Y’know, if the South needs a symbol that’s not soaked in the blood of traitors and their victims, maybe they should look at the symbols adopted by other regions of the country. Such as New England, whose universal symbol is . . . hmmm. Or the midwest, which adopted as their symbol the . . . uh. . . . Okay, what about the northwest, with their widely recognized symbol of . . . huh.
Maybe, as it turns out, regions of a country don’t need symbols. Maybe we could get by the same way everyone else does.
States in my opinion (and where applicable, as this probably isn’t relevant in, say, Massachusetts) should pass laws prohibiting display of the Confederate flag on public property.
If you have never been involuntarily served the abomination that is called “sweet tea”, then you will not understand the need to take decisive action against it. :mad:
I somehow don’t think Kanye wears it for Southern Pride. To quote him:
“I just think people look cool in it. They look nice. " Sure he talks some about “taking it back” and stuff, but I think ultimately it’s about fashion for him, and certainly not Southern anything (unless those first 3 Georgian years really stuck)
I’m not convinced his political point is completely coherent, but he’s definitely trying to make one. As far as I can tell, he could make the same political point with a Klan hood.
Slavery is shitty indeed. That’s why so many countries abolished slavery. And why a bunch of states abolished slavery. And why the United States abolished slavery. Notice anywhere left off the list of places that voluntarily abolished slavery?
It wasn’t a fluke either. As soon as they were able to - after the war that forced them to give up slavery at gunpoint - the south enacted black codes which put black Americans back into a status that was as close to slavery as the law would allow. And the south didn’t give that up voluntarily either.
If it’s that pre-sweetened tea they serve in The South, I’m sure I’ve had it. Just didn’t know it was called that. It wasn’t my cup of tea, if you get my drift.
Well, the Confederacy unfortunately embraced the fundamental flaw that hampered the U.S., and I don’t mean slavery - I refer to states’ rights. Even if they’d managed to break away permanently by the Union giving up (or possibly by not attacking Sumter or giving a comparable causus belli in the first place), in time the Confederacy itself would have fallen apart because aside from slavery, there was no central power or idea to hold it together.
Heck, sooner or later one of the CSA would have become sufficiently annoyed by something to secede and either try to go it alone (and get starved out) or end up re-annexed by either the Union or CSA, perhaps by force, and then the whole thing unravels.
Ok. That’s fair and it alludes to my original point. You can’t accurately know what the motivations are for waving or wearing the Confederate Flag and making the assumption that the reasons are racist or pro slavery can often be false. Whereas, it takes a pretty contrived reason to say the same about wearing a Klansman hood.
People who populate message boards and this board in particular are not the average person. So the knowledge set you may have is far different than the average person who sees an edgy symbol associated with a rebellion 150 years ago, that others in the same environment may wear as a belt buckle or something, and decides to have it on a t-shirt.
It’s more similar to using “my nigga” in an environment in which that term is used commonly and freely. There’s nothing racist about that at all. Whereas, the word ‘boy’ very well could be racist in the same environment. Context is key. And the environment in which one learns to use those words or display those symbols is key as well. You can’t know the motivation just be seeing the flag or hearing the word. And the thing is, educated people know this but for some reason dismiss it.
Seeing US flags and Confederate flags together is also an apparent contradiction but relatively common in the South.
What’s this “south” you speak of? Do you mean AMERICAN STATES? And whose “law”? Do you mean AMERICAN, and NOT CONFEDERATE, law? Impossible! Such things couldn’t have happened under the Stars and Stripes, only under that heinous Battle Flag.
To the extent that the Civil War was about states’ rights at all, the South was against it. At the time, part of the country wanted each state to be able to decide on their own whether to allow slavery or not, and part of the country found that unacceptable and wanted all states to allow slavery. Guess which part was which?
I considered mentioning barbecue, but then we’d have another Civil War over which regional variation would get the nod. And cornbread, I maintain, is properly a symbol of the entire USA. I’m with you on the sweet tea, though.