Worse to Fly the Confederate Flag or Burn it?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Worse to Fly the Confederate Flag or Burn it?

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

When it came down to it, the South preferred slavery to winning their independence, and all the flap about Southern independence was bullshit.

The British gave the South as much help as they could without offending public opinion, and made no secret that they'd aid the Confederacy openly if only they'd abolish slavery, but the South was like "nah we'd rather lose the war than voluntarily free our slaves, thanks anyway" and their envoys were instructed to not even hint at entertaining the possibility for fear of angering the landed planter class back home.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 00:44

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 22:21

Miltank: Dec 27, 2009; by XyloJW

I believe that the CSA did actually offer to free the slaves, but only by the very end of the war.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 01:07

Smoothrich: Nov 8, 2009; Can't post for 2 years!

Ytlaya posted:

His point is pretty much true; the people who claim the confederacy shouldn't be associated with slavery almost certainly think that Nazi Germany can be associated with the holocaust, and the latter formed before the holocaust even took place, while the former wouldn't have even come into existence without the issue of slavery. Comparing a government that enslaved millions of people is actually one of the few times that a comparison with Nazi Germany isn't inaccurate.

I can't parse your meaning, but his point sounded pretty stupid, since Nazism was all about genociding or enslaving hundreds of millions of people, and committed so many atrocities in the cities and territory they invaded and occupied, that if you start to actually read about it you want to puke. Also, Hitler admired and sought to emulate the USA, not the CSA. He saw the Yankee-settled upper Midwest as the model for Eastern Europe. Americans "relocated" the indigenous people and colonized the Great Plains. Not Confederate soldiers. The guy I lmao'd at almost seemed to be downplaying the whole "quest of Eastern European genocide" that Germany started WW2 in Europe for.

USA is guilty on a much greater scale of just about every moral failing ascribed to the CSA. People been talking about slavery and racism as if it began in 1861.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 01:18

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

By the time they sent England the "name any condition to recognize the Confederacy and we will do it" note, it was far too late, and even then Davis had to do it secretly and without directly mentioning slavery because he feared a revolt if word got out he was considering abolition.

Encyclopedia Britannica posted:

Kenner mission, in U.S. history, secret attempt on the part of the Confederacy in 1864 to elicit European recognition in exchange for Southern abolition of slavery.

Duncan Farrar Kenner, a prosperous Louisiana sugar planter and Thoroughbred horse breeder, represented his state in the Confederate House of Representatives throughout the war. As the conflict dragged on, he became increasingly convinced that the South could not win without English and French recognition of the legitimacy of the Confederate government.

In 1864 Kenner convinced Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin to send a special commission to Europe, offering the abolition of slavery in exchange for recognition. The South was desperate, and Pres. Jefferson Davis reluctantly agreed to the plan. But Davis knew that such a proposal would inflame Southern opinion, and he decided to send Kenner alone to Europe without informing the Confederate Congress.

Bearing the title minister plenipotentiary and in disguise, Kenner made his way to New York and sailed for Europe on Feb. 11, 1865. The South was clearly defeated by the time he arrived, however, and the mission accomplished nothing.

http://www.britannica.com/topic/Kenner-mission

# ? Jul 4, 2015 01:31

vintagepurple: Jan 31, 2014; by Nyc_Tattoo

I think one of the issues with the flag is that there's not really an alternative "southern flag"- there is no non-politically loaded alternative for non-racists to turn to. And having grown up in the south, the majority really really don't see it as racist- it's the equivalent of the New England flag with the tree to them.

And consequently, any sort of drive to design one would run into the same flack.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 02:09

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

I'm an Afrikaner (halfrikaner?), and when I want to express pride in my heritage and culture, I find symbols of the good and wonderful things I can be proud of; I don't fly the loving apartheid flag or the AWB's* damned three-armed swastika.

*Our KKK

# ? Jul 4, 2015 02:17

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

vintagepurple posted:

I think one of the issues with the flag is that there's not really an alternative "southern flag"- there is no non-politically loaded alternative for non-racists to turn to. And having grown up in the south, the majority really really don't see it as racist- it's the equivalent of the New England flag with the tree to them.

And consequently, any sort of drive to design one would run into the same flack.

No one in New England knows or cares about the New England flag though, and we got hella regional pride.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 02:24

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

*wears SS uniform, goosesteps around sieg heiling*
"Gawh you guys, I'm not doing it in a racist way, stop stereotyping"

*salutes the Rhodesian and apartheid flags*
"Geez, there's no other possible way for me to show pride in these wonderful cultures, why do you have to be prejudiced"

*puts on white hood, burns cross*
"it's not my fault I can't think of any other way to be proud of the South okay"

# ? Jul 4, 2015 02:34

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

roomforthetuna posted:

Thanks for being the one guy who didn't just act like I'm saying something horrific and evil that I wasn't saying at all, and giving at least a bit of a serious answer.

But people do try to give an answer to what else the Confederacy was about - they say "states rights". I realize that's already "proven false", but that proof seems to consist broadly of "here are some quotes clearly showing that the leadership had one primary reason for wanting states rights, and it was about slavery and race"; is there also evidence that that's what they sold to their supporters? By way of analogy, the recent government has sold "the PATRIOT act" to the population as a whole, as a big anti-terrorist thing, because who wouldn't be anti-terrorism, but a future person reflecting on history could easily frame that as "the United States in the early 2000s was in support of government monitoring of its people, allowing torture, and imprisonment without trial, what a bunch of jerks."

Is it the case that the confederate army as a whole was broadly sold "fight to keep slavery!" or were they sold, say, "don't let us get pushed around by them yankees!"?

It was the former. Most of my belongings are in storage at the moment, but I have an entire primary source reader consisting of documentation of the arguments made by delegates of the nascent CSA government to the various southern legislatures to argue the case of secession. Guess what

Pretty much all of their arguments center around the yankees diabolical plot to eradicate slavery so that the Negro can rape our wives and daughters and then possibly our wives again.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 02:42

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

^^^^Yup.

People generally didn't want to leave the Union. That's why the first Confederate flag looked so much like the Union flag: the Congress was inundated with requests not to abandon the stars and stripes. The confederacy struggled with Unionist factions and partisans throughout the war.

Secession and war was sold to the people using racism. Without the fear of abolition and loss of white supremacy, secession would most likely have fizzled like it did a few decades prior.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 02:49

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

Smoothrich posted:

I can't parse your meaning, but his point sounded pretty stupid, since Nazism was all about genociding or enslaving hundreds of millions of people, and committed so many atrocities in the cities and territory they invaded and occupied, that if you start to actually read about it you want to puke. Also, Hitler admired and sought to emulate the USA, not the CSA. He saw the Yankee-settled upper Midwest as the model for Eastern Europe. Americans "relocated" the indigenous people and colonized the Great Plains. Not Confederate soldiers. The guy I lmao'd at almost seemed to be downplaying the whole "quest of Eastern European genocide" that Germany started WW2 in Europe for.

USA is guilty on a much greater scale of just about every moral failing ascribed to the CSA. People been talking about slavery and racism as if it began in 1861.

While you do have a point, I think the key difference is that the US stopped enslaving and killing millions (directly/within its own borders at least), which allowed what people associated its flag with to change over time. Because the CSA was directly associated with slavery throughout its entire, short existence, many more people directly associate the flag with slavery. The US flag is directly associated with a country that still exists and has changed over the years, while the CSA flag represents the actions of a particular "country" during a short, specific time period.

In the end, all that really matters is that a very large portion of people associate the confederate flag with slavery. It doesn't really matter if some people associate it with something else; if you knowingly choose to display a symbol that you know represents something so terrible to so many people, that makes you a lovely person. If we woke up tomorrow and suddenly half the country magically considered "African American" a racial slur, you would be an rear end in a top hat if you decided to still continue using the term.

The basic moral here is "don't do things that bother/hurt many people." Your initial intent is irrelevant; if you continue to do a thing after being told that it bothers many people (in this particular case, a significant portion of the country), that makes you a pretty lovely person. This isn't to say that you should never do anything that offends anyone else. Obviously you should weigh the inherent worth of a thing with how much it offends/bothers people. But in a case like the confederate flag, it obviously offends a very large number of people and for a very good reason, and little value is lost through limiting its use.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:02

Smoothrich: Nov 8, 2009; Can't post for 2 years!

I agree Ytlaya. Though I get a little troubled at how some people almost "otherize" Southern Americans and pin so much of today's problems on the people who live in that territory today, who never owned slaves, never left the Union, and you know most black people live in the South too.

Nothing wrong with some Southern pride, their culture gave us definitively American music and cuisine for example. And its easy for me to understand how, to some, the CSA is an audacious testament to the character of the South to act like massive dicks, take horrendous casualties, and keep going in defense of the land that Southern people still live in, which to them probably never stopped being American land. The bravery of a Confederate soldier became just as endearing to the national psyche as the industrial war machine of the Union. Combined our military simply kicks rear end, divided it was a horrible bloodbath for everybody.

The only reason America is so strong is because our states have remained united, and it's an awful tragedy that the Civil War ever had to happen, but it became a blessing in the end when all those deaths were given meaning by the abolition of slavery.

I think most people who wave or wear the battle flag are dicks or trolls too, but they'd probably be the first to admit it. The flag belongs in history books and museums, not on cars and capitals. But I'm starting to roll my eyes at the inflammatory articles and comments on people saying the CSA flag represents slavery, when the despicable institution of chattel slavery was carried out under the USA flag, and in the North and South there were racists and abolitionists aplenty, with forces at work leading to a civil war more complicated then "white people below the mason-dixon line hate the negro."

Smoothrich fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:26

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

You can celebrate Southern culture without using the flag of a traitorous army fighting to maintain white supremacy, a flag that was resurrected in the 1960s and flown explicitly to protest integration. I don't need to fly the apartheid flag to celebrate my culture.

If you genuinely think the US flag is such a hateful symbol smoothrich, then the answer isn't to say "so we might as well fly the Confederate flag too". Pull a South Africa, support the introduction of a new set of constitutional amendments or a new constitution to create a truly plural nation and sever the link with slavery and genocide forever and contemporaneously introduce a new flag free of any associations with white supremacy :shrug:

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:34

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

If you want to fly a flag that shows your pride in the South, fly your state flag.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:36

Gum: Mar 9, 2008; _{oho, a rapist

time to try this puppy out}

Piell posted:

If you want to fly a flag that shows your pride in the South, fly your state flag.

depending on the state that might not actually change anything

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:39

Gum: Mar 9, 2008; _{oho, a rapist

time to try this puppy out}

looking at you mississippi

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:39

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

Ytlaya posted:

While you do have a point, I think the key difference is that the US stopped enslaving and killing millions (directly/within its own borders at least), which allowed what people associated its flag with to change over time. Because the CSA was directly associated with slavery throughout its entire, short existence, many more people directly associate the flag with slavery. The US flag is directly associated with a country that still exists and has changed over the years, while the CSA flag represents the actions of a particular "country" during a short, specific time period.

In the end, all that really matters is that a very large portion of people associate the confederate flag with slavery. It doesn't really matter if some people associate it with something else; if you knowingly choose to display a symbol that you know represents something so terrible to so many people, that makes you a lovely person. If we woke up tomorrow and suddenly half the country magically considered "African American" a racial slur, you would be an rear end in a top hat if you decided to still continue using the term.

The basic moral here is "don't do things that bother/hurt many people." Your initial intent is irrelevant; if you continue to do a thing after being told that it bothers many people (in this particular case, a significant portion of the country), that makes you a pretty lovely person. This isn't to say that you should never do anything that offends anyone else. Obviously you should weigh the inherent worth of a thing with how much it offends/bothers people. But in a case like the confederate flag, it obviously offends a very large number of people and for a very good reason, and little value is lost through limiting its use.

While this whole debate over whether we're somehow morally obligated to condone wannabe slaveowner creeps waving around Confederacy propaganda and teaching kids that chattel slavery wasn't so bad really because at least they got fed is for cretins, there may be a non-cretinous discussion to be had over what form the historical narrative of the Civil War should take, cause stopping at 'some now dead people did a wrong thing they were bad' is dumb and useless and I see a whole hell of a lot of yankees whose big takeaway seems to be that they should get all smug over the accident of their birth north of the Mason-Dixon Line and use those drat hick Southerners once having been even worse as an excuse to avoid looking poo poo like this

Ytlaya posted:

(directly/within its own borders at least)

directly in the eye.

As I think's been pretty firmly established for anyone who was still in doubt recently, nothing was resolved with the Surrender at Appomattox or the Reconstruction, all that poo poo's will with us, it just isn't codified in the constitution of a formal government anymore; and it's not just a regional thing you can put off on folks you've never seen - I see about as many stars and bars on bumpers driving up through New Jersey as I see on the way down to Louisiana.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:40

Naked Lincoln: Jan 19, 2010

Smoothrich posted:

I agree Ytlaya. Though I get a little troubled at how some people almost "otherize" Southern Americans and pin so much of today's problems on the people who live in that territory today, who never owned slaves, never left the Union, and you know most black people live in the South too.

Nothing wrong with some Southern pride, their culture gave us definitively American music and cuisine for example. And its easy for me to understand how, to some, the CSA is an audacious testament to the character of the South to act like massive dicks, take horrendous casualties, and keep going in defense of the land that Southern people still live in, which to them probably never stopped being American land. The bravery of a Confederate soldier became just as endearing to the national psyche as the industrial war machine of the Union. Combined our military simply kicks rear end, divided it was a horrible bloodbath for everybody.

The only reason America is so strong is because our states have remained united, and it's an awful tragedy that the Civil War ever had to happen, but it became a blessing in the end when all those deaths were given meaning by the abolition of slavery.

I think most people who wave or wear the battle flag are dicks or trolls too, but they'd probably be the first to admit it. The flag belongs in history books and museums, not on cars and capitals. But I'm starting to roll my eyes at the inflammatory articles and comments on people saying the CSA flag represents slavery, when the despicable institution of chattel slavery was carried out under the USA flag, and in the North and South there were racists and abolitionists aplenty, with forces at work leading to a civil war more complicated then "white people below the mason-dixon line hate the negro."

There's something really funny about the fact that people can claim that the South is more than just racism, that it has food and music and culture (how much of those were massively influenced by African Americans?) while also saying that the Confederacy represents a particular part of Southern history. It doesn't. It represents a particular slice of white Southern history that black people generally don't like. The Confederate officials and soldiers you admire explicitly excluded African Americans from their society. Their South was built on chattel slavery. The fact that modern Southerners can honestly claim that the flag really represents all the South instead of white folks in the South is the best example of the invisibility of white privilege that I can think of at the moment.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:40

FuzzySkinner: May 23, 2012

Piell posted:

If you want to fly a flag that shows your pride in the South, fly your state flag.

Texas has an insane love affair with theirs, so they're already on the right path.

I'd go with a college team, or any number of southern NASCAR drivers myself. (Dale Sr. or Dale Jr. would likely be the ideal ones)

# ? Jul 4, 2015 03:47

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

FuzzySkinner posted:

Texas has an insane love affair with theirs, so they're already on the right path.

I'd go with a college team, or any number of southern NASCAR drivers myself. (Dale Sr. or Dale Jr. would likely be the ideal ones)

Texans and New Yorkers who desperately want everyone to know what state they come from like anyone should give a poo poo are already intolerable, even choice of iconography aside I'm not clear on why we need more of that but bigger and much more hazily-defined, as though a random modern Texan, Louisianan, and Virginian really have that much more in common with each other than they do some guy from Iowa.

Of course when you're looking for a 'pride' identity and your first choice for an icon is a big flapping symbol of how bad you got your rear end kicked that once and how desperately it needed kicking, I'm really not convinced that your whole thing's about 'pride' per se so much as feeling like poo poo so turning around and reminding the one guy lower in America's caste system than you of that time you used to own him.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:01

Ron Paul Atreides: Apr 19, 2012; Uyghurs situation in Xinjiang? Just a police action, do not fret. Not ongoing genocide like in EVIL Canada.

I am definitely not a tankie.

The salient fact that the flag only reappeared as a gently caress you to the civil rights movement, specifically because it was the flag of the KKK, really should illustrate why the states rights/southern pride stuff doesn't fly

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:18

Smoothrich: Nov 8, 2009; Can't post for 2 years!

Naked Lincoln posted:

There's something really funny about the fact that people can claim that the South is more than just racism, that it has food and music and culture (how much of those were massively influenced by African Americans?) while also saying that the Confederacy represents a particular part of Southern history. It doesn't. It represents a particular slice of white Southern history that black people generally don't like. The Confederate officials and soldiers you admire explicitly excluded African Americans from their society. Their South was built on chattel slavery. The fact that modern Southerners can honestly claim that the flag really represents all the South instead of white folks in the South is the best example of the invisibility of white privilege that I can think of at the moment.

I'm from New Jersey, my hometown is named after a Union general (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kearny) much like all the bitching I'm hearing about Southern roads and towns being named after Confederate generals. They were all American generals, educated together, mostly hated fighting each other, and served together again mostly with mutual respect and admiration after the war's end.

Not sure why you are talking down to me in response to me pointing out how irritating people who are doing exactly what you are doing is.

Yeah, black people and white people played guitars together and taught each other the blues, jazz, bluegrass, country, gospel, soul, etc. and Southern blacks migrating to Northern cities, taking their culture with them, led to rock music being born and taking over the world. Black and white people in the south did more then oppress and dominate, they sometimes got along! Which people don't seem to even realize.

America, not just the CSA, was founded by people benefiting from chattel slavery. Its wrong to reduce America's complicated history into another form of historical revisionism where Confederate leaders and people weren't literally citizens of the USA before and after the 4 years of war, and kept on thinking of themselves as Americans the entire time.

I'm not even supporting the CSA flag. Just bitching about the (lack thereof) discussion and reflection on the history around the Civil War and the amount of shaming being done on people who may view the people who fought on the losing side differently, since ya know, its their people who fought it until they lost it. Graveyards and battlefields adorn the South, because a big loving war was fought there. That's more than a "particular slice" of history I think.

And who can TRULY hate this?

Smoothrich fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:21

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Yeah, how could anyone hate the flags that were raised over state capitols as an explicit "gently caress you, blacks", truly a mystery

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:27

Smoothrich: Nov 8, 2009; Can't post for 2 years!

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah, how could anyone hate the flags that were raised over state capitols as an explicit "gently caress you, blacks", truly a mystery

What? I'm talking about Freebird, you racist.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:28

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

A Wizard of Goatse posted:

While this whole debate over whether we're somehow morally obligated to condone wannabe slaveowner creeps waving around Confederacy propaganda and teaching kids that chattel slavery wasn't so bad really because at least they got fed is for cretins, there may be a non-cretinous discussion to be had over what form the historical narrative of the Civil War should take, cause stopping at 'some now dead people did a wrong thing they were bad' is dumb and useless and I see a whole hell of a lot of yankees whose big takeaway seems to be that they should get all smug over the accident of their birth north of the Mason-Dixon Line and use those drat hick Southerners once having been even worse as an excuse to avoid looking poo poo like this

directly in the eye.

As I think's been pretty firmly established for anyone who was still in doubt recently, nothing was resolved with the Surrender at Appomattox or the Reconstruction, all that poo poo's will with us, it just isn't codified in the constitution of a formal government anymore; and it's not just a regional thing you can put off on folks you've never seen - I see about as many stars and bars on bumpers driving up through New Jersey as I see on the way down to Louisiana.

I definitely agree that it's ridiculous when non-Southerners act like racism is something entirely unique to the south and ignore the fact that the entire country, not just one region, is racist/bigoted. It's not just a North/South thing either; many liberals like to laugh at how racist conservatives are while often exhibiting a ton of casual racism themselves. Is the South/conservatives more racist than the North/liberals? Of course. But many people seem to use the greater crimes of others to ignore their own problems.

This being said, I don't think that the hypocrisy of many non-Southerners/liberals is in any way a defense of people with Confederate flags on their trucks. I've seen many people use "well, Northerners are also really racist" as some sort of defense against claims of Southern racism, which is nonsense.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:30

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Smoothrich posted:

What? I'm talking about Freebird, you racist.

Oh okay, make a flag out of that album cover and march through Camden then, it's not offensive to anyone, right?

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:36

Smoothrich: Nov 8, 2009; Can't post for 2 years!

If .001 percent of the media attention and discussion on the CSA flag the past couple weeks went instead into the cycle of inner city violence and poverty and how to fix that, we'd be making WAY more progress as a nation. Most of those cities are in the North too, and it's heartbreaking to think about, yet honestly frightening and dangerous to drive through or live in. That poo poo is hosed up, and ruins way more black lives than any inanimate object like a flag ever could.

VitalSigns posted:

Oh okay, make a flag out of that album cover and march through Camden then, it's not offensive to anyone, right?

Being white (or black, honestly) in Camden or Newark is probably more dangerous than being black (but not white, actually) in the Confederacy.

Smoothrich fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:37

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

FuzzySkinner posted:

Texas has an insane love affair with theirs, so they're already on the right path.

Texas actually has a really good example of how to fly the Confederate flag in a way that acknowledges history without being a shitheel about it.

The six flags at the capitol feature a Confederate flag. The actual real confederate national flag, not the loving KKK flag. It's flown alongside other flags showcasing the history of Texas, it's not glorifying slavery or racism.

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:44

Ernie Muppari: Aug 4, 2012; Keep this up G'Bert, and soon you won't have a pigeon to protect!

flag's rights

# ? Jul 4, 2015 04:51

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Captain Oblivious posted:

It was the former. Most of my belongings are in storage at the moment, but I have an entire primary source reader consisting of documentation of the arguments made by delegates of the nascent CSA government to the various southern legislatures to argue the case of secession. Guess what

Pretty much all of their arguments center around the yankees diabolical plot to eradicate slavery so that the Negro can rape our wives and daughters and then possibly our wives again.

Apostles of Disunion by Charles Dew does argues this.

On a different note, saying the South is more racist than North is not productive. I am actually reading a book about sundown towns and there are a lot more in the North than the South strangely enough.

blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 05:07

Naked Lincoln: Jan 19, 2010

Smoothrich posted:

I'm from New Jersey, my hometown is named after a Union general (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kearny) much like all the bitching I'm hearing about Southern roads and towns being named after Confederate generals. They were all American generals, educated together, mostly hated fighting each other, and served together again mostly with mutual respect and admiration after the war's end.

Not sure why you are talking down to me in response to me pointing out how irritating people who are doing exactly what you are doing is.

Yeah, black people and white people played guitars together and taught each other the blues, jazz, bluegrass, country, gospel, soul, etc. and Southern blacks migrating to Northern cities, taking their culture with them, led to rock music being born and taking over the world. Black and white people in the south did more then oppress and dominate, they sometimes got along! Which people don't seem to even realize.

"Hey, guys, the South has a rich history that covers more than just fours years of civil war! There are major American figures who came from the South! Major Civil Rights leaders were Southerners! To honor them and represent that rich tapestry of history, let's adopt a flag created by a government that was solely founded to protect and expand the institution of chattel slavery! That'll show everyone how much were value the African Americans who are part of our community!"

Smoothrich posted:

America, not just the CSA, was founded by people benefiting from chattel slavery. Its wrong to reduce America's complicated history into another form of historical revisionism where Confederate leaders and people weren't literally citizens of the USA before and after the 4 years of war, and kept on thinking of themselves as Americans the entire time.

What you seem to have a problem understanding is that the Confederacy wasn't whoopsie-daisy founded by people who for some crazy reason happened to benefit from slavery, it was founded solely to protect the institution. The Confederate States seceded from the Union the instant they thought that slavery was threatened. There was no grand aspirational vision of freedom and democracy, no sincere attempt to wrestle with lofty visions of human rights in a white supremacist society. Hell, by 1860 prominent Southern thinkers were denouncing the entire idea of equality in the Declaration of Independence. The only thing the CSA ever stood for was rebellion, slavery, and racism. And then people like you wring their hands and wonder why everyone is denouncing the flag of that garbage government so much.

Smoothrich posted:

I'm not even supporting the CSA flag. Just bitching about the (lack thereof) discussion and reflection on the history around the Civil War and the amount of shaming being done on people who may view the people who fought on the losing side differently, since ya know, its their people who fought it until they lost it. Graveyards and battlefields adorn the South, because a big loving war was fought there. That's more than a "particular slice" of history I think.

Their people, of course, generally being white people. Again, I wonder why people get so bent out of shape when their fellow Americans defend the flag of a slaveocracy with mealy-mouthed appeals to "well the North is racist too" and "their ancestors fought pretty hard."

# ? Jul 4, 2015 05:25

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; by vyelkin

Smoothrich posted:

I agree Ytlaya. Though I get a little troubled at how some people almost "otherize" Southern Americans and pin so much of today's problems on the people who live in that territory today, who never owned slaves, never left the Union, and you know most black people live in the South too.

Nothing wrong with some Southern pride, their culture gave us definitively American music and cuisine for example. And its easy for me to understand how, to some, the CSA is an audacious testament to the character of the South to act like massive dicks, take horrendous casualties, and keep going in defense of the land that Southern people still live in, which to them probably never stopped being American land. The bravery of a Confederate soldier became just as endearing to the national psyche as the industrial war machine of the Union. Combined our military simply kicks rear end, divided it was a horrible bloodbath for everybody.

The only reason America is so strong is because our states have remained united, and it's an awful tragedy that the Civil War ever had to happen, but it became a blessing in the end when all those deaths were given meaning by the abolition of slavery.

I think most people who wave or wear the battle flag are dicks or trolls too, but they'd probably be the first to admit it. The flag belongs in history books and museums, not on cars and capitals. But I'm starting to roll my eyes at the inflammatory articles and comments on people saying the CSA flag represents slavery, when the despicable institution of chattel slavery was carried out under the USA flag, and in the North and South there were racists and abolitionists aplenty, with forces at work leading to a civil war more complicated then "white people below the mason-dixon line hate the negro."

United States wasn't founded on slavery. It wasn't the primary reason for its existence and it was the United States that abolished slavery and gave black people civil rights as well. Every country has done horrible things throughout its existence, but they also have hundreds or thousands of years of existence behind them in which they achieved numerous other things as well, and to focus on the horrible period would be insanely selective and would ignore most of the history in that country. U.S. Flag can in the right context have offensive symbolism as well, would you wave it around in a memorial for Hiroshima victims? In many places in the Middle East?

The Confederacy lasted four years. It achieved nothing else then the greatest treason in U.S. History, the death of 600,000 Americans in a war it started in the defense of human bondage, the height of white supremacism in the South and a total defeat by an opponent that was superior in war and in morality. Waving it as a symbol of pride means that you take pride in those things because there is nothing else behind that flag. There is no other context then academic/historical where displaying it doesn't make you a moron that deserves to be excluded from polite history.

If CSA had lasted for centuries and had openly and honestly dealt with its painful founding and history and achieved full democracy and civil rights, the flag would represent that as well and be something that black Southerners could be proud of as well. It didn't. Find another loving symbol.

The Union soldiers weren't any less brave either, btw. The Union displayed both aspects and under competent leadership kicked the South's rear end on its own just fine.

DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 05:38

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

Ytlaya posted:

I definitely agree that it's ridiculous when non-Southerners act like racism is something entirely unique to the south and ignore the fact that the entire country, not just one region, is racist/bigoted. It's not just a North/South thing either; many liberals like to laugh at how racist conservatives are while often exhibiting a ton of casual racism themselves. Is the South/conservatives more racist than the North/liberals? Of course. But many people seem to use the greater crimes of others to ignore their own problems.

This being said, I don't think that the hypocrisy of many non-Southerners/liberals is in any way a defense of people with Confederate flags on their trucks. I've seen many people use "well, Northerners are also really racist" as some sort of defense against claims of Southern racism, which is nonsense.

yeah definitely it's no defense at all I'm just sayin there's lots of different ways people use the Confederacy to cop out of facing their hosed up problems and cheerlead for the home team. It's like the pretense that racism is something done by Racists, big nasty men with swastikas on their foreheads that certainly aren't in your personal social circle, and who you've never aided nor abetted.

Smoothrich posted:

I'm from New Jersey, my hometown is named after a Union general (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kearny) much like all the bitching I'm hearing about Southern roads and towns being named after Confederate generals. They were all American generals, educated together, mostly hated fighting each other, and served together again mostly with mutual respect and admiration after the war's end.

homeboy you're not even from the South and you've got a big creepy hardon for confederate poo poo you can't tell me this is about nostalgia for chitlins and collards

"Southern Pride" my rear end, half the people sticking that flag on poo poo nowadays haven't even been south of the Mason-Dixon line save for Disneyland, it's the banner of nobody white woulda-been-sharecropper back in the day obsessively picking on the one class of dudes they see as lower than them like GBS guys hound after fat people and making lame "but I'm not touching you!" excuses whenever called on it (never by blacks, whose take they can dismiss out of hand) cause they know they don't have to try any harder to get everyone above them to not care. Only turns out this week they do, cue outrage and moral indignation and sputtering about a grave cosmic injustice that can't be put to words for fear it'll come out glitteringly just..

A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 05:48

Smoothrich: Nov 8, 2009; Can't post for 2 years!

I'm not a fan of the flag at all. Namely I'm a musician and am a huge fan of the history of African-American music, which is a story that begins with the percussion rhythm music of Africa and transforms through slave songs of suffering to the liberation of electric guitar and rock and roll. Southern white and black culture really intermixed with its music, which is another side of history not really talked about much. Its warmer and more endearing than all the race war poo poo and I like stories about shared American identity rather than white vs black, north vs south, etc.

Like, I think the flag should be removed from all public institutions, and think people with the CSA flag on their shirts or cars are retarded and probably lovely people. But I keep seeing articles denouncing Confederate memorials like statues and cemeteries, and troublesome reductions of the Civil War and early American History into a few paragraphs labeled "THE SOUTH: RACIST SHITHOLE THEN AND NOW? WHITE PRIVILEGE EDITION." When the narrative goes too far past how the flag means lovely things to many people and doesn't belong in government buildings to discussions about removing landmarks and portraying half the country as Nazi Germany, I get a little worried.

The wave of black Senators and Congressmen from the South elected during Reconstruction before the Union pulled out its troops and the place went to hell again (sound familiar?) is a seldom told story that makes me sad too. If Abraham Lincoln lived and the Republicans had some balls in Congress in dealing with hardline "Tea-Party-ish" Southern Democrats, a solid troop presence in the South could've prevented the KKK, Jim Crow, all of that from ever happening in the first place.

edit: First black president canceled Iraq's "Reconstruction" too early and the place immediately turned into a violent terror-ridden undemocratic warzone just like the American South did. Maybe he should've studied U.S. history instead of Sharia and Marx at his madrassa?

Smoothrich fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 06:10

InvincibleMadHouse: Jan 19, 2009; by Ralp

Important differences between Germany and the American South:

1. No black people in Nazi Germany.
2. White Power sedition events separated by 100 years and an ocean.
3. Germans don't tolerate fascist/racist apologism in TYOOL 2015
4. Germans don't tie their cultural heritage to non-existent statues honoring their once prominent fascist racists.

Can you come up with some other ones Klansman Smoothrich?

# ? Jul 4, 2015 06:21

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

vintagepurple posted:

I think one of the issues with the flag is that there's not really an alternative "southern flag"- there is no non-politically loaded alternative for non-racists to turn to. And having grown up in the south, the majority really really don't see it as racist- it's the equivalent of the New England flag with the tree to them.

And consequently, any sort of drive to design one would run into the same flack.

That's because the South was never enough of a single unified unit to have its own symbols...except when slavery and racism were involved. No one had a specifically "Southern" identity until slavery gave the South something to unite over. Notice how no one's ever declaring their Western pride or their Gulf Coast pride?

# ? Jul 4, 2015 06:22

A Wizard of Goatse: Dec 14, 2014

Smoothrich posted:

I'm not a fan of the flag at all. Namely I'm a musician and am a huge fan of the history of African-American music, which is a story that begins with the percussion rhythm music of Africa and transforms through slave songs of suffering to the liberation of electric guitar and rock and roll. Southern white and black culture really intermixed with its music, which is another side of history not really talked about much. Its warmer and more endearing than all the race war poo poo and I like stories about shared American identity rather than white vs black, north vs south, etc.

Like, I think the flag should be removed from all public institutions, and think people with the CSA flag on their shirts or cars are retarded and probably lovely people. But I keep seeing articles denouncing Confederate memorials like statues and cemeteries, and troublesome reductions of the Civil War and early American History into a few paragraphs labeled "THE SOUTH: RACIST SHITHOLE THEN AND NOW? WHITE PRIVILEGE EDITION." When the narrative goes too far past how the flag means lovely things to many people and doesn't belong in government buildings to discussions about removing landmarks and portraying half the country as Nazi Germany, I get a little worried.

The wave of black Senators and Congressmen from the South elected during Reconstruction before the Union pulled out its troops and the place went to hell again (sound familiar?) is a seldom told story that makes me sad too. If Abraham Lincoln lived and the Republicans had some balls in Congress in dealing with hardline "Tea-Party-ish" Southern Democrats, a solid troop presence in the South could've prevented the KKK, Jim Crow, all of that from ever happening in the first place.

edit: First black president canceled Iraq's "Reconstruction" too early and the place immediately turned into a violent terror-ridden undemocratic warzone just like the American South did. Maybe he should've studied U.S. history instead of Sharia and Marx at his madrassa?

Yeah and those guys are dicks but this is a thread about the furor over the Confederate Flag not how dumb and provincial northern liberals get when they talk about the rest of the country generally. That'd be a pretty fun thread given how utterly print media was dominated for the longest time by New Yorkers who think anyone further away than Long Island is a grass-skirted cannibal but in a week where six and counting churches were burned the conservative world is up in arms over Amazon refusing to sell them a commemorative plate of their racist grandpa's lynching hanky and you've chosen to die on the hill that they make a good point, somehow.

A Reconstruction history thread would be cool too cause yeah there's a ton of reverberating effects from it but, y'know, absent the WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION MOST SLAVES WERE TREATED WELL THEY'RE JUST UNGRATEFUL horseshit.

Main Paineframe posted:

Gulf Coast pride?

A field of blue with an eagle, rampant, dripping crude

A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 06:32

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; by vyelkin

Main Paineframe posted:

That's because the South was never enough of a single unified unit to have its own symbols...except when slavery and racism were involved. No one had a specifically "Southern" identity until slavery gave the South something to unite over. Notice how no one's ever declaring their Western pride or their Gulf Coast pride?

Honestly, "That place that has a huge loving weird issues about black people" is what comes first in mind about the South for non-Americans, if they know about the South as a separate area as a first place, interestingly enough the stereotypical Southerner is the stereotypical American in many countries. Second is Texas. Third is the accent (not any real one, the one that all the non-Southern republican presidential characters adopt whenever they campaign in the South). But as far as Southern history is concerned, all people know about is "slavery > Civil War > different bathrooms for black people > MLK > I guess things are fine now because black president?"

EDIT: speaking as a non-American I mean

DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Jul 4, 2015

# ? Jul 4, 2015 06:35

Smoothrich: Nov 8, 2009; Can't post for 2 years!

A Wizard of Goatse posted:

A Reconstruction history thread would be cool too cause yeah there's a ton of reverberating effects from it but, y'know, absent the WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION MOST SLAVES WERE TREATED WELL THEY'RE JUST UNGRATEFUL horseshit.

Ya. I think that's more interesting than something I think we can all agree on: the Confederate flag is tacky, trashy, downright racist and nasty. Even loving deep south white male Republican representatives agree on taking down the flag and they almost always say or do the wrong thing somehow. There's really no room for debate or discussion on that, except I think sometimes, like the Lynyrd Skynyrd album art I posted, use CSA flag imagery as a stand-in salute for Southern rock and getting drunk. They may not mean anything racist really by it, but it is still a racist act, and we should all know and do better.

But we shouldn't go around and pass laws to ban selling albums and videogames or clothes with the CSA flag on it either I think, leave that to businesses and buildings to do on their own. This isn't pussy Germany or Europe, gently caress your feelings, the First Amendment to me is like the Second Amendment to a gun nut. Anything that sounds like an attack on it is an attack on civil liberty and our constitution and makes me wary of a "slippery slope" effect. Germany having it ILLEGAL to depict their own former flag just reminds me of how they became Nazi Germany in the first place. Americans being dicks with flags and poo poo is literally a constitutionally protected right.

The power games and deals between North and South and Westward expansion, the flashpoint events around the frontier and in Washington heating the kettle to the boiling point of actual war, Abraham Lincoln descending from the heavens to save America then immediately ascending back home, and the hopes and failures of the Reconstruction era are the actual context of the CSA, the Civil War, the KKK, Jim Crow, etc. That stuff explains our current political climate way more than being told for the 100th time the CSA flag was put up to protest desegregation and what "state's rights" REALLY means...

# ? Jul 4, 2015 07:50

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 22:21

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Who is talking about passing laws to ban the Confederate flag and bluegrass music. You're jumping at shadows. You may as well start talking about how we shouldn't all roast Republicans on a bed of burning Confederate flags and smother them in hickory sauce. None of it is happening or going to happen.

The businesses that are pulling the flag are doing it on their own just like you want, so yay?

# ? Jul 4, 2015 09:08

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Worse to Fly the Confederate Flag or Burn it?

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