Given all the controversy surrounding statues, will Mississippi finally get rid of the current design and get something less offensive?
I very much doubt it. I suspect there’s just as much support for making the canton even larger as there is for replacing it.
I suspect if you held a referendum to have the CSA battle flag replace Old Glory the majority of residents of Mississippi (and Alabama) would vote in favor. That’s how backward most citizens of those states (and a good segment in other neighboring states) think when this issue comes up.
Any data for that?
The last referendum on changing the state flag was in 2001. It was defeated by a margin of 64% to 36%. I don’t know how it would go today, but I believe it would be much closer. All eight of Mississippi’s state universities (one of which is my employer) have stopped flying the flag, largely in response to pressure from students, and while there have been some attempts to introduce legislation that would require all public colleges and universities to display the flag, they’ve died a quiet death – this in a far-right state legislature with a Republican supermajority. Both of Mississippi’s (Republican) senators have supported redesigning the flag, as has the speaker of the state House of Representatives. In short, the idea of replacing the flag is well within the mainstream among Republicans at this point, and supported by a number of people you wouldn’t necessarily expect to support it.
OTOH, if the decision ends up being made by referendum, it will run into the usual obstacle that the people who vote in referendums are older, whiter, and more conservative than the state as a whole, so I wouldn’t want to bet on which way it would go.
The new flag proposed in the 2001 referendum was actually a very nice design, replacing the confederate canton with a field of white stars on blue and retaining the rest of the design unchanged. That they rejected it in favor of the racist symbol speaks volumes.
In related news, a Cleveland, Ohio area high school football team called the Rebels has decided to dump its mascot.
"The district’s South High School removed Confederate imagery from its uniforms and stopped using the “Stars and Bars” to promote sports in 1993. However, the name and the mascot stayed. The icon is a man dressed in a gray military outfit, the color of Confederate uniforms in the Civil War. "
What bizarre thinking led this school to allow Confederate imagery in the first place? I’m pretty sure the Cleveland area didn’t field any regiments fighting for the South in the Civil War.
That is better than the modified version of the Confederate flag that Georgia went with in 2003
The Willoughby-Eastlake school district’s high school was named Union (for the union of Eastlake and Willoughby) High School prior to the 1960s. I do not know the exact date. As the early waves of Baby Boomers hit the school district, the decision was made to create two separate high schools to handle the growing enrollment. The new schools were named North and South. This occurred at about the time that the centennial of the Civil War was being celebrated and the new South school, (with its separation from the previous Union HS), took the name Rebels. I suspect that there was not a lot of association with slavery and the Civil War in the minds of white northern suburbanites (and it is always cool to be a rebel).
“less offensive”… What exactly about the flag is “offensive”? Why do you consider it “offensive”?
I’m not the OP, but my guess is going to be the mini-flag in the corner of the state flag that celebrates treason, white supremacy, and slavery. It was added in 1894, probably during one of the KKK resurgences or maybe just a white supremacy resurgence.
OP, please let me know if I’ve guess correctly.
Did you happen to look at the posted link to images of the flag? Are you aware of the serious disputes regarding the use of the Confederate battle flag, (not the national banner), that have been playing out for may years, including the fact that that flag has only been added as part of several states’ flag long after the Civil War, generally in the periods when various Southern states were attempting to establish Jim Crow laws (Mississippi) or more recently to oppose Federal Civil Rights legislation (Georgia)?
Given that history, your question appears to be a bit odd.
Well, his user name is Oddball_92, so maybe that’s what he’s going for.
Given that this is Great Debates and not The BBQ Pit, let’s try to avoid making personal comments.
[ /Moderating ]
It’s the part of the flag where the people of the state symbolically declare their continuing support for Mississippi’s declaration that “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery”.
Understood. Apologies.
The fact that the canton is the Confederate army’s battle flag is offensive to me. It is a symbol of treason, slavery, and racism.
Those links have 0 relevance in support of the assertion that a majority of those states would vote to replace the US flag.