left wingers”.
I certainly don’t think the flag should fly on government property, but I wonder about what we can expect from people with ancestors who fought and died in the war. Is it realistic to expect them to think of their dead as racist traitors? Imagine someone who enlisted for the Iraq war because he wanted to “kill a bunch of ragheads”. What if he ends up a casualty. Are we going expect his friends and family to spit on his grave and say, “Well, one less bigot in our midst!”? I’m not especially patriotic or nationalistic, and decidedly anti-war, but how we memorialize fallen soldiers is a tricky subject.
The whole country’s history is tainted by slavery; are the northern states so innocent of benefiting from slavery that they can rightfully demonize the south as the sole perpetrators? We have slaveholders on our currency, and memorials for them in our capital.
And that’s the best I can do as far as arguing as a devil’s advocate. I’m betting we’ll see even less public support for the flag after what happened in SC, but I’m not confident it will make a big difference in the racism that still pervades our society.
But Washington stood for a lot more than just those things.
Now take the Confederate States of America. Think of all the things it stand for. Now subtract everything that the United States of America also stands for. What do you have left?
Fighting for slavery and fighting against the United States: that’s the unique heritage of the Confederacy. These are the only two things the CSA did that the USA didn’t also do.
You just swapped the US for Washington and broke your own argument. Take Washington, subtract everything the CSA stood for, including the white supremacy you acknowledge in your first sentence, and fighting against having laws made elsewhere forced upon him/them. What do you have left?
I generally agree with this. My experience (so, FWIW) indicates that the battle flag wavers tend to be lower-educated people with a bit of a strong tribal streak that is often tinted, and sometimes strongly so, with racist undertones. But I usually judge people by what they do.
But the OP’s argument is that a KKK hood, if hand-waved away for the same reasons flag animus is, is largely analogous to embracing the battle flag–from a logical standpoint. Both had origins in–and in fact, their main purposes were–to advance white supremacy at the cruel expense of the black man. Whatever motives one has in their allegiance to either, that’s indisputable (to me). I suppose one might be ignorant of such things, but that doesn’t change it.
But the OP, ISTM, is in reaction to those who are well aware of the history, but who argue that the flag means something different to them. He is responding to those typical arguments that rationalize why the flag is not the despicable symbol people make it out to be. “Okay,” says the OP, “then would you be as supportive of a KKK hood if a similar sentiment were behind it?”
So, regardless of what we do or don’t do in reaction to such allegiance, I think they’re pretty analogous, which was the OP’s question.
Yes, the USA was pretty bad back then, but many states in the north had ended slavery. They were better than the CSA, which enshrined slavery and white supremacy as the reasons for its existence.
Also, the fact that many states in the north had ended slavery, and the CSA enshrined it as a permanent institution, and the CSA mandated white supremacy and slavery as the primary reasons for its existence.
Again, the USA was pretty bad, but the CSA was much, much worse.
Probably because the USA wasn’t (at the time) enshrined upon white supremacy and slavery with many states having outlawed slavery, and the CSA was.
Being a black person in the north was, in general, much, much better than being a black person in the south, because in the north one had a much higher likelihood of not being a slave.
In order to embrace the Rebel Flag you have to be good with Slavery. It goes hand in hand. And yep, there are things about other flags that aren’t pretty, but Slavery and Racism for profit was the reason for succession in the first place.
And killing Jews wasn’t the core concept of Naziism, either. But it was as much an IMPORTANT part of Naziism as The Inquisition was to Catholicism.
I daresay it’s possible to display a Confederate flag without being racist - I watched multiples seasons of The Dukes of Hazzard and the flag was prominently painted on the roof of the main characters’ car, I guess as a symbol of general rebellion. I don’t recall the show ever having a racist moment, but it was essentially a live-action cartoon with matching depth.
Come to think of it, I don’t recall the fictional Hazzard County having any black residents. Black characters would occasionally appear, typically from out of town.
I understand the 2005 film had some moments where the car’s flag provokes other characters to accuse the Dukes of racism, but I take this as mocking the innocence of the series.
What other cross would a Catholic wear, but a Christian one?
Who’s doing this?
You are saying there are people adopting a symbol of the KKK, presumably for making some sort of statement about race. How is this not support specifically for the KKK and for all that it stands for?
I expect that if I talk to anyone wearing a hood like that is racist or naive and convinced it wasn’t racist by one of the most racist people we have.
You may have heard the phrase “sold down the river”.
Nazi efficiency? The same guys who valued craftsmanship and awesomeness over mass-production, despite Hitler’s professed love for Henry Ford? Shit, they didn’t put on a second or third shift until it was too late.
One serious problem the Confederate symbols have is that those states that seceded didn’t repent and sin no more after the American Civil War was over. No, they tried their darndest to subjugate blacks well into the modern era. Things might be different had the states wiped the slate clean and tried to make amends.
Which also brings me back to the Catholic Church and the Inquisition. Did the Church ever fully disavow the actions it took during that time? I honestly don’t know, but I do believe the Inquisition was not actually disbanded until well into the 19th century, no? I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools, and this was never discussed.
ANY Confederate flag says the same thing.
To paraphrase, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own symbology.
Mostly Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas. The others (not counting Maryland–read their state song and remember that the Tyrant is Lincoln) had not based their economies on slavery, so as their people emigrated west (isn’t there a thing in Guns, Germs, and Steel about a preference to migrate along the same latitude?) they set up states that were also mostly slave-free.
Ekers,
“Innocence”? Obviously you have not lived in the South. The Confederate Battle Flag is the icon of the ‘good ole boy’ culture that excludes black citizens. The Dukes were fun loving ‘good ole boys’ reveling in redneck ignorance.
Crane
They changed the name. It’s now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Pope Joey the Rat used to run it. They haven’t executed anybody since 1826, though.