Current Events > Is the confederate flag a symbol of racism?

(+) Yeah! (+)

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Bump
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If it isn't then it begs the question of why people in the US, Canada, Russia, Germany, etc are flying that flag. What do all of those people have in common that would make them identify with the Confederacy?
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No. I'm from the south and never viewed it as a symbol of hate or slavery.
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My Dukes of Hazzard flag?
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No but if people want to pitch a fit about it...whatever, let's whitewash it. Doesn't affect me. I'm Chinese and living in the south.
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Yes
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Yes, obviously. It's not the actual Confederacy's flag and saw its resurgence as a banner against the Civil Rights Act.
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Is everybody that flies a Confederate flag racist? No.

Is the flag itself racist? Absolutely. It's stylized after the battle flag of a state that rebelled to protect slavery and was popularized by racist terror organizations during reconstruction and by anti-civil rights organizations during the 20th. Just because the Duke boys and Lynyrd Skynyrd liked it as well doesn't change those facts, just that some then and now are dumb to allow the intentional obfuscation of the flag's origins to go over their head.
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bump
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WhinyZach posted...

Like people piss, shit, and burn the American flag and people are like "who cares it's just a flag, doesn't mean shit"

I think the argument is "it's not illegal." But I don't think flag-burners (and definitely not flag-pissers) are thought of as normal, great people.
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I'm from the south and everyone I knew and grew up with associated it with racism. Mostly uneducated, poor white people flew the flag too. Usually the racist ones in our area.
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To some.

Not to others.
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It is certainly associated strongly with racism. It cannot however have an objective symbolic meaning.

WhinyZach posted...

Who cares, it's just a flag.

Like people piss, s***, and burn the American flag and people are like "who cares it's just a flag, doesn't mean s***"

Yet all of a sudden you're a trashy racist if you fly this flag.

All of a sudden? Lol oh CE.
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CE gonna CE with results.
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I've never seen it owned or used by anyone who wasn't using it for racist reasons.

My experience pertains to Sothern California though so take that for what you will.
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AmonAmarth posted...

CE gonna CE with results.

Really, because it's the opposite of what I'd expect a CE poll on this to look like.
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Yes. No amount of revisionist history will change how these symbols have been used over the years.
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3rd_Best_Master posted...

If it isn't then it begs the question of why people in the US, Canada, Russia, Germany, etc are flying that flag. What do all of those people have in common that would make them identify with the Confederacy?

You just made that up.
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The battle flag isn't, no. The actual Confederate flag, maybe.
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Kineth posted...

Yes, obviously. It's not the actual Confederacy's flag and saw its resurgence as a banner against the Civil Rights Act.

K181 posted...

Is everybody that flies a Confederate flag racist? No.

Is the flag itself racist? Absolutely. It's stylized after the battle flag of a state that rebelled to protect slavery and was popularized by racist terror organizations during reconstruction and by anti-civil rights organizations during the 20th. Just because the Duke boys and Lynyrd Skynyrd liked it as well doesn't change those facts, just that some then and now are dumb to allow the intentional obfuscation of the flag's origins to go over their head.

hockeybub89 posted...

Yes. No amount of revisionist history will change how these symbols have been used over the years.

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No but people like to claim it is. Two of my three close friends are Afriacan American and I have a confederate battle flag on my class ring. But history likes to oversimplify the war to try and justify what the federal government did during the conflict.

These are the same kinds of people that claim Abraham Lincoln was a champion of freedom even though his government had one of the worst records of violating the rights of its citizens in the history of the US if not the worst such record. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and right to a jury trial were all suspended when the government or military of the time found it convenient to do so. And of course Lincoln suspended hapeus corpus long before the law giving him the authority to do so was passed then ignored a court ruling that he didn't have that authority and kept right on jailing people without charging them with a crime. In fact the editor of a newspaper that published an editorial condemning such arrests was held for more then a year and the paper shut down.
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Wing_Phoenix posted...

No but people like to claim it is. Two of my three close friends are Afriacan American and I have a confederate battle flag on my class ring. But history likes to oversimplify the war to try and justify what the federal government did during the conflict.

These are the same kinds of people that claim Abraham Lincoln was a champion of freedom even though his government had one of the worst records of violating the rights of its citizens in the history of the US if not the worst such record. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and right to a jury trial were all suspended when the government or military of the time found it convenient to do so. And of course Lincoln suspended hapeus corpus long before the law giving him the authority to do so was passed then ignored a court ruling that he didn't have that authority and kept right on jailing people without charging them with a crime. In fact the editor of a newspaper that published an editorial condemning such arrests was held for more then a year and the paper shut down.

I'm not saying you ARE racist.
But did you really just use the "I can't be racist, some of my best friends are black" argument?

It began really as a racist symbol under the guise of southern pride (I mean post war). That southern pride line has been used so much for so long that there are not a trivial amount of people who now legitimately view it as that. As has always been clear, especially now, is that the majority of people who vigorously defend it, at some level, use it as a banner of white plight. The people who view it as southern pride are not as attached.
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ThanksUglyGod posted...

Wing_Phoenix posted...

No but people like to claim it is. Two of my three close friends are Afriacan American and I have a confederate battle flag on my class ring. But history likes to oversimplify the war to try and justify what the federal government did during the conflict.

These are the same kinds of people that claim Abraham Lincoln was a champion of freedom even though his government had one of the worst records of violating the rights of its citizens in the history of the US if not the worst such record. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and right to a jury trial were all suspended when the government or military of the time found it convenient to do so. And of course Lincoln suspended hapeus corpus long before the law giving him the authority to do so was passed then ignored a court ruling that he didn't have that authority and kept right on jailing people without charging them with a crime. In fact the editor of a newspaper that published an editorial condemning such arrests was held for more then a year and the paper shut down.

I'm not saying you ARE racist.
But did you really just use the "I can't be racist, some of my best friends are black" argument?

Given that I am white if I were racist I would view them as inferior and thus wouldn't want to be friends with them.
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No, it's a symbol of Southern pride and heritage.
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ThanksUglyGod posted...

I'm not saying you ARE racist.
But did you really just use the "I can't be racist, some of my best friends are black" argument?

If that argument is good enough to prevent murderers from being charged with hate crimes then it is good enough here....
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JohnLennon6 posted...

No, it's a symbol of Southern pride and heritage.

This one is better.
http://imgur.com/a/QZNma
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JohnLennon6 posted...

Southern pride and heritage.

aka racism
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I don't believe it started out that way, but
as time went on, people saw it just as the racist flag


So yes it is now.
it's been perverted
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Biofighter55 posted...

I don't believe it started out that way

It literally started as a symbol of slavery lmao
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It is a symbol of The Confederacy ...

Which was a faction inherently based on racist ideologies, so ...

Right because every slave state in the USA joined the CSA. Oh wait they didn't. And a third of the Confederate states including Virginia, which at the time had one of the highest totals of slaves in the USA I believe, only left in protest of the Federal government's decision to use the military to force the states that had decided to leave to remain in the USA.

Hell even the Emancipation Proclamation was as much a means to the end of maintaining the Fedral government's power over the states that had left as any thing else. If the south had surrendered within a few months of the proclamation no slaves would have been freed.

And I believe that if the government had handled reconstruction better there would have been a lot less resentment in the south and the KKK and similar groups would be almost forgotten history with the Afracian Americans having gained their civil rights without good men and women suffering and dying in my parents lifetime for them.
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Yes, without a doubt
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Considering that racism and slavery seem to be the main reasons the Confederacy even existed, yes.
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No. It's actually not that rare to see black people displaying confederate flags on their cars, clothes, etc. in areas of the country where you see them regularly.
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DifferentialEquation posted...

No. It's actually not that rare to see black people displaying confederate flags on their cars, clothes, etc. in areas of the country where you see them regularly.

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gguirao posted...

Considering that racism and slavery seem to be the main reasons the Confederacy even existed, yes.

It was the main reason the Confederacy existed. There were a lot of issues at the time that were causing issues between the Northern States and the Southern States, but no war broke out until Lincoln got elected president with the promise of ending slavery. This is what caused many southern states to decide it was unacceptable to stay and broke off.
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How it's used today yes.
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So are you really claiming black people who display a confederate flag must be racist against themselves?
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Its a sign of being a loser
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PoopMcgee420 posted...

Its a sign of being a loser

Irony
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JohnLennon6 posted...

PoopMcgee420 posted...

Its a sign of being a loser

Im mad

Did they win?

Lol

Sorry buddy
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JohnLennon6 posted...

DifferentialEquation posted...

No. It's actually not that rare to see black people displaying confederate flags on their cars, clothes, etc. in areas of the country where you see them regularly.

Wing_Phoenix posted...

So are you really claiming black people who display a confederate flag must be racist against themselves?

Have you all never heard of self-hating black people before? The idea that black people believe the same racist rhetoric as white nationalists and supremacists, and claim to be "one of the good ones"?

Hell, every race has people that despise their own kind.

ThanksUglyGod posted...

JohnLennon6 posted...

DifferentialEquation posted...

No. It's actually not that rare to see black people displaying confederate flags on their cars, clothes, etc. in areas of the country where you see them regularly.

Wing_Phoenix posted...

So are you really claiming black people who display a confederate flag must be racist against themselves?

Have you all never heard of self-hating black people before? The idea that black people believe the same racist rhetoric as white nationalists and supremacists, and claim to be "one of the good ones"?

Hell, every race has people that despise their own kind.

yup.

there are even those who look at a Black person with a decent vocabulary as someone who "talks White." from small shit like that, to people who are damn near Uncle Ruckus.
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3rd_Best_Master posted...

If it isn't then it begs the question of why people in the US, Canada, Russia, Germany, etc are flying that flag. What do all of those people have in common that would make them identify with the Confederacy?

uneducated types who scream "racist, racist!" won't acknowledge it anyways
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In the US the most obvious answer IMO is them having ancestors who fought for the south. Or maybe they just don't like how Lincoln is revered. Supposedly honest Abe and his government violated the oath to uphold the Constitution left, right, and center.

As for other countries I don't know but its possible they had ancestors from the south who emigrated after the war.
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Wing_Phoenix posted...

In the US the most obvious answer IMO is them having ancestors who fought for the south. Or maybe they just don't like how Lincoln is revered. Supposedly honest Abe and his government violated the oath to uphold the Constitution left, right, and center.

As for other countries I don't know but its possible they had ancestors from the south who emigrated after the war.

apparently Confederados are in Brazil, too.
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