What the Confederate flag means to me

oldtin wrote: For some places it could take generations for a family to be accepted in the south. There's a saying about southern hospitality - he smiles from the teeth out.

Bless your little ole heart...

Being from Tennessee, educated in South Carolina and moving to Louisiana before heading to DC, I had and easier time fitting in than most. Knowing your mannerisms and accepting that you are an outsider is something that makes the integration process quicker but still you are looking at 3 generations to be fully "from there"

Thinking about it, if it hadn't been that church in that city with that response, this would have continued to have been ignored.

Flight Service wrote: Now if you can be so kind as to return my favor and instruct me on the social etiquette of the DC metro area. I would be much obliged.

I am a recent transplant who was raised in Ohio and then spent a little time in western MD before moving to the DC area a few years back.

I was going to take a stab, but it sounded rather pessimistic and awful. There are nice people here, but you have to break through the shield of urban solitude to find it.

oldtin wrote: The Chinese also struggle with the issue of integrating conquered people into their culture.

I thought Mao killed them all.......

Woody wrote: http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/major-american-companies-ban-sales-of-racist-confederate-flag-amid-protests/story-fnda1bsz-1227412156822

That's a retailer's store policy, not a government's laws. Some of them ban Nazi memorabilia and M/Ao-rated video games too.

Flight Service wrote:

alfadriver wrote: What heritage is being represented?

I tried to answer that on Page 1

I know what YOU wrote, but do realize that others say other things, which seems odd.

As in the flag representing the great economy of the south, and how money flowed in- completely ignoring why. Or other things like that. It's the rest of the heritage answers that I'm curious about. How much of that heritage ignores major other items?

"We like the great southern plantations and all of the formality and glory that they put out" or something like that.

It's interesting to hear.

As far as I hear, the flag isn't being banned anymore than the swastika is.

The question is whether a representative government should use it as a symbol, and if retailers want to sell that symbol.

The confederate flag can still be displayed in museums, which is where it belongs.

yamaha wrote:

oldtin wrote: The Chinese also struggle with the issue of integrating conquered people into their culture.

I thought Mao killed them all.......

These days it's the Uyghurs and the government generally treats them like crap. Anyone but the Han Chinese (what we generally picture when you think of "Chinese person" today) gets treated like crap really.

SVreX wrote:

yupididit wrote: The white man has used race or Christianity to conquer, kill, and destroy just about every culture they've encountered outside of Europe.

Unnecessary comment, especially since so many other colors, religions, and belief systems have done it too.

Well make sure you read the two sentences before the one you quoted and you wont take it out of the intended context. Please reread what's quoted below:

yupididit said: Why in the world would you want to be associated with such a group is beyond me. But hell, whites kinda have no choice being associated with such words. I mean that in the least offensive way possible.

I'm sorry if you didn't like what I said because you took it out of context or didn't understand what I meant by it.

The funniest thing about this latest knee jerk reaction issue of thr moment concerning the battle flag to me is that people are seemingly not concerned (or aware) of all the bad things done in the name of the stars and sripes. It's not like that is a symbol of freedom or equality.

Personally, I don't see why any public place would display the battle flag and when I see it on private property I assume racist redneck not genteel southern family.

It is sad that the flag issue is even an issue in response to the shootings. We live in a brawndo world.

In reply to yupididit:

Even though you disclaimered it, it doesn't mean you didn't single one particular thing out. If you had taken a jab at everyone equally or generically, you'd be in the right. What was written can come off as equally racist/sexist/secular/etc as those you intended to speak out against.

In reply to T.J.:

There are a lot of people who know that the flag is just a surface symbol right now, and just taking it down fixes nothing. Or at least some people.

SVreX wrote:

yupididit wrote: The white man has used race or Christianity to conquer, kill, and destroy just about every culture they've encountered outside of Europe.

Unnecessary comment, especially since so many other colors, religions, and belief systems have done it too.

Still do and it ain't just the white man doing it.

In reply to alfadriver:

Alfa, let me start by saying again, I've never been big on the Confederate flag, nor has anyone in my family. I'm an American first, a Southerner second. The Confederacy doesn't even enter the picture. Fly it or not, I personally don't care. I think it comes down to honoring family that died in a war, fought for a cause, that they believed in. Right wrong or indifferent, it's family and Southerners are all about family. God, family, country, in that order. Also, a lot of the South is shaped by the outcome of that war.

I'm not a scholar, but blaming the Civil War on slavery alone is as disingenuous as blaming the federal deficit on the military. Yes, it was a large part of it, but states rights were at the top of the list. How much power the federal government had to tell the states what to do within their own boundaries. A lot of people paid in blood to reach that decision. To wipe that from history is shortsighted at best.

To blame the murder of 9 people on a flag that flies atop a memorial to the many dead is the sign of a small mind. The media and race baiters, unhappy at the lack of riots and civil disorder, seen elsewhere in the country, baited a hook with a flag and many in this country swallowed it hook line and sinker.

I'll say it again, a flag isn't the problem.

So what I'm trying to say is:

Because of the dominance of a certain dominant race in our world history (white) and the reasons/excuses/mission statement (racism, Christianity, greed) that they used to destroy, slave, and misplace other less dominant groups of people (Native Americans, Blacks, Indians, and other Aboriginal cultures) it's hard for White's to not be associated with such words (oppressors, slavers, morally wrong).Given the history of our world. Certain people of those certain cultures still see them as such or cant think of whites as anything more than that. So when they see a white guy rollin' around with the Confederate flag, well there you have it...association.

I know there are other groups of people who use certain reasons to do E36 M3ty things. I've traveled to over 20 countries and most were not first world countries. I'm not ignorant to that fact at all.

Geez

DaveEstey wrote: The confederate flag can still be displayed in museums, which is where it belongs.

I was at the National Infantry Museum last weekend. Honors infantry from every war, including the Civil. Of course, there were plenty of Confederate flags.

It sits on the Fort Benning military base. Federal property. Operated by the Army.

How are we going to have museums that contain Confederate flags without paying for them with tax dollars?

The SC flag in question flies over a Civil War Memorial. How is that different? How are you going to have a Civil War Memorial without a Confederate flag?

GA native born of GA natives. I think the flag needs to go in any official capacity. I've thought that for a long time. GA had our own flag debate and our own stupid compromises years ago. Whatever the flag may have meant in the hundred years following the civil war, it's placement on southern state flags in the late 50's and early 60's was a middle finger to the federal government's actions surrounding civil rights. If the heritage crowd didn't want their flag to come to mean racism, then they shouldn't have allowed it to be co-opted by racists. Nobody is talking about banning the flag - you will still be allowed to fly it proudly in the back of your jacked up pickup. But as official symbols of government, it's time to go.

Further, I don't understand why, other than racism, someone would choose to stand by an inanimate object that causes other people so much pain. Even if I reject every political reason to put the flag behind us, just basic human empathy makes me want to do so if only to make life better for some of my fellow humans.

EDIT - Thanks rex for the thoughtful post and the rest for the civil discourse.

I don't care about tax dollars. I care what that flag means to a large segment of our country as a whole.

A flag does not a memorial make.

SVreX wrote:

DaveEstey wrote: The confederate flag can still be displayed in museums, which is where it belongs.

I was at the National Infantry Museum last weekend. Honors infantry from every war, including the Civil. Of course, there were plenty of Confederate flags. It sits on the Fort Benning military base. Federal property. Operated by the Army. How are we going to have museums that contain Confederate flags without paying for them with tax dollars? The SC flag in question flies over a Civil War Memorial. How is that different? How are you going to have a Civil War Memorial without a Confederate flag?

Dave,

You realize that GA flag debate removed the Virginia battle flag from the GA flag, but inserted the flag of the Confederate States of America, with the GA seal superimposed, right?

I don't see that as a compromise at all.

In reply to DaveEstey:

So, are you saying that we should have museums showing the history which do not include displaying the flag?

A museum isn't a memorial

Toyman01 wrote: I'm not a scholar, but blaming the Civil War on slavery alone is as disingenuous as blaming the federal deficit on the military. Yes, it was a large part of it, but states rights were at the top of the list. How much power the federal government had to tell the states what to do within their own boundaries. A lot of people paid in blood to reach that decision. To wipe that from history is shortsighted at best.

To pretend those meant anything is to gloss over the problem. They had a problem with states' rights to allow slavery and how much power the federal government had to tell them to cut out the slavery. It was the core and near-entirety of the problem, it was basically everything the Confederacy stood for, and the rest was window-dressing. Any other reason you can try to find that the Civil War was fought over was just a flimsy proxy for the issue of being allowed to keep slaves (not strictly for the sake of keeping them, but more because it was the bread and butter of their economy- not that it's any better). States' rights, government power, cotton, you name it.

Toyman01 wrote: To blame the murder of 9 people on a flag that flies atop a memorial to the many dead is the sign of a small mind. The media and race baiters, unhappy at the lack of riots and civil disorder, seen elsewhere in the country, baited a hook with a flag and many in this country swallowed it hook line and sinker. I'll say it again, a flag isn't the problem.

Yes the flag is not the problem, but it is a problem. Taking them down from public buildings won't stop mass-shootings or cure racism. But it will mean people won't have to see their own government flying a flag that, at the very least from their own viewpoint, represented practically nothing but standing against their ancestors' freedom. The recent shooting just brought more attention to the problem that everyone had been whistling past for decades.

DaveEstey wrote: A museum isn't a memorial

Sounds like splitting hairs.

The museum I was at most certainly was a memorial, on a grand scale.

SVreX wrote: Dave, You realize that GA flag debate removed the Virginia battle flag from the GA flag, but inserted the flag of the Confederate States of America, with the GA seal superimposed, right? I don't see that as a compromise at all.

I do. Thus the reference to a stupid compromise. It's still a poor choice for a state symbol, but at least it's one that is tied more closely to the confederacy and less closely to racism, seemingly by blacks and racists alike.

It's going to sound like whatever you want it to sound like. One's purpose is for education. The other for remembrance.