Is This a Racist Flag?

No, I think that entitlement programs have produced a slavery beyond anything anyone could have imagined 150 years ago.

I've never noticed such, neither at university nor while working.

But you certainly might have better sources.

Btw: did the profession you're in stop studying? Do you know of any other science that ever did such (recently)?

Environmentalists. They drank the Koolaid and stopped studying about the time Clinton left office.

At the same time, science builds upon itself. History just plays with itself.

You're a well educated man, cjhsa, and full of well founded wisdom.

Do you not agree that entitlement programs in the U.S. have produced the largest class of indentured (no) servitude humans in history? Tell me where else so many get so much for doing absolutely nothing.

In the words of Bob Marley: "If you know your history, then you know where you're coming from". But apparently I don't know history well enough because what they taught me in school is no longer true. Imagine how my parents feel - like they grew up on the moon.

PC and revisionist history is crap - and racist in its own right.

You've outdone yourself. You may now choose between:
A. Bigoted to an obscene extreme.
B. Ignorant to an obscene extreme.
C. All of the above.

Just one CJ...

Take a close look at what you're really talking about:


Slavery
African American Slavery
In American Holocaust (1992), David Stannard estimates that some 30 to 60 million Africans died being enslaved. He claims a 50% mortality rate among new slaves while being gathered and stored in Africa, a 10% mortality among the survivors while crossing the ocean, and another 50% mortality rate in the first "seasoning" phase of slave labor. Overall, he estimates a 75-80% mortality rate in transit.

In Slavery A World History, Milton Meltzer estimates that 10 million slaves arrived in the Americas. This would be the residue after 12.5% of those shipped out from Africa died on the ocean, 4-5% died while waiting in harbor, and 33% died during the first year of seasoning.

In "The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Holocaust" (Is the Holocaust Unique, A. Greebaum, ed., 1996), Seymour Drescher estimates that 21M were enslaved, 1700-1850, of which 7M remained in slavery inside Africa. 4M died "as a direct result of enslavement". Of the 12M shipped to America, 15%, or 2M more, died in the Middle Passage and seasoning year.

Jan Rogozinski, A Brief History of the Caribbean (1994): "[A]s many as eight million Africans may have died in order to bring four million slaves to the Caribbean islands."

In The Slave Trade, Hugh Thomas estimates that 13M left African ports, and 11,328,000 arrived. Here are a few other numbers from Thomas:

No year-by-year stats, but by piecing together scattered decade stats, I figure that 5M slaves were shipped in the 18th Century.
Shipboard mortality among slaves:
Mercado in 1569 estimated an average shipboard mortality of 20%
Brazilian historians: 15-20% in 16th C; 10% in 19th C.
English trade:
1680s: 24%
early 18th C: 10%
1780s: 5.65%
Hugh Thomas: 9% reasonable est. for 18th C.
19th C
Cliffe: 35%
House of Commons: 9.1%
Thomson: 9%
Hotham: 5%
In the chapter on African population in the Atlas of World Population History (1978), Colin McEvedy estimates that 9.5 million African slaves were imported into the Americas between 1500 and 1880. He also suggests a 15% mortality rate on the ocean.

Rummel estimates a total death toll of 17,267,000 African slaves (1451-1870)

Among slaves going to Orient: 2,400,000 dead
Among slaves staying in Africa: 1,200,000 dead
Among slaves going to New World: 13,667,000 dead
Fredric Wertham claims that 150,000,000 Africans died of the slave trade.

My Estimate:
Looking at all the scholarship on the subject, it looks like, at the very least, 35% of those enslaved in Africa died before they were ever put to work in America. On the other hand, at least 20% of them survived. Between these extreme possibilites (35-80%), the most likely mortality rate is 62%.

In terms of absolute numbers, the lowest possible (and only barely possible at that) death toll we can put on the trans-Atlantic slave trade is 6 million. If we assume the absolute worst, a death toll as high as 60 million is at the very edge of possibility; however, the likeliest number of deaths would fall somewhere from 15 to 20 million.




Death Rates Low Likely High
Seasoning 15% 33% 50%
Arrived 9.5M 11M 15M
Ocean Crossing 10% 15% 18%
Africa 20% 33% 50%
Died 6M 17.8M 58M

If 5 million slaves were shipped in the 18th Century (the busiest century, see Hugh Thomas, above), then the 18th Century death toll could be around 8.1 million. (=5/11*17.8)

Keep in mind that these numbers only count the dead among the first generation of slaves brought from Africa. Subsequent generations would contribute additional premature or unnatural deaths.


Ah, but those entitlement programs are just horrible.

As Steve noted, context is everything. Seeing Confederate battle flags at a cemetery of Confederate war dead is, to my mind, far less offensive than seeing it waved by a bunch of hooded Klan members at a rally, because the intent behind those acts are very different.

Now, don't misunderstand me here: I'm not defending the cause of Southern independence. I believe that the war was fought to defend the institution of slavery, and I have said so before on these forums. I also find the display of the Confederate battle flag to be at least somewhat troubling -- not only for its connections with slavery and racism, but also its connections with treason and rebellion. The cause of Southern independence was a dishonorable and ignoble cause, and the symbols of that cause must inevitably be associated with it.

But that's not to say that every use of those symbols is equal. For instance, it makes a big difference if a swastika is displayed at a neo-Nazi rally or in an Indian temple:



Likewise, I own a replica of the German imperial war ensign:



which, for some strange reason, is also frequently used by neo-Nazi groups. Frankly, I am a little uncomfortable with showing that flag, even though it has no historical connections with Nazis and I have no sympathies whatever for them. If I wanted to wave that flag around, it wouldn't mean that I was a neo-Nazi, although I could understand if some stranger, not knowing my background or intent, might make that connection.

In a similar fashion, the Confederate battle flag has been used for so long as a rallying symbol for racists that it is understandable if one assumes, without knowing more, that any particular use is for that purpose. But that's not to say that it is invariably used for that purpose.

I disagree. A slave to the free money is still a slave.

But, thanks to Joe for getting back to the original discussion.

Since you mentioned that, joe ...


All this flag-associations in Germany is historically nonsense and only proves how stupid those on extrem right are.

Similar, when they show or hoise a war ensign, mostly even a war jack.

Oh, I agree there are degrees. But they are, except for the otherwise ignorant, degrees of racism or more purposeful depictions of same. Even on a great, great, great, great, great, grandfathers gravestone; this still holds true. I would automatically question the motive of the person putting it up.

Your flag wasn't created as a symbol of heinous racism, and it's a pity the jerkoffs use it... and even the swastika wasn't invented by Nazis, or at least not only invented by Nazis... but the flag on the opening page of this post has no other history. It is, has always been, and will always be a symbol rampant racism.

Well, then what of the fact the south flew the same flag as the north for much more of the time slavery was actually practiced?

This is purest horseshit. It is also the modern apologia for the Confederacy.

Had there been no slavery, there would have been no regional conflicting views sufficiently divisive to have lead to war. The only significant issue between the "old" South and the North (old South meaning the coastal states of the original 13 colonies) was the tariff--Southerners opposed the tariff, and Northerners favored it: the former because they wished to, quixotically, continue the unfavorable transaction whereby European ships would pick up their product (at first tobacco and later cotton) and unload consumer goods in the same transaction; Northerners favored the tariff because it protected the industry of the "old" North. Although North Carolina threatened to secede in the 1830s on the issue of the tariff, it was not an issue sufficiently significant that it would have lead to rebellion and open warfare.

Thanks to the "peculiar institution," and the enshrinement of the political power of slave holders in the constitutional three-fifths compromise, the issue of slave state and free kept the pot constantly on the boil. The Missouri compromise called for a slave state to be admitted to the union on each occasion upon which a free state was admitted. No less an American icon than Thomas Jefferson, himself a slave owner, wrote to John Holmes of Massachusetts to say that the compromise would destroy the union. All of the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel which was to form the southern border of Missouri was to be free, with the exception of the proposed state of Missouri, and Maine entered the union as a free state.

Thereafter, the admission of successive states renewed the conflict of slave and free states, and the Mexican War of Mr. Polk was widely seen as a ploy of the Southern states to grab more territory for more slave states (the Missouri compromise had, in fact created a situation in which soon there would be no new slave states, while free states continued to be admitted). Much of the opposition to the Mexican War in the North, and particular the Northeast (cf. Thoreau's Civil Disobediance), was based precisely upon that contention that the war was whipped up by Southerners who wished to extend the potential slave state territory available.

Certainly one can make the argument that many, and perhaps most, Northerners didn't give a rat's ass about blacks, and that many, and perhaps most, fought to preserve the union. That does not alter for a moment the undeniable fact that absent the institution of slavery, there would have been no issue sufficiently significant to have united the states which were to comprise the Confederate States (the "new" slave states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana didn't care about the tariff)--and no reason for nearly one third of the nation to go to war with the balance.

Cjhsa shouldn't attempt to make statements from historical authority when he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

The war, like all wars, was about power and control. All other points are icing on a violent cake.

Let's see your evidence that such a war would have occurred absent the institution of slavery. You're whistling past the graveyard, and now you're just making up silly statements, broad generalizations, in the attempt to support your previous statement--which was a racist apologia for the actions of the Confederate States.

By the way, if all wars are about money and power, and all else is just icing on a violent cake, then i presume you don't for a moment believe any of the rationales for the Iraq war advanced by the present administration, hmm?

It's about power. Is that a stretch for you?

Would you like to continue attacking the messenger or discuss the topic?

Attacking the messenger implies that i am dodging an unpleasant truth, and attacking you instead. I am not attacking you, i am attacking the racist apology for the Southern Confederacy which you are presenting here. I haven't said that you are a racist, i have simply pointed out that you are repeating an argument used by racists who attempt to excuse the actions of the Confederate States, which organized and fought a war to preserve the institution of slavery.

You can continue to mouth your silly mantra about money and power as the only causes of war, but you're just tying your argument in knots. The Three Fifths Compromise and the Missouri Compromise assured the political power of slave holders by assuring them far more power in the Congress than they otherwise would have had, and more Representatives for fewer voters than the Representatives elected in free states. To that extent, one could make a simple-minded claim that the war was about money and power--the money and power which flowed from owing slaves.

I am discussing the topic. The flag to which you referred is the symbol of a racist organization--the Confederate States of America, an organization which only existed because of a racist agenda.

I think it was invented by their armed forces, no?

The passage quoted by Dys suggests both that the flag was adopted at the behest of Pierre Gustave Toutant (known as Beauregard), and that the design had existed prior to this move on his part. I have read that that flag, often commonly referred to as "the Southern Cross" was first used by the Eight Regiment of South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. But who cares? Regardless of the origin of the symbol, it remains a symbol of racists. Get over it.

Of course you are absolutely right Walter. But then what is history? Its the present, in the past tense. Just a few ripples in space-time. Does it mean anything?