i’m quite partial to Nevada’s flag. but if it had a racist symbol on it, i’d be all for making up a new one.
Everyone in SC knows what the state flag looks like. The palmetto tree and crescent moon is used as an image/logo for way too many things. It’s everywhere.
SC put it up in 1961, as part of official commemorations of the centennial anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. It was only supposed to fly for that year, but whoever wrote the resolution failed to put an end date on how long it would fly (oops). This lead to the probably accurate conclusion that it was a (not so) sneaky way of opposing segregation.
2 Likes
The question was why one is allowed to fly a Confederate flag (or, for that matter, any flag). My assumption was that it’s a legal question. I’m not trying to justify flying it, nor am I stating that others have to approve. I’ve viewed the Confederate flag as an abhorrent symbol of hate loooong before it was trendy.
There are various reasons why people would want to fly the Confederate flag, since you asked. Some think, in all honesty, that it’s a Southern heritage/pride thing. (Those people are clueless to the pain it represents and still causes). There are people who are under the mistaken understanding that the US Civil War was about states rights and think the Confederate flag represents that (Insert previous parenthetical statement here.) And then there are the assholes who fly it because that’s what assholes do. So that answers your question about why anyone would want to. I’m not justifying that any of these reasons are okay; they are simply reasons that exist.
I think we should all be aware that flying a Confederate flag, especially in the Deep South, is a far more complicated matter than, say, flying a Nazi flag. The Confederate flag is wrought with all sorts of symbolism and really does mean different things to different people, be they historically accurate or not. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to divorce it from the legacy of slavery, white supremacy and racial hate that it grew out of.
2 Likes
Why is that unfortunate? That’s the very reason I support boycotting it, halting its sale if one owns a business and chooses to do so, and rallying for the end of official state sanctioning of it.
Well, it’s unfortunate if one wants to fly a hate symbol but not be a hater. Ya can’t have both.
Ah, got it, thanks.
Don’t forget the back side.
1 Like
Message of southern conservatives:
“The government should not be deciding whether or not the Confederate flag can be flown.
Wait … Amazon, Sears, and Walmart are doing what? The government needs to step in and mandate that the Confederate flag be sold by all major retail outlets!”
2 Likes
wow, the British Empire was really up front about what they were using that country and its people for.
be that as it may, the green and white of the flag is the most implicilly racist part, not the arms.
And Apple just banned all Civil War games because the Rebel flag is in them…I’m done.
Apple arbitrarily banning things isn’t exactly new, and acting like it’s a result of this public pushback, rather than their haphazard censoring gone amuck is a little unfair.
2 Likes
I guess I’d better go tour Gettysburg before all the monuments on the west side of the field are demolished.
2 Likes
I’ve been involved in Civil War scholarship and research as an avocation for the last thirty years.
And I’ve had my share of run-ins with those whose respect for the Confederate soldier has spilled over into (or in some cases grown out of) a whitewashing (sorry!) of slavery.
“The war wasn’t about slavery, it was about state’s rights” is their usual mantra, and I’ve never been afraid to call this out as complete bullshit. It came to blows twice, and got me kicked off of one internet forum. too.
Having said that…
Today’s hysterical groupthink about Confederate flags, statues of Southern soldiers, monuments, games, etc. is really beginning to roil my bowels. I’m not going to join in. I may just buy a Confederate flag for the hell of it.
1 Like
Why? It’s a movement against racism. Like any movement, some of its details may well go too far, but there’s no such thing as a perfect movement.
It’s great that you speak up at the individual level against the racism this flag represents and supports; why are you against a larger movement for the same cause?
2 Likes
Because I can play a game which simulates a Civil War battle without being a racist.
Because I can buy a magazine, book, or painting which contains a depiction of the Confederate flag without being a racist.
Because I can stand along the battle line of Lee’s army at Gettysburg, and read all the inscriptions on the monuments without being a racist.
There are some racists who also do those same things. The problem is with the racists. Not the things.
1 Like
And nobody has really said otherwise. Sure, Apple took the games down - Apple has also taken all sorts of stuff down that they outright shouldn’t have. Your problem is with Apple’s overreaction, and with immoral corporations desperate, petty attempts to appear non-racist instead of trying to make actual changes, not with the people who are calling for support of racism to stop.
2 Likes
DId I FTFY?
1 Like
Here are a couple of non-corporations who are overreacting:
Al Sharpton to protest Brooklyn street named for Confederate army leader
Mitch McConnell Wants to Remove Jefferson Davis Statue from Kentucky Capitol
Unless they have substantive evidence that that street, and that statue, are foci of racist agitation, I guess I’ll be charitable and presume that both these gentlemen are in some way temporarily retarded.
