Is the Confederate Flag a symbol of racism?

@Linkat,

More like a symbol of selling out to the English system of economics and exploitation of the entire world, including themselves...

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@hawkeye10,

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are you sure about that? I am under the impression that it is the do-gooder liberals who decided what was best for the Indians, that Indian names are insulting....though I have not followed this issue that closely, I think that the indians were pushed into agreeing with the know it alls.

Looking into the matter....andI am not going to document all of this unless someone wants to seriously argue with me:

Elitist self proclaimed saviours of the Indians decided that Indian mascots are insulting and perpetuate racism. They then

Got activist Indians and Indian groups to agree with them and start to object to Indian names. All the while Americans at large as well as those of Indian descent did not agree that Indian named Sports teams are a bad idea. Just as today Mexican-American political pressure groups betray Americans of Mexican decent by pushing for the opposite of what the rank and file want (in this case that the Mexican hoard be forcibly kept out of out country), the Indian pressure groups betrayed their membership.

After 20 years of education (read indoctrination at the same time that the opposing view is silenced with bullying tactics) I presume that majorities now agree with the do-gooders.

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@Linkat,

Interesting. When we moved to the little town of Pittsfield, Maine in the '90's, the middle school team were the rebels and the symbol painted on the gym wall (they didn't have an actual mascot) was a confederate soldier carrying a confederate flag.

We were moving up from North Carolina, so my first thought was - 'Wow- this is sort of wild- this little town way up in Maine, where everyone who fought in the war had to be Union - choosing a confederate soldier as a symbol for their school, hmmm.'

But when I really thought about it - I figured it was exactly what you said, that they saw themselves as small but tough rebels.

There weren't very many black people in the town so I doubt anyone ever gave them grief over it - I know I didn't, because as I said, I'd worked it through in my own head that their intent was not racist.

In the little cafe - Corriander's it was called- on Main Street in that town, the first time I walked in, I found these two pieces of black/folk memorabilia on the wall. I remember one was of two little 'pickaninnies' eating watermelon with big smiles and saying ' THIS SURE AM SWEET!!!'

At first I was sort of flabbergasted - and thought - 'We won't be eating here,' but then I got to know Carol and Joe and their family (who were the owners and coincidentally enough hailed originally from New Jersey which is where I grew up) and they were anything but racist. They just liked the art and the colors, etc. They collected that stuff- and not as a racist statement.

Now, in my interracial family my kids and I say, 'THIS SURE AM SWEET' whenever we eat watermelon. It brings back really fond memories of our time in Pittsfield.

The point I'm making is what is a racist symbol to one person can be something else entirely to someone else.
Sometimes it really IS blissfully oblivious ignorance.
But let's put it this way - if I were driving through Virginia and I got lost and there were two houses and one was flying a confederate flag and one wasn't, I'd ask directions of the people who did NOT have the confederate flag flying (first- if they weren't home - I'd probably feel okay walking up to the next door - and I'd take one of my kids - just to see the look on their face when they thought about the flag they were flying and who might see it and how they might take it).
I'm sure it'd make them think at least.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

You're still on about this? Get a grip, sweetheart.

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@Linkat,

Presumably, u r referring to the Confederate Battle Flag.
It has the best recognition of Confederate Flags.
It was used to lead the troops in Confederate Battle.

It represents the Confederate States of America
and what thay stood for including rebellion and independence, inter alia.
Arguably, it also represented the slavery of the blacks.
The South did not withdraw for that reason and nothing else.
It felt at a disadvantage relative to the Northern States.
The Southern States took the position that thay were going to
leave and run their own affairs without Northern interference.
The matter was settled by force not by reason; "might makes right."

When the South seceded, it was the same as if we now
seceded from NATO or from the UN or from the Book of the Month Club.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

Sheer fantasy . . . just another flavor of apologia for the racist institution which was the Confederate States of America.

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@aidan,

thanks, aidan - I do think it is more being so far north - it doesn't have that same personal feeling - but I do give the school credit, once they learned that it did have the "feel" of being racist, they removed the flag as their symbol.

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@Setanta,

It is a known fact
that when the States accepted the union,
thay considered themselves free to leave, at will.
Some of them, including my own State of NY,
explicitly said so in their Instruments of Ratification of the US Constitution,
with no apologies to be offered.

For a goodly number of years,
the New England States were making noises about withdrawing from the union.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

There are currently at least a dozen states with active succession movements..

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@OmSigDAVID,

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It is a known fact

really?

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@dyslexia,

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Today’s devolutionists, of all stripes, can trace their pedigree to the “anti-federalists” who opposed the compact that came out of Philadelphia as a bad bargain that gave too much power to the center at the expense of the limbs. Some of America’s most vigorous and learned minds were in the anti-federalist camp; their ranks included Virginia’s Patrick Henry, of “give me liberty or give me death” renown. The sainted Jefferson, who was serving as a diplomat in Paris during the convention, is these days claimed by secessionists as a kindred anti-federal spirit, even if he did go on to serve two terms as president.

The anti-federalists lost their battle, but history, in certain respects, has redeemed their vision, for they anticipated how many Americans have come to feel about their nation’s seat of federal power. “This city, and the government of it, must indubitably take their tone from the character of the men, who from the nature of its situation and institution, must collect there,” the anti-federalist pamphleteer known only as the Federal Farmer wrote. “If we expect it will have any sincere attachments to simple and frugal republicanism, to that liberty and mild government, which is dear to the laborious part of a free people, we most assuredly deceive ourselves.”

In the mid-19th century, the anti-federalist impulse took a dark turn, attaching itself to the cause of the Confederacy, which was formed by the unilateral secession of 13 southern states over the bloody issue of slavery. Lincoln had no choice but to go to war to preserve the Union"and ever since, anti-federalism, in almost any guise, has had to defend itself from the charge of being anti-modern and indeed retrograde.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204482304574219813708759806.html

We have abandoned mild government, we now have an activist, intrusive, and rapidly growing Government. It is this overreach that promotes the movements which aim to depower Washington. The liberals decided to use Washington power as the primary tool to create their utopia, but what it really will do is fragment the United States, because individuals for the most part will not submit themselves to government, and certainly not a government that sides with the corporate class over the rest of the nation. Liberals should have stuck to arguing their case in public, to doing the work of building majorities. Their short cut of trying overpower the individual though government will not work.

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@OCCOM BILL,

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Apparently Setanta and Occum Bill are able to look into the souls of everyone who today use the confederate flag as a symbol and know that they do so because they are racists. Apparently they are even able to look into the souls of the the long dead and know that those who fought for the Confederacy did so for a racist ideal.
Not true. Some are well enough informed to know damned well that flag symbolized the South's last desperate attempt to maintain their superiority over what they collectively considered an inferior race, and some are just too ignorant to realize it. You just admitted you know the truth, so what's your quibble?

I do not think southerners need to be punished for the sins of their fathers anymore than I think Germans need to be punished for the sins of theirs. But they should stop short of celebrating their heinous history, which resulted in countless millions of human lives lost… not to mention the bloodiest war in this country’s history. Would you consider defending a Swastika display with a similar argument? I mean heck; the Nazis were only practicing their demented atrocity for what, a dozen years? Surely that’s no worse than 400 years of treating fellow humans as, well, slaves.

The flag symbolized a confederacy of states from a specific region with a cultural identity separate from that found in the North. The confederate battle flag, which is what we tend to see in use as a symbol today, represented a fighting force that, irrespective of who fired the first shot, waged a fundamentally defensive war. To the extent the Southern army invaded the North during the war, it was to end the war not to seize territory or establish control over the entire country. In the end, the South was crushed by an invading army intent upon putting an end to any future thoughts of rebellion, and quite tolerant of acts of atrocity. This is not to suggest that the Confederates were innocent victims of Northern aggression, but it does go towards explaining how the Confederate flag has, for many Southerners, a symbolic value that is utterly void of the consideration of slavery. One can argue that this displays a willing blindness but not necessarily fundamental racist views.

While slavery, at the time of the Civil War, was limited to the Southern states of America, the same cannot be said of racism, and slavery itself was legal in the north until 1804 with slaver ownership continuing even until 1860 - three years before the Emancipation Proclamation. While the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1803, it wasn't until 1833 that slave ownership was abolished, and even then there were exceptions for the East India Company.

This is not intended as justification for the Southern slave trade and ownership, but to put the issue in some context. After many years of trading in and owning slaves, the US North and the British Empire finally came around to abolishing the practice, but then they were never threatened with having the practice forcibly prohibited before they came to see the light.

My "quibble" is that I don't accept the premise that the confederate flag in all of its uses is a symbol of racism.

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@dyslexia,

I notice that David has many known facts that are known only to him.

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@plainoldme,

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I notice that David has many known facts that are known only to him.

The formation of the Confederacy proves David correct, perhaps he over estimated your intelligence, your ability to figure this out for yourself.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

What separates "willing blindness" from ignorance? Not much right? If not, then I don't think there's much ground between your position and mine, as I've already conceded some Southern Pride is a reflection of willful ignorance (willing blindness if you prefer) and you've already conceded that absent the defense of slavery there would be no confederacy... let alone the need to make a flag to fly over it.

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@OCCOM BILL,

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I don't think there's much ground between your position and mine,

There is not much difference between "there Might be some willful blindness" and "there is willful racism"??!!

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you've already conceded that absent the defense of slavery there would be no confederacy... let alone the need to make a flag to fly over it.

this should be your clue that the people who fly the flag do so for reasons that go beyond the reason you have in your head, or that maybe you are not correct at all. It is a hint that you should go back and consult with reality.

I think that Liberals are so used to their bullying working that they don't know what to make of resistance.

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I think what makes the battle standard a symbol of racism is not that the Confederacy used it, but that is was used in the 40's and 50's by southern states to indicate their absolute refusal to agree to racial equality. Each state added it to their state flag to indicate their belief in maintaining a racist system. I think that prior to that it was just an interesting historical flag.

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@engineer,

historic meanings do matter, but we also have the ability to redefine words and symbols. And we don't have to accept other peoples meaning as our own. For Bill the flag seems to mean racism, but he has no right to say that it means racism for everyone. He also has no right to say that no one should be flying it. He is in control of what he says and believes, and everyone else has the right to the same respect being return to us.

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@hawkeye10,

Yawn

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@hawkeye10,

What do you mean "we don't have to accept other peoples meaning as our own?"

While people are entitled to their own speech patterns and to use words in an eccentric way, there are definitions that are widely, even universally, accepted.

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Is the Confederate Flag a symbol of racism?

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