The white hood: heritage, not hate!

[Miller]

@Smartass

I sometimes forget how long it’s been since I posted here, and there are probably people here that aren’t aware how much I enjoy creating dramatic narratives as part of my, er, arguments.

Okay. Just to be equally clear, we don’t give people a pass for violating the board rules just because they’ve couched their terms in a hypothetical. “I’m going to kick your ass,” and “If we were in a bar and you said that to me, I’d kick your ass,” both violate the board rule about not threatening other posters.

This is true, but given the tenor, it’s entirely possible that there are such people reading along but not posting because they don’t want to be BBQd or they’re just plain offended by the dialog. It’s also possible that none are here now but may decide to read it later. In any case, I feel comfortable saying that referring to them in this way will achieve no good end, and in person it would be a good way to start a fight.

But we’re not in person, so who gives a shit what would happen if we did this in person?

Actually, all I’ve seen is people in the first group. The point is that, while I don’t think anyone should be flying the flag, I also don’t think it’s fair to label that entire group as composed exclusively of racists, idiots, and assholes. While that’s definitely true of some, discussing it in this way ignores a great deal of cultural context that does, in fact, influence the decision to fly the flag.

When you start by casually misrepresenting people in such a negative way, the possibility of meaningful dialog is pretty much eliminated.

I don’t think calling someone an “asshole” for flying the Confederate flag is a misrepresentation, so much as it is a value judgement with which you disagree. I suspect most posters in this thread are fully aware of the cultural context behind non-racist, non-ignorant uses of the Confederate flag. You feel that that context is sufficient that it offers some level of excuse for the person flying it. Other people disagree - they feel that, even given that context, flying a symbol you know to be insulting and demeaning to a significant percentage of your neighbors makes you an asshole, and no amount of “cultural context” can excuse it.

Look at the OP: We start with the notion that flying the flag is no different than wearing the KKK hood. I know a great many southerners who would be very offended by that idea, particularly the tacit suggestion that violent racists are a uniquely southern thing. One of the things I can easily imagine people in my family saying is, basically, you want to criticize the south for the rebel flags? What about the racists in New York and Baltimore that, instead of flags, have badges and guns?

The fact that your friends and relatives find the comparison insulting doesn’t mean the comparison is inapt. And I think the tacit suggestion you read there is largely in your own mind. For one thing, if you go over to the Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians omnibus thread, you’ll find that most of the people you’ve been arguing with here, are at least as vehement in their denunciations of police misconduct, as they are of displaying the Confederate flag.

If the ultimate goal isn’t to generate positive change in the world, what’s the point of having the conversation at all? Let’s talk about how much we despise southern racists. Let’s debate exactly what kind of despicable we think they are. If that’s really the point, I never should have posted at all here.

Because Southern racists aren’t the only people under discussion here - there’s also “non-racist Southerners who don’t care enough about racism to distance themselves from a historically and explicitly racist symbol.” You know - the assholes.

You’re getting there…because my actual point was that southerners are people, too, who don’t react positively to being arbitrarily insulted. And I like descriptions that are vivid.

I don’t think anyone here was laboring under the misapprehension that Southerners were not people. Also, calling people who display the Confederate flag “assholes” is hardly arbitrary. There’s a specific and frequently articulated reason behind making that judgement.

You seem to be suggesting that some are all of these phrases are equivalent:

I’m a southerner.
I have southern pride.
I fly a rebel flag.
I am a racist.

I’m not sure how you got that out of anything I’ve posted in this thread. I’ve specifically pointed out to you, at least twice, that “Flying the Confederate flag,” and “Being from the South” are two distinct groups.

That’s kind of the core of the debate that I tried to join. Specifically, it absolutely is the case that there are people who fly the confederate flag who are NOT announcing “I am a racist.” Of course, in fairness, there are other people who are announcing just that. That doesn’t make it okay to casually conflate the two.

Well, aside from Robert, who is a moron, it seems to me that most people in this thread are aware that there are non-racists who display the flag. Left Hand specifically divided them up into three different groups: racist, ignorant, or asshole, and most of the discussion here has focused on people in that third group: not racist, not ignorant, just a dickhead.

That being said, if you can’t take the effort to distinguish yourself from the racists, I’m not entirely sure why I should do it for you. For the vast majority of its existence, and well into living memory, the flag has been an explicit symbol of racist oppression and murder. At some point in the pretty recent past, some people decided that they wanted it to mean something else. This strikes me as well, stupid, at the very least. And pretty assholish in general, given that there are still plenty of living people who were horribly brutalized under that exact banner. If you can’t be bothered to pick a symbol for your cultural heritage that is in any way distinguishable from a symbol of hatred and violence, I’m not entirely sure why it’s on me to do the legwork in disambiguating the two uses.

It’s a bit like people who use the word “nigger,” and then try to argue that the word only refers to black people who steal or are lazy, and not black people in general. No, sorry. That’s not what the word means. That’s not what the word has ever meant. And ignoring the sordid history of the word just because you want to say “nigger” and think you’ve got an out for its usage just makes you an asshole, entirely regardless of what your intentions were when you used it.

[Smartass]

@iiandyiiii

I think there are points that you have failed to adequately address…It’s entirely reasonable for black Americans (including black Southerners, obviously) to view the symbol in this light – as a symbol of oppression…I believe that to choose to display this flag where black people might see it while being aware of this reality is an extremely rude, obnoxious, and un-neighborly

I agree, so far.

@iiandyiiii

– akin to displaying the swastika where Jews might see it.

I don’t agree that far.

@iiandyiiii

If you see it differently, how is it different than displaying the swastika (for supposed German pride, for example)? Do you think it’s unreasonable for black people to view the flag as a symbol of racial oppression?

No, but I also understand that there are white people who see it as a symbol of something else. Please remember, the reason that I joined this conversation was specifically “the list” that said anyone who flies the flag is racist, ignorant, or an asshole. And I joined to say that this is not true; there are people who fly it for reasons that don’t make them one of those three. Even if there weren’t, statements like this are just going to make them that much more determined to display it. As someone who lives in the south, I’d rather see people making statements that make them LESS determined to fly the flag.

I’d rather see the discussion hinge on something other than blanket insults hurled at strangers.

@iiandyiiii

If not, then isn’t it very un-neighborly (and un-Southern, in fact!) to display this symbol where black people might see it, regardless of how one feels about it personally?

To me, yes. However, I also recognize that people make decisions based on priorities, and understanding them means dealing with that nasty nuance thing. So, on a TV with more colors than black and white, I can see a person who is not a racist, but who also isn’t too worked up over the existence of racists. And for this person, declaring southern pride may take priority over ensuring that no one thinks they’re a racist. I know this may sound like a really complicated person, but, in truth, I’ve known a number of people like this, and they’re not all that complicated–they just assume that when they say “southern pride” that no one will misunderstand what they mean. It doesn’t help that there are an awful lot of people outside the south who assume that southern = racist. So, I can conclude that you’re going to think I’m a racist anyway, so I may as well fly my flag. (And now, for fun, let’s pretend that grown-ups don’t think that way, and they never say things to themselves like, “I may as well fool around, since I’m going to get accused of it anyway.”)

That was the rhetorical “I”, by the way. I don’t own or fly a confederate flag for the exact reasons you stated.

-VM

[Measure_for_Measure]

Pst: Smartass: The (reversed) Swastika pre-dates the Nazis and is a Buddhist symbol. Because of its different cultural connotations, it appears regularly in Japanese language manga (comics). Because publishers and translators know that being an asshole is bad for business, they typically change the image when publishing in the US and/or include copious disclaimers.

The Swastika started out benign and became odious. R.E Lee’s battle flag was never the flag of the so-called confederate states of America, was later appropriated by those opposing racial segregation during the 1960s and only became generically Southern during the 1970s and 1980s. And even then the bigots kept it as their own.

Cecil on the swastika: Was the swastika actually an old Native American symbol? - The Straight Dope

[Miller]

@Smartass

No, but I also understand that there are white people who see it as a symbol of something else. Please remember, the reason that I joined this conversation was specifically “the list” that said anyone who flies the flag is racist, ignorant, or an asshole. And I joined to say that this is not true; there are people who fly it for reasons that don’t make them one of those three.

@Smartass

@iiandyiiii

I’ll put aside any accusations of racism against flag wavers for now – it’s just incredibly rude, obnoxious, and un-neighborly.

In which case, we’re in agreement.

-VM

These two quotes seem to be in conflict with each other - unless you think there’s a significant difference between calling someone “rude, obnoxious, and un-neighborly” and calling them an asshole?

[octopus]

@Miller

Okay. Just to be equally clear, we don’t give people a pass for violating the board rules just because they’ve couched their terms in a hypothetical. “I’m going to kick your ass,” and “If we were in a bar and you said that to me, I’d kick your ass,” both violate the board rule about not threatening other posters.

But we’re not in person, so who gives a shit what would happen if we did this in person?

I don’t think calling someone an “asshole” for flying the Confederate flag is a misrepresentation, so much as it is a value judgement with which you disagree. I suspect most posters in this thread are fully aware of the cultural context behind non-racist, non-ignorant uses of the Confederate flag. You feel that that context is sufficient that it offers some level of excuse for the person flying it. Other people disagree - they feel that, even given that context, flying a symbol you know to be insulting and demeaning to a significant percentage of your neighbors makes you an asshole, and no amount of “cultural context” can excuse it.

The fact that your friends and relatives find the comparison insulting doesn’t mean the comparison is inapt. And I think the tacit suggestion you read there is largely in your own mind. For one thing, if you go over to the Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians omnibus thread, you’ll find that most of the people you’ve been arguing with here, are at least as vehement in their denunciations of police misconduct, as they are of displaying the Confederate flag.

Because Southern racists aren’t the only people under discussion here - there’s also “non-racist Southerners who don’t care enough about racism to distance themselves from a historically and explicitly racist symbol.” You know - the assholes.

I don’t think anyone here was laboring under the misapprehension that Southerners were not people. Also, calling people who display the Confederate flag “assholes” is hardly arbitrary. There’s a specific and frequently articulated reason behind making that judgement.

I’m not sure how you got that out of anything I’ve posted in this thread. I’ve specifically pointed out to you, at least twice, that “Flying the Confederate flag,” and “Being from the South” are two distinct groups.

Well, aside from Robert, who is a moron, it seems to me that most people in this thread are aware that there are non-racists who display the flag. Left Hand specifically divided them up into three different groups: racist, ignorant, or asshole, and most of the discussion here has focused on people in that third group: not racist, not ignorant, just a dickhead.

That being said, if you can’t take the effort to distinguish yourself from the racists, I’m not entirely sure why I should do it for you. For the vast majority of its existence, and well into living memory, the flag has been an explicit symbol of racist oppression and murder. At some point in the pretty recent past, some people decided that they wanted it to mean something else. This strikes me as well, stupid, at the very least. And pretty assholish in general, given that there are still plenty of living people who were horribly brutalized under that exact banner. If you can’t be bothered to pick a symbol for your cultural heritage that is in any way distinguishable from a symbol of hatred and violence, I’m not entirely sure why it’s on me to do the legwork in disambiguating the two uses.

It’s a bit like people who use the word “nigger,” and then try to argue that the word only refers to black people who steal or are lazy, and not black people in general. No, sorry. That’s not what the word means. That’s not what the word has ever meant. And ignoring the sordid history of the word just because you want to say “nigger” and think you’ve got an out for its usage just makes you an asshole, entirely regardless of what your intentions were when you used it.

Fine. I know this is directed at SmartAss but SmartAss and myself are basically saying the same thing. I just think it’s more productive, if your goal is to make a positive influence, to use better language instead of deliberately provocative language. Lets say the flag is deliberately provocative for the sake of argument, it still is more useful, in my experience, to take a different rhetorical approach if the goal is to win minds as opposed to score points with fellow member of the “That’s Outrageous!11” brigade.

I also think that there is a tendency to overestimate the knowledge and overall smarts of other people to some degree when one is highly educated. I’m surprised when people can’t do simple integration or differentiation for example. Stuff I was exposed to as a freshman in high school. So imagine my surprise when people can’t add fractions. Same thing for some of the people on this board. I wouldn’t be surprised by the way Dork writes, as an example, that she or he or whatever pronoun has at the very least a college degree in some liberal arts field. That’s not the average person. Knowing what the articles of secession for the various state are is also far from common knowledge. So making judgments based on what you know and what you think others know based on what you know are quite often inaccurate.

My main beef is with the approach. And for stating that I get flamed which does what? It definitely pushes me to harden my position in opposition to that which has flamed me. And that is counterproductive.

[Smartass]

@Miller

Okay. Just to be equally clear, we don’t give people a pass for violating the board rules just because they’ve couched their terms in a hypothetical. “I’m going to kick your ass,” and “If we were in a bar and you said that to me, I’d kick your ass,” both violate the board rule about not threatening other posters.

Fair enough.

@Miller

But we’re not in person, so who gives a shit what would happen if we did this in person?

Clearly, no one anywhere on the Internet. Just as clearly, no discussions on the Internet seem to be going anywhere.

My point is that it’s easy to insult someone when you’re anonymous and there are no real-life consequences. This kind of anonymity is the Internet’s greatest strength and it’s greatest weakness. In my opinion, to blatantly take advantage of this fact in a forum that’s supposed to be a “rational” debate is cowardly, and I picked an unfortunately testy (and, I guess, way too subtle) way of pointing it out.

@Miller

I don’t think calling someone an “asshole” for flying the Confederate flag is a misrepresentation, so much as it is a value judgement with which you disagree.

If you make blanket value judgments about large groups of people, the chances that you are misrepresenting some portion of them are quite large. And if people are doing something you don’t like, calling them assholes and claiming you’re having a rational debate is, at best, disingenuous.

@Miller

I suspect most posters in this thread are fully aware of the cultural context behind non-racist, non-ignorant uses of the Confederate flag.

I think a number of them are. Clearly a couple are not, and think it’s just fine to resort to name-calling as a result. It’s one thing to say that you don’t agree that this cultural context is valid, or that it still doesn’t justify what you’re doing. It’s another to say, “You’re just an asshole, and that’s that. I’ve proven it.”

@Miller

You feel that that context is sufficient that it offers some level of excuse for the person flying it.

I don’t think I would go so far as to say that I’m excusing them. Rather, what I see here is not much different than saying that a German citizen in the 1940’s who was not in the military and did not rise up and overthrow Hitler is no different than the Nazi solder who turned on the gas. I find that I can completely NOT support the flying of the rebel flag while at the same time NOT claiming that people who do are a) the same as klansmen or b) axiomatically ignorant, racists, or assholes.

If we can’t get past that kind of shit, then this thread belonged in the Pit from the start.

@Miller

Other people disagree - they feel that, even given that context, flying a symbol you know to be insulting and demeaning to a significant percentage of your neighbors makes you an asshole, and no amount of “cultural context” can excuse it.

And I would say that, for me to agree, we’re approaching a definition of “asshole” that pretty much applies to everyone, and certainly to a number of posters in this thread.

More to the point, why do it? When in the history of humanity has calling someone an asshole resulted in them caring more about your opinions?

@Miller

The fact that your friends and relatives find the comparison insulting doesn’t mean the comparison is inapt.

So, calling someone an asshole is perfectly acceptable when you can make a case that it’s true. If the idea here is to call people assholes and then argue that it is an “apt comparison”, what was it ever doing in Great Debates?

@Miller

…most of the people you’ve been arguing with here, are at least as vehement in their denunciations of police misconduct, as they are of displaying the Confederate flag.

I would certainly hope so. I would also hope they would see how much closer a comparison to the KKK is to being “apt” in that case than in the case of people displaying an obnoxious symbol. Equating the displaying of the symbol with donning a hood and joining a lynching is outrageous. Not that either is totally okay, but one is WAY less okay than the other.

@Miller

Because Southern racists aren’t the only people under discussion here - there’s also “non-racist Southerners who don’t care enough about racism to distance themselves from a historically and explicitly racist symbol.” You know - the assholes.

I’m sure they’ll feel it’s really so much nicer to be called assholes than racists. This sounds like the kind of rational dialog that’s really going to lead to positive change.

@Miller

I don’t think anyone here was laboring under the misapprehension that Southerners were not people.

It’s a fair point. The misapprehension is that calling people names is a useful part of a rational debate.

@Miller

Left Hand specifically divided them up into three different groups: racist, ignorant, or asshole, and most of the discussion here has focused on people in that third group: not racist, not ignorant, just a dickhead.

And that’s the part I had a problem with. It’s the part I still have a problem with. And if I haven’t made it clear why so far, it’s probably not possible for me to do. Honestly, if it weren’t for LHOD’s asinine list, I probably would have never posted anything in this thread, because I agree that flying the rebel flag is not worth the hurt feelings. But carrying that along to, “I’ll come up with 3 insults for every flag-flyer to choose from” annoyed me enough to chime in. You can keep trying to justify it, but you haven’t budged me from my position that calling a bunch of strangers assholes is a legitimate approach to this topic, or that it belongs in Great Debates, or that behaving this way is going to lead to anything other than more hating.

Case in point: By insisting on doing this name calling, and then trying to characterize it as a rational argument, LHOD “pulled” me into this debate, and my annoyance contributed in some part to it moving to the Pit. By leaving out the blanket insults, he could have avoided one angry southern response. And my opinion of LHOD would have remained much higher than it is now.

@Miller

That being said, if you can’t take the effort to distinguish yourself from the racists, I’m not entirely sure why I should do it for you.

Outside of this thread, in Real Life, there are a great many people who don’t distinguish between “southern” and “racist”. While I’m not pointing the finger at anyone here, I am pointing out that this fact plays into the motivation of the flag-flyers, and pretending that it doesn’t is just dishonest.

I think that’s been a problem with some of my posts, because I’ve been trying to talk about things in the real world and posters to the thread assume I’m accusing them of something. Not sure if I caused this, but I am going to think about ways to avoid it in the future.

@Miller

And pretty assholish in general, given that there are still plenty of living people who were horribly brutalized under that exact banner. If you can’t be bothered to pick a symbol for your cultural heritage that is in any way distinguishable from a symbol of hatred and violence, I’m not entirely sure why it’s on me to do the legwork in disambiguating the two uses.

I assume these are the rhetorical “you”…

Let’s remember, I didn’t ask you or anyone else to do this disambiguating. LHOD decided to with no encouragement from me, and proceeded straight to name-calling.

@Miller

It’s a bit like people who use the word “nigger,” and then try to argue that the word only refers to black people who steal or are lazy, and not black people in general. No, sorry. That’s not what the word means. That’s not what the word has ever meant. And ignoring the sordid history of the word just because you want to say “nigger” and think you’ve got an out for its usage just makes you an asshole, entirely regardless of what your intentions were when you used it.

Clearly, the south is just over-full with assholes. I apologize to the northern states for our inability to follow their non-asshole-ish example.

-VM

[Monty]

@Smartass

A little heavy-handed, I suppose. And a little surprising–I generally associate bitterness over the Civil War with southerners.

-VM

I grew up in the South, my parents are both from Richmond, Virginia, most of my family still live in the South, and I see no reason to glorify treason. I’m not bitter about the Civil War other than my animus against those who created and fought for the Confederacy. I’m glad the North won that war.

Actually, I’m surprised the federal government, during the Civil Rights protest era, did not do something along the lines of withholding funds for those states that changed their flags to include confederate symbols. That latter stunt was a big FU to the federal government trying to get those scum to be decent, or at least act like they were.

[Smartass]

@Miller

These two quotes seem to be in conflict with each other - unless you think there’s a significant difference between calling someone “rude, obnoxious, and un-neighborly” and calling them an asshole?

Now that you mention it, I guess I do. And I think it hinges on something that one of the other posters was trying to say: Displaying the flag is a rude, obnoxious, un-neighborly behavior. Calling someone an asshole is a blanket indictment of their entire character.

-VM

[Smartass]

@Monty

Actually, I’m surprised the federal government, during the Civil Rights protest era, did not do something along the lines of withholding funds for those states that changed their flags to include confederate symbols. That latter stunt was a big FU to the federal government trying to get those scum to be decent, or at least act like they were.

Yeah, I have to agree with all of this. Regardless of the motivations of this or that redneck with a rebel flag on the truck, there’s no question what these particular people were up to, and no question that they intended a racist message. And no question that it would have been better if they were stopped.

Also, ironically, I think this had a lot to do with rank-and-file southerners starting to “see” the flag as a kind of generic defiance (as opposed to just a racist proclamation). It started as defiance of integration, and sort-of transmuted to general defiance and southern identity. Like several other posters here, I WISH these white southerners had picked something more generally positive to represent southern identity/pride.

However, perhaps more ironically, I THINK this was a case of something that was outside federal jurisdiction to do anything about (much as we might wish otherwise). Maybe one of the board members who knows more about fed/state law will be nice enough to clarify…

-VM

[Smartass]

@Measure_for_Measure

Pst: Smartass: The (reversed) Swastika pre-dates the Nazis…

Not meaning to be rude, but I can’t find anything that I’ve posted that suggested I need a refresher course in Swastika history, or that I’m interested in ways that it can or can’t be compared to the confederate flag.

-VM

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Smartass

Calling someone an asshole is a blanket indictment of their entire character.

Ah. No. It’s not. I can say, “Smartass, you’re being an asshole in this thread.” You might be a nice person under other circumstances. Miller has called me a dick before (I think–years ago), but I don’t think he was indicting my entire character so much as he was indicting my specific behavior in a specific case.

When I say someone is an ignoramus, a racist, or an asshole, based on their flying the flag, I am only referring to that specific behavior of theirs. Spanish is nice because there’s “estar” and “ser,” both words which mean “to be” but refer respectively to in-the-moment being (“you’re being an asshole,” “I’m happy”) and state-of-being (“you’re an asshole and will never change,” “I’ve got a sunny disposition”). I’m no Spanish scholar, mind you, I’m using my junior-high Spanish to make an analogy.

In this case, I believe someone who flies the flag esta an asshole, not es an asshole.

Someone who flies the confederate flag, knowing its history and not caring, is an asshole. Someone who volunteers at the local soup kitchen every weekend and on holidays is a great person. Someone can do both things, and in some ways they’re an asshole and in some ways they’re a great person.

I hope that clarifies what I’m saying.

[BrightNShiny]

@octopus

For the most part Dork is indeed correct at least with the categories he has listed. He conveniently leaves out the people which the flag is part of their regional background and look at past historical events as stuff that is in the past. Sometimes the past isn’t as important to others as one would wish it was.

Except the people who suffered through this “past” are still alive, you asshole.

I still find it dismaying how easy certain posters are triggered. I pity the professors of our time if they are an indication of how people are nowadays.

Now, this is hysterical coming from you. You were so “easily triggered” by my language that you flagged a moderator. In your bizzarro world, being offended by words like “dickhead” and “douchebag” is completely normal, but being offended by symbols of terrorist violence makes one “easily triggered.”

And this is yet another attempt by you to minimize atrocities. And it also shows a callous disregard for the victims of terrorist violence.

[BrightNShiny]

@octopus

I suppose much like the Confederate Flag, the word “asshole” can mean whatever the user wishes it to mean. Don’t be surprised if people take offense and consider you the “asshole.” And that how progress is made!

Oh, look, you found a roundabout way to call someone an “asshole.” I don’t particularly care if you want to insult people. But lecturing people about their insults while you choose to sling your own insults makes you a hypocritical moron.

[Smartass]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Ah. No. It’s not. I can say, “Smartass, you’re being an asshole in this thread.”…When I say someone is an ignoramus, a racist, or an asshole, based on their flying the flag, I am only referring to that specific behavior of theirs.

In which case, there’s a learning experience available here for both of us, because if you had said something like, “is acting like an asshole” rather than “is an asshole”, and staunchly defending the “is an asshole” phrasing, I would have been much less annoyed by your argument, and much less likely to jump into this particular debate.

For me, statements like “you’re being an asshole” are different in kind than “you’re an asshole”. I think you can make a case for one, while the other is just name-calling. And I don’t THINK my general view on this is particularly idiosyncratic, in general conversation.

[Hijack]btw, is your name a coincidence or are you a leGuin fan? I ask because I came across the Earthsea trilogy when I was very young, and I believe that I am a Fantasy/SciFi reader today largely because of how much I loved those books as a kid.[/Hijack]

-VM

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Smartass

In which case, there’s a learning experience available here for both of us, because if you had said something like, “is acting like an asshole” rather than “is an asshole”, and staunchly defending the “is an asshole” phrasing, I would have been much less annoyed by your argument, and much less likely to jump into this particular debate.

That is helpful to know. I was truly baffled by how outraged people were getting, and by statements about how I was judging people without knowing them–it sounded completely crazy to me. English doesn’t distinguish between the two different kinds of “is” (although the present progressive can be helpful); it seemed clear to me that since I was discussing a specific behavior, my character judgments were about folks’ characters as related to that behavior.

[Hijack]btw, is your name a coincidence or are you a leGuin fan? I ask because I came across the Earthsea trilogy when I was very young, and I believe that I am a Fantasy/SciFi reader today largely because of how much I loved those books as a kid.[/Hijack]

For Cool is the Left Hand of Dorkness,
And Dorky is the Right Hand of Cool
-not exactly what Le Guin wrote

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Smartass

Not meaning to be rude, but I can’t find anything that I’ve posted that suggested I need a refresher course in Swastika history, or that I’m interested in ways that it can or can’t be compared to the confederate flag.

-VM

No worries. I was alluding to your reply to, “-- akin to displaying the swastika where Jews might see it.”

@Smartass

I don’t agree that far.

[Miller]

@Smartass

I think a number of them are. Clearly a couple are not, and think it’s just fine to resort to name-calling as a result. It’s one thing to say that you don’t agree that this cultural context is valid, or that it still doesn’t justify what you’re doing. It’s another to say, “You’re just an asshole, and that’s that. I’ve proven it.”

Except that’s not the position you’ve been arguing against. Left Hand didn’t say, “They’re assholes, end of story.” He said, “They’re assholes because of these reasons.” And then laid out those reasons, and why he thinks those reasons taken together equal “asshole.” You may disagree with his conclusions about what those reasons mean (except, you actually don’t, as we’ll see in a bit), or disagree with the relative weight he gives those reasons, but you can’t claim that he hasn’t given any reasons at all.

I don’t think I would go so far as to say that I’m excusing them. Rather, what I see here is not much different than saying that a German citizen in the 1940’s who was not in the military and did not rise up and overthrow Hitler is no different than the Nazi solder who turned on the gas. I find that I can completely NOT support the flying of the rebel flag while at the same time NOT claiming that people who do are a) the same as klansmen or b) axiomatically ignorant, racists, or assholes.

I knew you’d quibble over “excusing them,” but I couldn’t find a better word. “Defending,” I suppose. That being said, a German citizen who never joined the military, but still walked around with a great big swastika on his chest and kept talking about how the swastika was a symbol of how awesome Germany was is an asshole, in pretty much exactly the same degree as a Southerner displaying the Confederate flag as an emblem of “Southern pride.”

And I would say that, for me to agree, we’re approaching a definition of “asshole” that pretty much applies to everyone, and certainly to a number of posters in this thread.

Probably. I know I’m an asshole sometimes. I’m just not the kind of asshole who uses explicitly racist symbols and then gets all butthurt when people assume on that basis that I’m a racist.

More to the point, why do it? When in the history of humanity has calling someone an asshole resulted in them caring more about your opinions?

Because, again, the conversation is not between people who don’t like the flag, and people who do. Nobody has been called an asshole for flying that flag in this thread, because nobody who flies that flag has shown up in here.

If I want to convince you of something, calling you an asshole is probably not a great idea. But if I want to convince iiandyiiii of something about you, call you an asshole may very well be persuasive to him.

I would certainly hope so. I would also hope they would see how much closer a comparison to the KKK is to being “apt” in that case than in the case of people displaying an obnoxious symbol. Equating the displaying of the symbol with donning a hood and joining a lynching is outrageous. Not that either is totally okay, but one is WAY less okay than the other.

Wait, who said anything about donning the hood and lynching? The comparison was just with wearing the hood itself. If you want to argue that the lynching part is integral to wearing the hood, that’s fine, but the point is that violence against blacks is every bit as integral to the Confederate flag as it is to the Klan hood - desperate protestations from disgruntled Southerners notwithstanding.

I’m sure they’ll feel it’s really so much nicer to be called assholes than racists. This sounds like the kind of rational dialog that’s really going to lead to positive change.

Is the Confederate flag flying over the capitol in South Carolina today? My understanding is that it is not. That sounds like a positive change to me, and it happened because, after Roof, there was an explosion of condemnation over displaying the flag, pointing out (not always in these exact words) that it’s a symbol of racists and assholes.

And that’s the part I had a problem with. It’s the part I still have a problem with. And if I haven’t made it clear why so far, it’s probably not possible for me to do. Honestly, if it weren’t for LHOD’s asinine list, I probably would have never posted anything in this thread, because I agree that flying the rebel flag is not worth the hurt feelings. But carrying that along to, “I’ll come up with 3 insults for every flag-flyer to choose from” annoyed me enough to chime in. You can keep trying to justify it, but you haven’t budged me from my position that calling a bunch of strangers assholes is a legitimate approach to this topic, or that it belongs in Great Debates, or that behaving this way is going to lead to anything other than more hating.

Case in point: By insisting on doing this name calling, and then trying to characterize it as a rational argument, LHOD “pulled” me into this debate, and my annoyance contributed in some part to it moving to the Pit. By leaving out the blanket insults, he could have avoided one angry southern response. And my opinion of LHOD would have remained much higher than it is now.

Left Hand and the others in this thread haven’t budged you with insults. But you haven’t made much headway in budging any of us without them, have you? So, maybe the “insult” thing is a bit of a red herring?

Outside of this thread, in Real Life, there are a great many people who don’t distinguish between “southern” and “racist”. While I’m not pointing the finger at anyone here, I am pointing out that this fact plays into the motivation of the flag-flyers, and pretending that it doesn’t is just dishonest.

I think that’s been a problem with some of my posts, because I’ve been trying to talk about things in the real world and posters to the thread assume I’m accusing them of something. Not sure if I caused this, but I am going to think about ways to avoid it in the future.

Perhaps stop treating conversations that happen on the internet like conversations that happen in real life? They’re really not the same thing. Everyone involved in them knows they not the same thing. So, pointing out that there would be consequences for saying these things to a person’s face isn’t really necessary, because we all know that already.

I assume these are the rhetorical “you”…

Yes, of course.

Let’s remember, I didn’t ask you or anyone else to do this disambiguating. LHOD decided to with no encouragement from me, and proceeded straight to name-calling.

Yes, you did ask for that. That’s been your entire point for this whole thread: there are some people who fly the flag who are racist, and some people who fly the flag who are assholes, and some people who fly the flag who are neither - and that it’s our fault if we can’t or won’t distinguish between those three groups?

Clearly, the south is just over-full with assholes. I apologize to the northern states for our inability to follow their non-asshole-ish example.

You’re confusing “People who fly the Confederate flag” with “Southerner” again - and now, also, with people who use the word “nigger,” which is really weird, because that’s a word that’s absolutely not unique to the South.

[Miller]

@Smartass

Now that you mention it, I guess I do. And I think it hinges on something that one of the other posters was trying to say: Displaying the flag is a rude, obnoxious, un-neighborly behavior. Calling someone an asshole is a blanket indictment of their entire character.

-VM

What Left Hand already said, but also - if I walked into a bar in Alabama, went up to a guy with the Confederate flag on his hat, and said, “You are rude, obnoxious, and un-neighborly,” would I get any less of an asskicking than if I’d just called him an asshole?

I’m inclined to think “more,” just because it sounds so much prissier. I kind of want to kick my ass for saying it like that.

[dropzone]

@Monty

No. Although they were traitors, they were still citizens/nationals of the United States of America and thus not subject to deportation.

No, but we coulda hanged some. Just a few, to make a point.

@Monty

Now that Virginia no longer has that stupid racist song as its state song…

You’re offended by “Thar’s whar I labored so long for ol’ Massa, day after day in de fields ob yeller corn?” The one we sang in school included the charming Negro Dialect spellings.

@Bridget_Burke

Washington’s slaves were eventually freed; he was unable to free the ones Martha had brought from her first marriage, or their descendants. Some of that bloodline were eventually inherited by Mrs Robert E Lee.

Well-chosen word. It made me puke a little.

[iiandyiiii]

@Smartass

I agree, so far.

I don’t agree that far.

You’re saying displaying the swastika is more “rude, obnoxious, and un-neighborly”? What are you disagreeing with? If displaying the swastika (for, let’s say some notion of Teutonic pride) is worse, then why is it worse?

No, but I also understand that there are white people who see it as a symbol of something else.

No one is denying this, I think. I don’t think it matters – it’s extremely rude, obnoxious, and un-neighborly no matter how one feels about it.

Please remember, the reason that I joined this conversation was specifically “the list” that said anyone who flies the flag is racist, ignorant, or an asshole. And I joined to say that this is not true; there are people who fly it for reasons that don’t make them one of those three. Even if there weren’t, statements like this are just going to make them that much more determined to display it. As someone who lives in the south, I’d rather see people making statements that make them LESS determined to fly the flag.

In my view, anyone who flies the flag is doing so to make a racist statement, or is ignorant of the actual history behind why it was returned to prominence in the 20th century, or doesn’t care about that actual history, and is therefore being an asshole. So I kind of agree with that list, I think – I haven’t seen another option. Seeing the flag as a representation of Southern pride isn’t an extra option – it either fits into the “ignorant” or “being an asshole” option, from what I can tell.

I’d rather see the discussion hinge on something other than blanket insults hurled at strangers.

I don’t see “you’re being rude” or “you’re being an asshole” as an insult, at least not in this case. Rather I see it as a chastisement, e.g. “you should do better and be better”.

To me, yes. However, I also recognize that people make decisions based on priorities, and understanding them means dealing with that nasty nuance thing. So, on a TV with more colors than black and white, I can see a person who is not a racist, but who also isn’t too worked up over the existence of racists. And for this person, declaring southern pride may take priority over ensuring that no one thinks they’re a racist. I know this may sound like a really complicated person, but, in truth, I’ve known a number of people like this, and they’re not all that complicated–they just assume that when they say “southern pride” that no one will misunderstand what they mean. It doesn’t help that there are an awful lot of people outside the south who assume that southern = racist. So, I can conclude that you’re going to think I’m a racist anyway, so I may as well fly my flag. (And now, for fun, let’s pretend that grown-ups don’t think that way, and they never say things to themselves like, “I may as well fool around, since I’m going to get accused of it anyway.”)

These people that you’re talking about (who aren’t “worked up” about racists, and aren’t too worried about people thinking they might be racists) sound like they’re either ignorant, or being assholes, or both. It sounds like they’re not interested in how black people might reasonably see these symbols, and they’re not particularly interested in the real history of why these symbols were returned to prominence in the 20th century. What you describe doesn’t sound defensible as something a decent person who values the opinion of their neighbors (and, in particular, someone who values the opinion of their neighbors who are black) would do.

Not the worst thing in the world, and not akin to lynching or slavery. But what you describe sounds like a bad thing that people shouldn’t do, and something that people should be criticized and challenged for, and something that is not compatible with being a good neighbor (and in my view, with the positive aspects of Southern values and traditions which include being a good neighbor).