Confederate Flag

[consortium11]

It's safe to say the confederate flag (or, more accurately, the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee) has been controversial for a while.

For some it's a sign of their history and cultural heritage. For others it's a symbol of hate and repression, the representation of a system and group that sought to keep others in slavery and fought for their right to do so. For somewhat obvious reasons it tends to be more popular amongst the white population of the US than with other groups and is likewise more popular in the South than the North. Because of its links to rebels and rebellion those who support it and its use sometimes claim it represents freedom... a position those opposed to it argue very strongly against.

This tension between the two positions has been bubbling under for decades but in the wake of the Charleston Shootings, where the perpetrator had previously been pictured holding it, the dam appears to have burst. A number of states which display the flag in an official capacity either have or are in the process of removing them while a number of retailers have stopped selling all products which contain the flag.

So, my question is in essence in three parts:

1) Is the "Confederate Flag" a symbol of hate that should be viewed in the same way that the swastika is?

2) If the answer to the above is yes, are there still some circumstances where it should (or at least could be displayed)? This story in particular comes to mind; Apple have banned all products which contain the flag from the App Store. This includes a number of historical strategy games depicting the US Civil War such as Ultimate General: Gettysburg  . Apple have since clarified that they removing the flag when it's being used in an "offensive and mean-spirited way" but 1) there doesn't seem to be a distinction in what they've removed so far and 2) if the flag is a symbol of hate then isn't it always going to be offensive? Should a film like Gettysburg be censored and have the flags removed?

3) As mentioned at the start despite being the most widely known flag from the Confederacy this flag was never an official Confederate Flag. While both the second and third flags of the Confederacy have some similarities to it, the original flag of the Confederacy looks considerably different. Is that flag more or less offensive? Does the fact that the "rebel flag" only ever represented an army and not the Confederacy itself matter? Does the fact that the "rebel flag" has come to represent the Confederacy in popular culture trump its historical origins?

[Mikem]

The Confederate Flag was used as a symbol of a would be nation of slavors and ultimately white supremecists, as well as a symbol of this nation's divided past. It's offensive to flaunt it and at most deserves to be a museum piece, since all history deserves to be remembered anyway, regardless of how checkered it was.

[Lustful Bride]

Its a symbol of oppression and insurrection. but I think the way its being censored is extreme. We need to know the goods and bad of our history in order to learn from them and evolve.

It should be remembered and seen but not fly on any government or federal buildings.

[Katrina]

One thing people are failing to remember, the north had slaves too.

[Drake Valentine]

1) Is the "Confederate Flag" a symbol of hate that should be viewed in the same way that the swastika is?

So the first Amendment no longer applies to a movement of culture genocide? The 'Rebel Flag' has been a monument to honor the deceased war veterans of the Southern States who died for fighting for their beliefs.  One can not view it as evil and if so, how can they view it any more so of the American flag which flew over slave ships and also during the time of the Trail of Tears? In early history, America has been no different in tyranny.  Should we view the U.S flag just as racist for its past controversy? Would the case been any different if the shooter had an American  Flag instead of a rebel one?

2) If the answer to the above is yes, are there still some circumstances where it should (or at least could be displayed)? This story in particular comes to mind; Apple have banned all products which contain the flag from the App Store. This includes a number of historical strategy games depicting the US Civil War such as Ultimate General: Gettysburg  . Apple have since clarified that they removing the flag when it's being used in an "offensive and mean-spirited way" but 1) there doesn't seem to be a distinction in what they've removed so far and 2) if the flag is a symbol of hate then isn't it always going to be offensive? Should a film like Gettysburg be censored and have the flags removed?

Again, seems things are being blown way out of proportion, especially to banning of games. Even the swastika still shows up in gaming(though unsure about Apple products, since I do not invest in them much. If they ban that too, then I suppose that is fine; otherwise be saying Rebel Flag is more offensive then a nation that once sought out mass genocide.) No towards censoring of films. If it gets to that extreme of burying cultural history and enforcing all traces gone, than that would make the U.S no different to its tyrant past. Which ironically the U.S flag is suppose to be freedom against tyranny. 

3) As mentioned at the start despite being the most widely known flag from the Confederacy this flag was never an official Confederate Flag. While both the second and third flags of the Confederacy have some similarities to it, the original flag of the Confederacy looks considerably different. Is that flag more or less offensive? Does the fact that the "rebel flag" only ever represented an army and not the Confederacy itself matter? Does the fact that the "rebel flag" has come to represent the Confederacy in popular culture trump its historical origins?

Again, I don't see the Rebel Flag as a 'Confederate Flag.' As stated in the first paragraph, the Rebel Flag was drafted and adopted to serve as a symbol to the fallen veterans and serve as a reminder of heritage within the South. It was never an official flag of the Confederacy.  The swastika, however, was an official flag of Germany. The Rebel Flag on the otherhand has been a franchise of pop culture, the Rebel Flag has been a symbol in following wars as well, should we scrap the 'USS Columbia' for having a Confederate Navy Ensign as a battle flag?( In addition to the Navy Unit Commendation, Columbia received 10 battle stars for World War II service.
Columbia flew a Confederate Navy Ensign as a battle flag throughout combat in the South Pacific in World War II. This was done in honor of the ship's namesake, the capital city of South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union.)

[Inkidu]

You know, for a hemisphere that was incredibly ensconced in the slave trade, people (especially Europeans) are quick to point the finger at America. Is it on the same level as the Swastika? Hell no.

If you want to get technical the American flag (Old Glory) has more nastiness involved in it than the Stars and Bars. Just go ask you local Native American... any of them.

You know, let's ban the South African flag, or the flag of Great Britain, there was a helluva lot of sketchy stuff involved in that. Has it been co-opted by some pretty terrible people? Yeah. And honestly, meh, but to ban it? That's just the worst aspects of censorship.

You know what, I want to ban Canada's flag. I just don't trust it on general principle, too polite. :P

[kylie]

     I don't believe all symbols must only be read to mean one thing, but I do believe some are more problematic than others.  It's something of a false equivalency comparing the standard American flag to Nazi flags or to the Confederate flag.  There are certainly quite a few things the U.S. government has done that are worthy of criticism, but they are not so generally on the scale of the Holocaust.  The U.S. political system, while it does have significant institutional vestiges of economic apartheid even today, has not remained simply fossilized in a culture that publicly denies the legitimacy and independence of the Black population. 

      And for those who say, 'Well the North had slaves too...'  So what exactly!  Is the idea: 'How dare they change' ???  How dare anyone fault the South for doing something the North might have shared in at one time, and later thought better of?  It's precisely because they were changing that the South went and seceded (see in particular the declaration by South Carolina below)!  Yeah yeah, they felt so betrayed and just when they were making loads of money too.  But if no one is allowed to take a stand and say, ya know, we're not going to do this anymore, well then, the US should never have been allowed to change its mind and fight the Nazis or anything...  And maybe some of us should never have been allowed to follow state laws and put on seat belts for a change in the 80's.  What ever is that about. 

     Even where I may agree that U.S. government has done some terribly awful things (both long ago and more recently), I do not see how that should make it helpful to be flying Confederate flags celebrating other historically awful things.  At least, not from government buildings which in anything of a republic, are supposed to represent the current aspirations and culture of the people.  Saying one symbol is just as bad as another, if you fly one that has any bad history anwhere, then why should anyone find reason to reject any of them, from any time period or discriminatory group whatsoever? Well, that is a lot of "whatabouterry."  This can lead off into, well if anyone ever smoked a cigarette and contributed to cancer next door, then obviously they have no right to worry when someone invades their neighbor or nukes a city.  It's getting into "Let us do whatever we want cause look, you have issues too," sort of logic.   

     And for what it's worth, if someone wants to go out and burn a standard American flag in complaint about failures of the present government and the present broader culture to pursue whatever people see as the interests of its present-day citizens, that's alright with me.  Better burning a few flags to "fan" a discussion or simply vent frustration, than burning churches or crops or human bodies (especially others' bodies).     

      Much of the point of seceding was for the Confederacy to continue the slave system to resist rising pressure for change.  The Confederate states asserted that they were motivated by firm beliefs in White superiority and that slavery was necessary to maintain their ways of life in peace (either to maintain commerce, and/or out of fear about Whites losing overall power). 

      The Washington Post reports a number of interesting details, which I don't believe contradict that.

But for example (with potential racism trigger warning -- but it's evidence): 
South Carolina

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace of and eloin the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books, and pictures, to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government.

Mississippi

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation.

Texas (a couple others can be found here, too)

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law.

      There may be a good deal of subterfuge and hypocrisy about race and discrimination (and chunks of foreign policy more generally) in America today, but this racist position the Confederacy took is no longer upheld in most public forums.  It is more likely to be used as part of a contrast: These are things one just does not say, and how far have we come (or not, in uglier cases) from acting and making rules in ways that people who did say them in the past might have wished to act?

     And the Confederacy claimed an interest in leaving the Union.  Unless we mean to allow Texas, Arizona and whoever to forget the Constitution and just write up their own immigration and foreign trade policies, perhaps take care of their own military defense while they're at it (the states, or the local disorganized militias? ugh, I can't imagine)...  Then it doesn't make a great deal of sense to be putting a separatist flag that got so many killed, on government buildings.

.........................

     

Its a symbol of oppression and insurrection. but I think the way its being censored is extreme. We need to know the goods and bad of our history in order to learn from them and evolve.

It should be remembered and seen but not fly on any government or federal buildings.

     So in terms of whatever to do about it, basically I agree with this.  If individuals want to kick around what it means, that's one thing but it should not be a regular project of the present government institutions to elevate it.

[Cassandra LeMay]

What I think we are missing in this debate so far is what the "Confederate Flag" came to symbolize long after the Civil War. To the best of my knowledge the battle flag was not in widespread use until after WWII and started to spread in response to desegregation and civil rights movements. When Georgia incorporated the Confederate battle flag into its state flag in 1956 it happened in a stong anti-desegragation modd, i.e. Georgia was pretty much giving Washington and the civil rights movement the finger. When South Carolina raised the flag in 1961 it was ostensibly for the centeniary of the Civil War, so why didn't they take it down again until 2000?

Whatever the reasons for the Civil War, from all I have read on the topic it seems pretty clear to me that modern use of this flag started as a symbol against equal rights for people of color. Given I would say that this flag does represent hate, or at the very least a strong resentment for equal rights, and that, because of that modern conmtext, it doesn't matter that the historical flag was only a battle flag and never the Confederate flag.

[Scribbles]

I hope its okay if I comment, I know little of the confederate flag or how it affects Americans but I do have some opinions regarding symbolism...

So, my question is in essence in three parts:

1) Is the "Confederate Flag" a symbol of hate that should be viewed in the same way that the swastika is?

I feel when people look upon such symbols, they should attempt to use a more objective mind-set rather than instantly getting offended and attempting to go on the attack.

The Swastika is not inherently evil, it was actually a borrowed symbol that is still held as sacred by some religions. Simply because bad people utilize something does that instantly mean that we should bow to those bad people by not only making the symbol their own but going so far as to lend it gravitas?

If the American flag were to be associated with something evil in the future, should the world forget what it stood for in the past and how it united a people by instantly erasing all signs of its existence?

2) If the answer to the above is yes, are there still some circumstances where it should (or at least could be displayed)? This story in particular comes to mind; Apple have banned all products which contain the flag from the App Store. This includes a number of historical strategy games depicting the US Civil War such as Ultimate General: Gettysburg  . Apple have since clarified that they removing the flag when it's being used in an "offensive and mean-spirited way" but 1) there doesn't seem to be a distinction in what they've removed so far and 2) if the flag is a symbol of hate then isn't it always going to be offensive? Should a film like Gettysburg be censored and have the flags removed?

I feel that when it comes to entertainment, or history, people need to differentiate between simply depicting a symbol and subscribing to the ideal behind a symbol, there is a difference...

3) As mentioned at the start despite being the most widely known flag from the Confederacy this flag was never an official Confederate Flag. While both the second and third flags of the Confederacy have some similarities to it, the original flag of the Confederacy looks considerably different. Is that flag more or less offensive? Does the fact that the "rebel flag" only ever represented an army and not the Confederacy itself matter? Does the fact that the "rebel flag" has come to represent the Confederacy in popular culture trump its historical origins?

Sorry, I'm absolutely clueless about American history, although I did enjoy the stories of your wild west! ^^

[TaintedAndDelish]

The removal that we are seeing in retail is basically preventative damage control. If retailers continue to sell merch with the rebel flag on it, they're gonna get fingered and burned. This is just common sense and has nothing to do with their views on what the flag represents.

My understanding, and correct me if I am wrong, is that the confederate flag represented the southern states, and not all southerners had slaves or even approved of slavery. Those who actually owned farms and businesses that required slave labor in order to remain competitive (just as today's businesses outsource work)) probably did, but that's not your average Joe. I'm not from the south, but I would say for the average person, it probably represented their pride and identity as southerners more than anything else. I don't know how this changed after the end of the civil war though... and yes, the north had black and white slaves too and profited from slavery. The Europeans ( Read: Portugese, British, Spanish, French, Dutch etc.. ) purchased these people from African middle men, shipped them as if they were cargo, and sold them to us, so everyone's hands were dirty.  http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi3/slave_2.htm

I think if the rebel flag was lowered out of respect for the victims of the Charleston shooting, there might have been a lot less fuss about it. Letting it fly high as if nothing happened after the shooting was a serious slap in the face to the friends and families of those who were shot that day. I think this mockery was more offensive than anything that the flag itself might have stood for. This was not done out of carelessness or stupidity, this was done to insult and cause harm.

[kylie]

My understanding, and correct me if I am wrong, is that the confederate flag represented the southern states, and not all southerners had slaves or even approved of slavery. Those who actually owned farms and businesses that required slave labor in order to remain competitive (just as today's businesses outsource work)) probably did, but that's not your average Joe. I'm not from the south, but I would say for the average person, it probably represented their pride and identity as southerners more than anything else.

The Washington Post article included an answer to this which I thought was very interesting (if scary).

Indeed, most white Southern families had no slaves. Less than half of white Mississippi households owned one or more slaves, for example, and that proportion was smaller still in whiter states such as Virginia and Tennessee. It is also true that, in areas with few slaves, most white Southerners did not support secession. West Virginia seceded from Virginia to stay with the Union, and Confederate troops had to occupy parts of eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama to hold them in line.

However, two ideological factors caused most Southern whites, including those who were not slave-owners, to defend slavery. First, Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy now.

Second and more important, belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu observed wryly in 1748: “It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.” Given this belief, most white Southerners — and many Northerners, too — could not envision life in black-majority states such as South Carolina and Mississippi unless blacks were in chains. Georgia Supreme Court Justice Henry Benning, trying to persuade the Virginia Legislature to leave the Union, predicted race war if slavery was not protected.

I don't know how this changed after the end of the civil war though... and yes, the north had black and white slaves too and profited from slavery.

I believe the South was upset because so much of the North was in the process of removing the legal basis for slavery.  Again, you can see that concern figuring in the South Carolina declaration quite plainly.  If I recall correctly, those Northern states that still had a few (well, relatively few compared to the South and especially, considering the Deep South where the majority of some state populations were actually the slaves!) had instituted laws that they would accept no more 'shipments' after a certain date. 
 
       The North used slavery primarily as domestic labor, whereas the South absolutely relied upon it for wholesale production of agricultural products.  True it was a sort of elite's business in both, but the South used slaves in much greater numbers and needed them to remain economically viable under the current model.  To be fair, the entire country could collectively benefit from the export of factory-processed goods using Southern agriculture (sometimes or often processed in the North, I think).  And many of the national exports were plain agricultural stock directly from the South.  But it was the South that had to change their economy wholesale if slavery was on the out, and where the majority of slaves were located. 

        Perhaps everyone was somewhat dirty if you go way back and look for a few areas that were not yet cleaned up (or I wonder -- may have operated the trade illegally?)...  But overall, the North was changing (had been for some time, thus the whole Mason-Dixon Line fuss) and the South was digging in its heels.  I don't see a way around that.

[Inkidu]

Yet the North and England still bought slave-picked, slave-ginned cotton. In the scope of history, slavery was brought in as cheap labor. It was brought in by the Almighty Dollar, and it would be ushered out by the Almighty Dollar, by 1890 or thereabouts. Those technological advancements were coming, they're much, much cheaper than owning a slave, and offered an even better chance of upward mobility among the poorer farmers.

While slavery was an issue in the Southern Secession, and by no means a trivial one where the moral soul of humanity is concerned, you have to remember a few things. One, blacks fought for the Confederacy, a lot of blacks. Where they so conditioned they liked slavery? Rhetorically no. The mother problem of the Civil War was a political-ideological split that was in the US since John Marshall.

It was the way we viewed the setup of the nation:

One, we were a collective group of individuals who came together under contract, and we could leave that contract at any time. (Southern or State View)

Two, we are a whole government made up of states ruled over by a central federal government. (Northern or Federalist View)

The Civil War was fought to determine who was right. The winner picks. Slavery was just the largest and most controversial (more so today and less then). The South believed they had the right to leave the nation, much like we left England. You know there comes a time in human history, so on and so forth.

Nope apparently if you win. No two parties of 19th Centry white men are going to die and shed blood from 1860 to 1865 over the right to own slaves alone. Also, its important I think to keep in mind that this was not civil rights, this was strictly abolishing slavery. Also a lot of blacks were outright killed in 1863 New York City Draft Riots because the poor immigrants thought blacks would flood in from the South and steal their jobs. So there were a lot, a lot of deaths in the North too. It hardly had a moral high-ground to take on the subject of Slavery. It might not have had the same slaves or used them for the same purposes (but really that's a matter of climate more than moral compass), but they and a host of other nations in the world kept slavery a profitable endeavor. There's a sum total of guilt among the western hemisphere, as I've said before.

[Drake Valentine]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/06/24/alabama-governor-confederate-flag-robert-bentley/29210283/

This is a bit too much. I do not agree to a flag being taken down on memorials. That is saying those individuals who fought for what they believed was right, should not be honored just as any other fallen soldier.  It is disrespectful to the generations of families who lost ancestors in the Civil War.

What's next. A removal of Confederate flags during 'reenactments' of the Civil War? Oh wait, maybe they will remove reenactments all together with the way things are going.

[kylie]

Yet the North and England still bought slave-picked, slave-ginned cotton.

And we still eat GMO food.  And a vast number of people buy sometimes dubious clothing from Walmart because they can't afford or find much better.  So what.  I'm not sitting here saying put a Walmart flag on some state capitol building.

In the scope of history, slavery was brought in as cheap labor. It was brought in by the Almighty Dollar, and it would be ushered out by the Almighty Dollar, by 1890 or thereabouts. Those technological advancements were coming, they're much, much cheaper than owning a slave, and offered an even better chance of upward mobility among the poorer farmers.

Agreed the North was much more industrialized and had much less to lose.  But if you think I'm going to approve of people doing something simply because it was profitable, you're wrong.  Again, what does this have to do with a flag on a capitol building today.

While slavery was an issue in the Southern Secession, and by no means a trivial one where the moral soul of humanity is concerned, you have to remember a few things. One, blacks fought for the Confederacy, a lot of blacks. Where they so conditioned they liked slavery? Rhetorically no. The mother problem of the Civil War was a political-ideological split that was in the US since John Marshall.

I don't debate that there was some serious ideology, but I still think slavery was a very central ingredient in the context where people adopted it.  The Western world might not have such a strong ideology of independence and self-determination if we hadn't come from European and North American geographies where it was possible to build viable states out of collections of small farms rather than plantations or hydraulic rice farming, either.  But that would hardly be a good argument to many people that we should not argue for the rights of people elsewhere, whose governments may have felt a need to be much more authoritarian (if not exploitative, depending) in order to hold together the masses in places of rice and oh yes, cotton farming (though slaves from Africa likely do not qualify as "masses" anyway -- hopefully you get the point anyway). 

     If it were true that many Blacks willingly fought for the South, basically I would still say, "So what?"  That doesn't mean that it's a grand idea for state governments to be flying that flag today.  It might not be the first time in history that people have been duped and/or financially motivated to fight for something that wasn't much in their interest (Iraq 2003 anyone?).  Big deal.

      Point of fact though?  Just at a glance of Google, I found more than one site off the bat that contests your claim that many Blacks fought for the South willingly.    Professor of History Bruce Levine at Univ. of Illinois, Urbana ....  And John Stauffer, a Professor of English and African-American Studies at Harvard.

Patrick R. Cleburne, a prominent general in the Confederate Army of Tennessee, could see what was happening in the South in late 1863. Southern troops were outnumbered, soldiers were demoralized, and the institution of slavery was collapsing. So on January 2, 1864, Cleburne rode through a sleet-driven night in northern Georgia to present an audacious proposal to nearly a dozen Confederate generals.

He proposed that the Confederate States of America offer freedom to military age male slaves who were willing to fight for the South.

“Most of the generals denounced him,” says Bruce Levine, University of Illinois history professor and author of Confederate Emancipation and The Fall of the House of Dixie.

Cleburne’s proposal was overwhelmingly rejected, for secessionist states were not about to undermine the system of slavery that they were fighting to defend. But despite this clear disdain for the idea of arming African Americans, Levine says that over the past 30 years there has arisen a myth that black soldiers did fight for the Confederacy in massive numbers—tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands, according to some accounts propagated online.

According to Levine, “The claims among modern romanticizers of the Confederacy are intended to bolster more fundamental claims—that African Americans identified with the Confederacy, that slaves were content with being slaves, and that the war had nothing to do with slavery.”

The problem is that the accounts of massive involvement of blacks in the Southern army are false, he says.

Levine says the Confederate army had a strict policy that if you were not certifiably white, you could not be a soldier in its ranks. However, in the early years of the Civil War, many slave owners did bring their servants into the Confederate army to carry equipment for them, and clean and take care of their clothes and horses. In addition, the Confederacy forced many slaves and free blacks in the South to labor for the war effort, building rail breastworks, driving wagons, burying the dead, and serving as nurses.

“On occasion, a slave might have even picked up a gun and taken a shot at the Yankees, proving how loyal and dependable he was,” Levine says. But this level of involvement is a far cry from tens of thousands of armed black soldiers marching in defense of the Confederacy.

What’s more, Confederates discovered that if they placed black laborers too close to Union lines, they ran the risk of African Americans fleeing to the other side; therefore, many slave owners stopped bringing along their black servants during the second half of the war.

Levine notes that there were two militias in the South made up of free African American soldiers—one in Mobile, Ala., and the other in New Orleans. But these were state militias, not part of the regular army, and they did not see serious action on behalf of the South. And numerous members of the “Native Guards” of New Orleans immediately switched allegiance to the Union when the Yankees occupied the city.

The Myth of the Black Confederates is a relatively new phenomenon, arising after the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, Levine says. The notion of African Americans fighting in large numbers for the South was never suggested in the immediate aftermath of the war because white veterans would have been still alive to shoot down the idea. “White Confederate soldiers would have taken it as an insult to have served in the same army with the same status as a black soldier,” he says.

As evidence that black men fought heroically for the South, neo-Confederates today will sometimes dig up photos of black servants dressed in military uniforms. But according to Levine, “Some servants were dressed in military uniforms because that was the kind of clothing available in the army.” It didn’t mean they were real members of those army units, he says.

Even 150 years after it started, the Civil War is still the battleground for controversial ideas. One of them is the notion that thousands of Southern slaves and freedmen fought willingly and loyally on the side of the Confederacy.

The idea of “black Confederates” appeals to present-day neo-Confederates, who are eager to find ways to defend the principles of the Confederate States of America. They say the Civil War was about states’ rights, and they wish to minimize the role of slavery in a vanished and romantic antebellum South.

But most historians of the past 50 years hold that the root cause of the Civil War was slavery. They bristle at the idea of black Confederates, which they say robs the war of its moral coin as the crucible of black emancipation.

Stepping into this controversy is Harvard historian John Stauffer, who studies antislavery movements, the Civil War, and American social protest. (He is chair of the History of American Civilization Program, and a professor of both English and African-American studies.) At the Harvard Faculty Club on Wednesday (Aug. 31), Stauffer opened the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute’s Fall Colloquium Series with a lecture on black Confederates. He acknowledged that critics of the concept now dominate the academic arena, including one scholar who called it “a fiction, a myth, utter nonsense.”

Still, Stauffer acknowledged the seeming popularity of neo-Confederate ideas in general. He cited a recent poll showing that 70 percent of white Southerners believe that the cause of the Civil War was not slavery, but a deep divide over states’ rights. Stauffer also outlined evidence that the notion of black Confederates is at least partly true — an assertion that he said got him “beaten up” in a discussion at a Washington, D.C., history event months ago.

Though no one knows for sure, the number of slaves who fought and labored for the South was modest, estimated Stauffer. Blacks who shouldered arms for the Confederacy numbered more than 3,000 but fewer than 10,000, he said, among the hundreds of thousands of whites who served. Black laborers for the cause numbered from 20,000 to 50,000.

Those are not big numbers, said Stauffer. Black Confederate soldiers likely represented less than 1 percent of Southern black men of military age during that period, and less than 1 percent of Confederate soldiers. And their motivation for serving isn’t taken into account by the numbers, since some may have been forced into service, and others may have seen fighting as a way out of privation.

It was the way we viewed the setup of the nation:

One, we were a collective group of individuals who came together under contract, and we could leave that contract at any time. (Southern or State View)

I do understand that view existed and perhaps somewhat still does.  But I don't believe state governments today can reasonably expect to be representing that either with the flag atop their buildings.

...  The Civil War was fought to determine who was right. The winner picks. Slavery was just the largest and most controversial (more so today and less then). The South believed they had the right to leave the nation, much like we left England. You know there comes a time in human history, so on and so forth.

Yes, yes.  And they said the reason they left then and there was, slavery was being rendered no longer viable.  The colonies didn't leave England simply because they felt they could, but particularly because they believed their way of life/commerce was being taxed unfairly.  Either way, it's rather incongruous to put that flag on a state capital today in what is very much a federal system.  Unless perhaps, one really wishes to have another war -- if it's about a right to secession, yes?

Nope apparently if you win. No two parties of 19th Centry white men are going to die and shed blood from 1860 to 1865 over the right to own slaves alone. Also, its important I think to keep in mind that this was not civil rights, this was strictly abolishing slavery. Also a lot of blacks were outright killed in 1863 New York City Draft Riots because the poor immigrants thought blacks would flood in from the South and steal their jobs. So there were a lot, a lot of deaths in the North too. It hardly had a moral high-ground to take on the subject of Slavery.

You're playing at:  If the North did anything wrong, they can't tell the South not to put up a flag that represented a fight to maintain slavery and/or the idea that it's perfectly okay for states to walk out of the Union.  Where the question is, is the Confederate flag okay, and you're sort of hinting well it must be if the North ever hosted any problems (and you don't seem to care much whether they were even central policy problems or outbreaks of local violence by minority groups?)...  I don't buy it.  This also doesn't change the fact that slavery was a horrible institution, no matter how hard you try to make it sound like it had support -- least of all from Blacks who as far as I can tell, actually only rarely and often under duress gave material support to that war effort.
 

It might not have had the same slaves or used them for the same purposes (but really that's a matter of climate more than moral compass), but they and a host of other nations in the world kept slavery a profitable endeavor. There's a sum total of guilt among the western hemisphere, as I've said before.

And you're trying to say what?  If one region was many times more invested and refused to change when the others looked to get on with things and by and large do something very differently, we're supposed to go on venerating their flag on public buildings because....  What exactly?  Because they killed and raped more people around those plantations but we're all slaves to the dollar and nothing else matters?  Spare me.

[Inkidu]

     And we still eat GMO food.  And a vast number of people buy sometimes dubious clothing from Walmart because they can't afford or find much better.  So what.  I'm not sitting here saying put a Walmart flag on some state capitol building.

Not the point. The point is that the world is pretty quick to condemn the nation that had the slaves, even though the whole Western World was complicit in either shipping said slave or buy produced cotton. In fact, unlike Walmart and the exploitation of the third-world for cheap good, the cotton trade was almost exclusively a rich-person's thing. Poor people more than likely spun their own clothing via sharecropped gains in the cotton yield of non-slave plantations.

   

Agreed the North was much more industrialized and had much less to lose.  But if you think I'm going to approve of people doing something simply because it was profitable, you're wrong.  Again, what does this have to do with a flag on a capitol building today.

Again, you missed the point. Slavery was the cheapest form of labor in the world before the industrial revolution. With the industrial revolution producing new ways of farming slaves would have become an absurdly expensive (and thoroughly outmoded) way of doing business. Slaves might not have been emancipated b 1863, but slavery was on the way out through either abolishing it, or (as the world has proven time and again) the bottom line. Still, perhaps people haven't moved on as much as we like to think we have, maybe we've just moved to new forms of slavery, ask any Chinese factory worker who puts together that brand new iPhone.

   

I don't debate that there was some serious ideology, but I still think slavery was a very central ingredient in the context where people adopted it.  The Western world might not have such a strong ideology of independence and self-determination if we hadn't come from European and North American geographies where it was possible to build viable states out of collections of small farms rather than plantations or hydraulic rice farming, either.  But that would hardly be a good argument to many people that we should not argue for the rights of people elsewhere, whose governments may have felt a need to be much more authoritarian (if not exploitative, depending) in order to hold together the masses in places of rice and oh yes, cotton farming (though slaves from Africa likely do not qualify as "masses" anyway -- hopefully you get the point anyway).

There is a point to this part? What does farming have to do with the way the United States viewed its governmental setup? Slaves have sadly been apart of the New World economy since the beginning whether it's the Spanish basically enslaving the locals in South America, the British sugar plantations of the Caribbean, or the cotton and indigo plantations of the South. The only way slavery played into the State's Rights conflict was that there was a very rich minority that wanted to keep slaves, and I'm not defending that, but the Civil War was not some moral crusade against slavery, or plantation farming. 

     

If it were true that many Blacks willingly fought for the South, basically I would still say, "So what?"  That doesn't mean that it's a grand idea for state governments to be flying that flag today.  It might not be the first time in history that people have been duped and/or financially motivated to fight for something that wasn't much in their interest (Iraq 2003 anyone?).  Big deal.

      Point of fact though?  Just at a glance of Google, I found more than one site off the bat that contests your claim that many Blacks fought for the South willingly.    Professor of History Bruce Levine at Univ. of Illinois, Urbana ....  And John Stauffer, a Professor of English and African-American Studies at Harvard.

I'm sure many blacks were pressed into service, just like many foreigners in the North were drafted, and it might as well be the same thing from the "choice" perspective. Now, as to why the flag. Well if there were blacks that fought willingly, wouldn't they have fought under something close to that flag anyway? So... yeah... I'm not contesting that the Confederate Flag has been co-opted by some nasty people, but don't confuse what it was then with what it is to some now.
 
   

I do understand that view existed and perhaps somewhat still does.  But I don't believe state governments today can reasonably expect to be representing that either with the flag atop their buildings.

Maybe, but yanking something down just because you don't like it is censorship of the worst kind. This is America, we allow Neo-Nazis to parade down the street lofting the Swastika, it would set up a nasty double standard.

     

Yes, yes.  And they said the reason they left then and there was, slavery was being rendered no longer viable.  The US didn't leave England simply because they felt they could, but particularly because they believed their way of life/commerce was being taxed unfairly.  Either way, it's rather incongruous to put that flag on a state capital today in what is very much a federal system.  Unless perhaps, one really wishes to have another war -- if it's about a right to secession, yes?

That's half the answer, and only for a minority of landowners. The answer was they thought it was a state's rights issue. They thought that the states should retrain the right to decide if they wanted slaves or not (as wrong as that is). The federal government said no. It's not, "Our slaves are being taken away!" or "We want slaves!" it's, "We reserve the right to determine this on our own without the government dictating it!" Remember that the importation of slaves had already been dealt with, and the South was fine with that. They were dealing with the last issue on the table, and the issue wasn't whether slavery was right or wrong, it was who gets to decide.
     

You're playing at:  If the North did anything wrong, they can't tell the South not to put up a flag that represented a fight to maintain slavery and/or the idea that it's perfectly okay for states to walk out of the Union.  Where the question is, is the Confederate flag okay, and you're sort of hinting well it must be if the North ever hosted any problems (and you don't seem to care much whether they were even central policy problems or outbreaks of local violence by minority groups?)...  I don't buy it.  This also doesn't change the fact that slavery was a horrible institution, no matter how hard you try to make it sound like it had support -- least of all from Blacks who as far as I can tell, actually only rarely and often under duress gave material support to that war effort.

Wrong. I'm maintaining that there are few flags in the world that aren't soaked in immorality and blood. If you band the confederate flag you might as well ban several others. The American, British, has the Dutch flag changed since they began running slaves? It seems awfully hypocritical to ban one single flag without banning any flag that has a checkered past.

And you're trying to say what?  If one region was many times more invested and refused to change when the others looked to get on with things and by and large do something very differently, we're supposed to go on venerating their flag on public buildings because....  What exactly?  Because they killed and raped more people around those plantations but we're all slaves to the dollar and nothing else matters?  Spare me.

You belittle yourself and show your lack of attention, and I'm not going to be part of some one-sided attempt to boil my comments into some kind of straw-man argument. My point is it's awfully hypocritical to ban this particular flag without banning a lot of others for probably as great if not greater black spots.

I'll repeat it three times in hope that it gets through:

I'm against the hypocritical censorship.
I'm against the hypocritical censorship.
I'm against the hypocritical censorship.

With that, I'm done.

[Ephiral]

Staying out of the larger discussion, but I'll note that it is by no means censorship for a government to refrain from or stop making a statement - which is all kylie was supporting.

[Retribution]

I do not really post here anymore though with this I suppose that statement does not apply. Not a comment pro or con when it comes to the Stars and Bars but just an observation.

This entire discussion over the appropriateness of the Confederate battle flag stems from a horrendous crime and tragedy. So while I understand how many are offended by the implications of said flag I fail to see how "banning" the flag will prevent other such tragedies. It seems like a knee jerk, will not accomplish anything but will make some people feel better reaction. Sadly that seems to be the response to most things in this day and age.

I am reminded of the line from the movie Animal House "this requires a meaningless and ultimately futile gesture by someone and we are just the guys to do it!"

[The Dark Raven]

I am going to comment here and not going any further to reply, because I am white-hot angry about this.  I was born and raised in the South, but not until college did I finally learn the full extent of the war.

1.  The flag flying on the grounds of the SC capital is the oblong "Rebel flag."  This is the Army of Tennesee's flag.  ANV was square with a white bordure.

2.  That flag, used in general design, was the rallying point for regiments of Confederate soldiers during the war.  Each flag was different.  Each flag was unique.  Each flag meant home to the men marching under it.

3.  This flag should not be immediately assumed it is a symbol of hate.  Extremists have co-opted it as a symbol of their racism and hatred.  That flag did not mean that.

4.  The Civil War was fought (from the Southern perspective) for the same reasons that the Colonies fought against Britain.  They were in favored economic relationships with Europe and England, buying prime goods (furniture, silver, fabric, etc) in trade for raw materials that thrived in the South (indigo, cotton, tobacco, rice, etc).  The South had a low industrialized society antebellum.  The North had already mechanized, and was trying to reproduce superior European product for sale.  The South wasn't buying from them, so the Washington government raised export/import tariffs on the states that were directly exporting to England (so they would buy the Northern products).  Slavery, while called the galvanizing issue of the war, was not.  Slavery was in the middle of burning itself out because it could not sustain itself.  England had abolished slavery in the Empire, but still kept indentured servitude in the Caribbean sugar plantations.  Workers still had to be hired to work the plantations that ran the economy.

5.  Slavery existed in the North as well as the South.  While the South is villified for slave ownership, those that had slaves (rich planters) more often than not were not able to afford their workforce and freed them before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.  Others freed their slaves on the principle of the thing.  One such man was Robert E. Lee (he freed the Custis slaves at Arlington, and did not have others).  The rest of the "racist" Confederates were dirt-poor farmers that took up arms to defend the meager farms they lived on from invasion, and were lucky if they could afford food, let alone a slave.  Those were the men that died on the battlefields under that flag.  Men and boys protecting their livelihoods and their loved ones from invasion.

6.  The kid that killed the 9 people in the church sat in their prayer meeting and was moved by what he heard.  Unfortunately, not moved enough to not go through with the murder.  He is a self-proclaimed racist.  He used the flag like the KKK has used the same flag.  For hate out of a lack of understanding.

[Cycle]

Folks have been hostile to that flag for decades not because it was used in the Civil War, but because segregationist groups have been using it as their flag/symbol since the Civil Rights Era.  This article is worth reading:

Southerners serving overseas during World War II displayed the flag to project regional identity. Around the same time, the Ku Klux Klan adopted the flag as a symbol of its quest for white domination. Southern politicians, such as Strom Thurmond, a 1948 candidate for president from the Dixiecrat Party, also employed the flag as a totem of resistance to forced racial integration.

Also this article:

In 1948, the newly-formed segregationist Dixiecrat party adopted the flag as a symbol of resistance to the federal government. In the years that followed, the battle flag became an important part of segregationist symbolism, and was featured prominently on the 1956 redesign of Georgia’s state flag, a legislative decision that was likely at least partly a response to the Supreme Court’s decision to desegregate school two years earlier. The flag has also been used by the Ku Klux Klan, though it is not the Klan’s official flag.

And this one:

The Peach State’s flag was redesigned in 1956 to feature the Confederate battle flag following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate schools across the nation. This was done to show the state’s resolve to preserve segregation.

After Charleston, things finally tipped.  But the momentum has been building for decades.

[ShadowFox89]

 Here's my question: If you can fly the Confederate Flag, then can I fly the Nazi one? Soviet Union one?

[kylie]

     Maybe, but yanking something down just because you don't like it is censorship of the worst kind. This is America, we allow Neo-Nazis to parade down the street lofting the Swastika, it would set up a nasty double standard.

       As private groups, and that alone is controversial enough.  Not as agencies of state government.

       I'm not so bothered if private individuals want to display that flag on their own property.  I'm also, again, not hugely bothered if someone wants to go and burn the standard American flag either -- you buy it, you can burn it if you are that upset about injustice in the world (or whatever really, for that matter).  And it's one thing if people want to say this or that Confederate flag represents something about independence or honor or sacrifice to them.  But it's another entirely if a state government is going to be encouraged to fly it in a country where it stood for sedition and the federal government did go to war against it. 

       That's without even getting around to slavery, but as Cycle says more elegantly: The racism aspect and legacy of slavery IS quite relevant the last few decades in particular.  If you read the quotations, most of the claims that many Blacks would even want to fight for the Confederacy only started after most of the veterans were dead.  That's in some significant part at least, because these claims are parts of arguments about (likely against!) contemporary civil rights. 

      That's half the answer, and only for a minority of landowners. The answer was they thought it was a state's rights issue. They thought that the states should retrain the right to decide if they wanted slaves or not (as wrong as that is). The federal government said no. It's not, "Our slaves are being taken away!" or "We want slaves!" it's, "We reserve the right to determine this on our own without the government dictating it!" Remember that the importation of slaves had already been dealt with, and the South was fine with that. They were dealing with the last issue on the table, and the issue wasn't whether slavery was right or wrong, it was who gets to decide.

Reading the various secession declarations, and particularly South Carolina's where facts like the specific laws against portions of the slave trade (including importation) figure quite prominently?  That's not how it looks to me at all.  I can see it being both, but I can't see it not being a vote for slavery.  That is also somehow going to great trouble to miss all the Civilization and White Man's Burden and Will of Deity rhetoric which is very much there.

The American, British, has the Dutch flag changed since they began running slaves? It seems awfully hypocritical to ban one single flag without banning any flag that has a checkered past.

    This seems to be the crux of Inkidu's argument.  Granted we don't tear down a flag because every two-bit criminal might happen to approve of it, even today.  But I don't see Germany flying Nazi flags left and right from government buildings today, either.  Some things we generally recognize have affronted not only the state, but many of its people in ways that are so historically vile that today they are taken to mean something undesirable.  And here the question is what does a communal government wish to display or emphasize. 

      After that it turns into "That one is just as bad" kind of fuss, which I'm not entirely convinced makes sense particularly today.  It's too "easy" to make that argument when the regime that raised the Confederate flag isn't really alive anymore to be analyzed.  Perhaps it's particularly easy, when some try to ignore half the documentation they did leave behind which is just seeped in racist language and slavery mentioned over and over and over.

     This sort of argument would be more convincing perhaps, if it ran more to the tune of NO government should really need a flag, or not a flag different from any other point in geography or history.  Why does the president have to walk around with a flag lapel pin all the time anyway?  After all, flags get in the way.  Didn't he start wearing that flag when the US declared "war without limits" on terrorism [and 'anything else' it could catch in the bargain like Iraq]?  It's maybe a better argument to ask what people can get done without flags being up all the time. 
 

[Drake Valentine]

Folks have been hostile to that flag for decades not because it was used in the Civil War, but because segregationist groups have been using it as their flag/symbol since the Civil Rights Era.  This article is worth reading:

Also this article:

And this one:

After Charleston, things finally tipped.  But the momentum has been building for decades.

You kidding me? Look at Ku Klux Klan pictures, many of them can also be seen waving an American Flag.

[itsbeenfun2000]

I am coming in a late on this discussion but want to weigh in.

First off no one is banning the Confederate flag. Anyone that wants one can have one. Any one that wants a Soviet flag can have one they are not outlawed. It is not the flag that is the issue. It is this, is this a flag that should or should not be flown over public buildings. It symbolizes a group of people who rebelled against the United States and loss. It is now, and has been for years, also being used by hate groups to intimidate others. I find it strange that the losing side of a war would be allowed to fly a flag over public buildings. We certainly did not continue to allow the Union Jack to be flown after the revolution, even though some of the colonists supported England, over the public buildings in those areas where England was supported.

[Oniya]

Just as a point, the reason that we don't see Germany flying Nazi flags - well - anywhere really, is because it is forbidden to wear or publicly show Nazi symbols in Germany.  It is also not legal to import or manufacture items with Nazi symbols, according to the German criminal code.  It is legal to buy and own items from the Nazi period if the Nazi symbols are taped off and covered.   

http://www.dw.com/en/the-right-approach-to-nazi-memorabilia/a-17573542

[Ephiral]

You kidding me? Look at Ku Klux Klan pictures, many of them can also be seen waving an American Flag.

But the modern American flag is not and never has been shorthand for "KKK", in the way that the confederate flag has been shorthand for "white supremacy". By flying that flag, a government endorses the concepts for which it stands - which, in the eyes of a lot of people, including the supporters that first popularized it, begin with "white superiority".

[Zakharra]

 On a somewhat related note, the Jefferson Memorial in Richmond was vandalized: http://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/article_251992bb-cf9a-58e6-9bcd-ec4d50dede87.html
I have heard snippets on the radio that some blacks (what are we who aren't black supposed to call those who do have black skin? I prefer the general term 'American', but some people seem to insist on having a color/ethnic identity before the American part) want to have the Washington Memorial and those of the Founding Fathers that owned slaves.  That seems like an overreaction and suspiciously close to censorship when one tries to remove all mention of monuments to important historical and national figures.

[Drake Valentine]

But the modern American flag is not and never has been shorthand for "KKK", in the way that the confederate flag has been shorthand for "white supremacy". By flying that flag, a government endorses the concepts for which it stands - which, in the eyes of a lot of people, including the supporters that first popularized it, begin with "white superiority".

Shorthanding is in the means of the Government itself. The Confederate Flag was never about 'white supremacy' it was a movement to isolate itself and become an independent nation just as the Americans have seceded from England. They desired their freedom to do as they wish, because 'American was suppose to be a land of the free.'  The Confederate Flag was a symbol of independence, but like all symbols of independence, it could be taken as a symbol of 'treachery' as well for those it stood against, just as we were treacherous towards England in the past. In modern day, I do not see England shorthanding us for something as we are accusing another flag for. The supporters that popularized it? Who? The Southern Armies that used the flag when serving the military in World War II? Dukes of Hazzard? The Confederate Flag did not have a second coming around since both events.

[Caehlim]

'American was suppose to be a land of the free.'

Isn't that lyric a reference to land of the free slave, home of the Native American brave? Not just rejoicing in two abstract concepts and thinking that liberty and courage are pretty sweet?

I don't know for sure, I'm not American... it just makes a lot more sense that way.

[Ephiral]

Shorthanding is in the means of the Government itself. The Confederate Flag was never about 'white supremacy' it was a movement to isolate itself and become an independent nation just as the Americans have seceded from England.

Never? Never ever? Were you here for the discussion of how it was popularized?

They desired their freedom to do as they wish, because 'American was suppose to be a land of the free.'

Silly question: If a federal government forbidding slavery was intolerable tyranny (see secession statements above), and if it was all about the freedom of the states to do as they wish, why was a federal government mandating slavery A-OK? Why were states not free to choose not to have slavery in the CSA?

The Confederate Flag was a symbol of independence, but like all symbols of independence, it could be taken as a symbol of 'treachery' as well for those it stood against, just as we were treacherous towards England in the past. In modern day, I do not see England shorthanding us for something as we are accusing another flag for. The supporters that popularized it? Who? The Southern Armies that used the flag when serving the military in World War II? Dukes of Hazzard? The Confederate Flag did not have a second coming around since both events.

It became a rallying symbol for segregationists in 1948, and continued to explicitly serve this function at a governmental level through at at least 1963. This was covered upthread. So, to summarize:

• It was used by a military unit whose nation identified primarily and extensively with slavery.
• It was then adapted for use by the government that formed around the issue of slavery.
• It then lay fallow until a racist cause needed a symbol to rally around.
• It was adopted on explicitly racist grounds by two state governments.
• And now people are loudly saying it has nothing to do with racism.

Can you see how those claims ring a little false?

EDIT: Added a point on the use of the flag by Georgia and Alabama.

[Cycle]

You kidding me? Look at Ku Klux Klan pictures, many of them can also be seen waving an American Flag.

I think you missed the point.  Those articles talk about how the flag has been used in modern times--i.e., used well after the Civil War.  Look up Strom Thurmond, Dixiecrats, George Wallace.  Read this article concerning the history of that flag. 

The rebel flag's resurgence came long after the Civil War

After the Civil War ended, the battle flag turned up here and there only occasionally -- at events to commemorate fallen soldiers.

So, when did the flag explode into prominence? It was during the struggle for civil rights for black Americans, in the middle of the 20th century.

The first burst may have been in 1948. South Carolina politician Strom Thurmond ran for president under the newly founded States Rights Democratic Party, also known as the Dixiecrats. The party's purpose was clear: "We stand for the segregation of the races," said Article 4 of its platform.

And this piece.

It was in this environment that Georgia’s present state flag was born.  Aside from the token resistance, every legislator publicly supported preserving segregation in Georgia.  The legislators of 1956 were so determined and desperate to maintain segregation that they were willing to abandon Georgia’s public schools to avoid integration.  They also supported a vast array of legislation which maintained segregated state parks, golf courses, swimming pools, and recreation facilities as well as intrastate transportation facilities.  And in case any police officer became “confused” about enforcing segregation laws, the General Assembly passed a law revoking the retirement benefits of any law enforcement officer who failed or refused to enforce any segregation law.  These legislators, who supported the self-destructive segregation plans in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown decision, also gave their support to changing the state flag to incorporate the Confederate battle flag. Their vehement segregation-at-all-cost stance compelled the North Georgia Tribune to comment that “we dislike the spirit which hatched out the new flag, and we don’t believe Robert E. Lee ... would like it either.”

That flag has been used by people for purposes other than to honor the Civil War soldiers. 

The fact that you may have only used that flag to honor the Civil War fallen does not erase the history of how others have used it.

[Iniquitous]

Dear sweet merciful Gods please please please stop calling it the "Confederate Flag". It is the Rebel flag. Or, if you want to get very technical with it, it's appropriate name is "The Stainless Banner".

Now.

Say Hello to the Confederate Flag for the Confederate States of Amercia aka "The Stars and Bars"



Not the same flag is it?

Matter of fact, the flag everyone is crapping themselves over was never used as a "national" flag for the Confederate States of America. Nope. That flag was the battle flag of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. (Anyone ever watch Dukes of Hazard? Remember the car with the big ole Rebel flag on top of it? Remember the name of the car? The General Lee) Designed by the Confederate politician William Porcher Miles, the flag was rejected for use as the Confederacy’s official emblem, although it was incorporated into the two later flags as a canton. It only came to be the flag most prominently associated with the Confederacy after the South lost the war.

I am sick to death of no one actually researching to figure out just what exactly they are offended of. That battle flag is part of American history. I've seen blacks wearing t-shirts with it on them. I've seen blacks waving it just like whites. If we start banning everything that offends people soon we won't be able to open our freaking mouths to speak.

Leave the freaking flag where it is for crying out loud.

[la dame en noir]

I'm glad its not waving around in state anymore. it makes me uncomfortable to see people with it tattooed on their arms, stickers on their cars, or waving it in front of their houses. I don't trust people with it and this country loves waving its fucking hate all over the place.

and then there are black fools like this.

http://us.tomonews.net/244420179935232?utm_source=Facebook+NMAtv&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=062715+black+student+kkk

[Cycle]

I am sick to death of no one actually researching to figure out just what exactly they are offended of.

Some of us have.  And we know that a lot of people offended not because of the Civil War implications but because that flag was used by Segregationists in the Civil Rights era, to show defiance and refusal to accept things such as the Brown decision.  (Kind of like how some Southern States are responding to Obergefell today...)

Your post actually does an excellent job of debunking the argument that removing that flag is "disrespectful" of the Confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War.  That is, if folks want to erect memorials to those soldiers, perhaps they should use the right flag instead of using--in your words--a flag that was "never used as a 'national' flag for the Confederate States of America."

[Iniquitous]

So, you judge a person untrustworthy because they have a rebel flag on them/their car/in front of their house? And yet, whites are accused of being racist because we don't trust black men with their pants around their knees, we don't trust certain neighborhoods, etc.

A flag does not make a person racist nor untrustworthy. And again... "I'm offended" has become the new battle cry of this country. As I told my mother when she bitched about the supreme court. "At some point, you have to take a deep breath, pull up your big girl panties and deal with it." I'm not removing the rebel flag from anything I own that has it because I have a right to express my pride in my southern heritage just as much as anyone who is offended has a right to express that they are offended.

Just because someone is offended doesn't mean they get what they want and I think this country has forgotten that. Scream it to the heavens that you are offended by it... but then deal with it and move on.

And.. Cycle, I never said that removing it was disrespectful of the veterans of the Confederate States of America. I am not sure who said it, but it wasn't me.

[Cycle]

Cycle, I never said that removing it was disrespectful of the veterans of the Confederate States of America. I am not sure who said it, but it wasn't me.

I didn't say you did.  I just found it worth noting that your post debunks the argument raised by others above.

[Aethereal]

       Do I have a positive opinion of the people toting the flag? Not necessarily (depends on context and *which* flag we're speaking of).
       Do I approve of related censorship? No. It's part of history, and it wasn't only used with ill agenda. (It's even worse with things like the swastika - the swastika isn't inherently a Nazi symbol, the Nazi appropriated it. In my country, there are probably as many people of Eastern religions as there are Christians, for one, and it's an important symbol in many of those...)

       Things get especially ridiculous when we start banning (or removing from stores) historical games which have depictions of the flag in it (even if it, in that context, was really used). As for everyone else? Let them glue stickers and wave flags if they want; as long as they're not actively harming someone or rallying some kind of negative law adjustments, there isn't a reason to do anything against them. It's always preferable to remove stigmas than it is to taboo things (unless someone is being harmed).

[la dame en noir]

Lmao. Did i just get attacked? Your reasons for wanting the flag are yours alone. I dont have to like it. It makes me uncomfortable and sorry, not sorrg but it seems that there are plenty of white people who just hate my exsistence for having melanin. Im allowed to be offended and i have a right to. You do not get to tell me how to feel otherwise.

[Oniya]

Your post actually does an excellent job of debunking the argument that removing that flag is "disrespectful" of the Confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War.  That is, if folks want to erect memorials to those soldiers, perhaps they should use the right flag instead of using--in your words--a flag that was "never used as a 'national' flag for the Confederate States of America."

Mr. Oniya (who has done Civil War re-enactment) suggested that the 'removed Civil War games' could easily be restored with the simple patch of replacing the battle flag image file with an actual CSA flag image file..

[Aethereal]

Mr. Oniya (who has done Civil War re-enactment) suggested that the 'removed Civil War games' could easily be restored with the simple patch of replacing the battle flag image file with an actual CSA flag image file...

I can't speak for the exact context of (all) those games, but the Rebels' flag was undeniably also used, so it wouldn't make too much sense (especially if it removes the accuracy of the depiction). 

[Iniquitous]

Lmao. Did i just get attacked? Your reasons for wanting the flag are yours alone. I dont have to like it. It makes me uncomfortable and sorry, not sorrg but it seems that there are plenty of white people who just hate my exsistence for having melanin. Im allowed to be offended and i have a right to. You do not get to tell me how to feel otherwise.

No one has tried to tell you how to feel. Feel offended if you want. But no one should have to give you everything you want because you are offended. Period.

[consortium11]

Mr. Oniya (who has done Civil War re-enactment) suggested that the 'removed Civil War games' could easily be restored with the simple patch of replacing the battle flag image file with an actual CSA flag image file..

It's not quite so simple for anything set post 1863 though. The second and third official confederate flags:





So, they're not the rebel flag... but they basically contain it within.

Dear sweet merciful Gods please please please stop calling it the "Confederate Flag". It is the Rebel flag. Or, if you want to get very technical with it, it's appropriate name is "The Stainless Banner".

It's not actually; the Stainless Banner is the first one I posted above and was an official flag of the Confederacy. The "stainless" aspect comes from the big area of white on it.

[Drake Valentine]

Sigh.

You do realize that the American Flag is Racist and responsible for a lot of hate and deaths of other races?

If we want to go about pointing fingers of racism, why not start with Old Glory?

Old Glory who is responsible for the deaths of many Native Americans.
Old Glory who is responsible for slavery going on for over a hundred years.
Old Glory who is responsible for the deaths and injuries of many African-Americans after the civil war(remember Martin Luther King days?)
Old Glory who had many active groups of the KKK using it and recognizing it as the national symbol other than the 'Confederate Flag.'

A Confederate flag that only reign four years receives more hate than an American Flag which has the longest history of blood and tyranny on its hands. Give me break.

[Maiz]

You can proclaim how much whatever flag means heritage/pride but the fact of the matter is that by displaying it you are marking yourself as someone unsafe to African Americans and other racial/religious minorities.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Because of this, it should not fly on state buildings. Someone said to put it in the museum and I agree with this sentiment.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2009/04/heritage-not-hate/16754/

One defense of the Confederate flag, made below, is that people who fly the flag and wear it on their tee-shirts aren't necessarily, themselves, racist. This is a rather low hurdle to clear. The harder test doesn't question your where your heart, but your sword.

From this perspective, the question isn't "Do you hate black people?" It isn't "Would you invite a black person to your barbecue?"  It's "Are you more offended by black people who recoil in horror at the Confederate flag, than you are by the flag's history?"

[Cycle]

You do realize that the American Flag is Racist and responsible for a lot of hate and deaths of other races?

That is a rather poor analogy.

The United States flag has been used for puproses other than the ones you've listed.  Good things.  Like, for example, defeating Nazi Germany.  Helping other countries like Haiti recover after a natural disaster.  Landing a human being on the Moon.

The Confederate battle flag has been used for what?  As the banner of one army that lost the Civil War?  As decoration on a stock car used to jump over rivers in an 80s television show?  As a rallying point by a politician seeking to become president of the United States so he can mandate segregation?  As a symbol by two States to show their defiance of Federal law requiring integration? 

What else?

Of the ways the Confederate battle flag has been used, which do you think has had the biggest impact? 

[Drake Valentine]

That is a rather poor analogy.

The United States flag has been used for puproses other than the ones you've listed.  Good things.  Like, for example, defeating Nazi Germany.  Helping other countries like Haiti recover after a natural disaster.  Landing a human being on the Moon.

The Confederate battle flag has been used for what?  As the banner of one army that lost the Civil War?  As decoration on a stock car used to jump over rivers in an 80s television show?  As a rallying point by a politician seeking to become president of the United States so he can mandate segregation?  As a symbol by two States to show their defiance of Federal law requiring integration? 

What else?

Of the ways the Confederate battle flag has been used, which do you think has had the biggest impact?

You do realize it has been used in WWII by southern soldiers, maybe you should scan up some pages on notes to those involvements.

Also the US is not as clean handed as you try to promote it. Have you forgotten the nuking of Japan, twice? Have you forgotten American stealing land from Mexico and now is against immigrants crossing the border? Have you forgotten how US stole Hawaii? America invades and takes land, it is okay; but for other countries that do it(when we involve ourselves) it isn't.

Edit: Also on the Nazi-Germany thing. Russians already would of had them beat, all we did was stole a victory from them on that end. The German army was not use to invading the colder climates. To say America was the main victors in that battle is a jest.

[Ephiral]

Dear sweet merciful Gods please please please stop calling it the "Confederate Flag". It is the Rebel flag. Or, if you want to get very technical with it, it's appropriate name is "The Stainless Banner".

Partial credit here: The flag under discussion was only the primary design element of the flags the CSA used for most of its existence. The Stainless Banner would actually be the second flag of the CSA, adopted in 1863 (see the first image in consortium11's post above).

I am sick to death of no one actually researching to figure out just what exactly they are offended of. That battle flag is part of American history. I've seen blacks wearing t-shirts with it on them. I've seen blacks waving it just like whites. If we start banning everything that offends people soon we won't be able to open our freaking mouths to speak.

Next time you want to tell us we're all getting it wrong, you might want to make sure you've got it right. And... and did you seriously just pull the "[The flag has] a black friend" argument with a straight face? Further: No matter how many times people pretend otherwise, you won't find many people in this thread wanting to ban it outright. I'm all for people being able to display it as private citizens. I don't think governments should endorse the message for which it has come to stand.

Old Glory who is responsible for the deaths of many Native Americans.
Old Glory who is responsible for slavery going on for over a hundred years.
Old Glory who is responsible for the deaths and injuries of many African-Americans after the civil war(remember Martin Luther King days?)
Old Glory who had many active groups of the KKK using it and recognizing it as the national symbol other than the 'Confederate Flag.'

A Confederate flag that only reign four years receives more hate than an American Flag which has the longest history of blood and tyranny on its hands. Give me break.

I wasn't aware that slavery and the US policy of native genocide were ongoing in the 1960s. I certainly wasn't aware that the modern American flag was popularized as a rallying banner for racists, or adopted by governments as an endorsement of racism and a statement of defiance against equality.

Wait, it wasn't? So the two aren't even remotely comparable? I am shocked.

You do realize it has been used in WWII by southern soldiers, maybe you should scan up some pages on notes to those involvements.

Also the US is not as clean handed as you try to promote it. Have you forgotten the nuking of Japan, twice? Have you forgotten American stealing land from Mexico and now is against immigrants crossing the border? Have you forgotten how US stole Hawaii? America invades and takes land, it is okay; but for other countries that do it(when we involve ourselves) it isn't.

Edit: Also on the Nazi-Germany thing. Russians already would of had them beat, all we did was stole a victory from them on that end. The German army was not use to invading the colder climates. To say America was the main victors in that battle is a jest.

All right. Let me try to make the difference explicitly clear: America has done questionable things. It is not, at its core, all about questionable things, in the way that the CSA was, at its core, all about slavery, or the segregationist movement was all about racism.

[Drake Valentine]

I wasn't aware that slavery and the US policy of native genocide were ongoing in the 1960s. I certainly wasn't aware that the modern American flag was popularized as a rallying banner for racists, or adopted by governments as an endorsement of racism and a statement of defiance against equality.

Wait, it wasn't? So the two aren't even remotely comparable? I am shocked.

I am done with you. All you wish to do is cling to a four year reign and treat it as the most hateful event in history. Similar to treating Confederate Flag as a Nazi Flag. When clear examples of racial hate and genocide involving the American Flag are made you shrug it off. I will not continue to debate with you on this topic.

[Cycle]

No, I haven't forgotten that there are darker aspects of the United State's history.  Just as there are brighter ones that I didn't mention.  Like how the United States' Flag was used to defeat the Confederate battle flag.


And it looks like your answer to my question is: none.

Therefore, we all evidently agree that the Confederate battle flag was used only:  (1) by a losing army for a few years; (2) to bump the Dukes of Hazard's rating a point or three in the 80s; and (3) as the banner of segregationists for decades in the past century.

That makes it pretty clear why there are people who don't like the flag, doesn't it?

[Cycle]

All you wish to do is cling to a four year reign and treat it as the most hateful event in history.

The segregationist movement lasted longer than four years...

[Ephiral]

I am done with you. All you wish to do is cling to a four year reign and treat it as the most hateful event in history. Similar to treating Confederate Flag as a Nazi Flag. When clear examples of racial hate and genocide involving the American Flag are made you shrug it off. I will not continue to debate with you on this topic.

Like you're ignoring the history of the rebel flag from 1948 onward? The bit you quoted spends more time on the segregationists than the CSA. In fact, it doesn't mention the CSA at all.

I don't excuse America's wrongs. I draw a distinction between a country that has strayed from its ideals and acted badly - yes, sometimes resulting in outright atrocity - and one which enshrines atrocity in its constitution as a mandatory and desirable practice.

[ShadowFox89]

Sigh.

You do realize that the American Flag is Racist and responsible for a lot of hate and deaths of other races?

If we want to go about pointing fingers of racism, why not start with Old Glory?

Old Glory who is responsible for the deaths of many Native Americans.
Old Glory who is responsible for slavery going on for over a hundred years.
Old Glory who is responsible for the deaths and injuries of many African-Americans after the civil war(remember Martin Luther King days?)
Old Glory who had many active groups of the KKK using it and recognizing it as the national symbol other than the 'Confederate Flag.'

A Confederate flag that only reign four years receives more hate than an American Flag which has the longest history of blood and tyranny on its hands. Give me break.

I could say the same of the British Flag, and numerous native peoples of lands, the French, Russian, or Italian flags as well.

However, there's a major difference. Those nations? Still around. There is no such thing as the Confederate States of America. It does not exist, and hopefully will not exist again.

[Inkidu]

I find it ironic that people want to ban the flag of a man who released all his slaves before the war. Ironic because racists picked it up, and because people want to ban it for its oppressive legacy.

I would also find it hilarious if they pulled them down and put up the actual Stars and Bars that IO pointed out (which I had forgotten for whatever reason to my chagrin.)

However, much like how the Australian flag has a mini-Union Jack in it, many state flags also contain mini-Lee Battle Flags, so are we going to ban those next? Does the government not get to enjoy freedom of expression. That is to say, are the rights of the people that choose the government diminished if that chosen by the people aspect is so subverted? Interesting questions.

*Wanders off to ponder*

EDIT: Also for the record I don't buy the the nation doesn't exist it doesn't have the right to have itself preserved. Let's look at the bloody, debauched and glorious, wondrous, and magnificent Roman Empire and how much the Western world still wants to live up to that legacy. A legacy that had slavery and all that jazz (though I'll acknowledge the difference in the types of slavery employed so save time and don't bring it up. I understand it completely).

I don't know, maybe if we lost the Revolutionary War we'd live in a world where Britain wouldn't let us fly Old Glory to remember the forlorn days of the lost fires of independence and rebellion, but I like living in a world where people are given that freedom of expression.

Winners get to write the after-action report. *shrugs*

[Ephiral]

However, much like how the Australian flag has a mini-Union Jack in it, many state flags also contain mini-Lee Battle Flags, so are we going to ban those next? Does the government not get to enjoy freedom of expression. That is to say, are the rights of the people that choose the government diminished if that chosen by the people aspect is so subverted? Interesting questions.

Is a government a person? And... yeah, those probably need at least a good hard look - the one that springs to my mind was chosen as a segregationist statement.

[Caehlim]

many state flags also contain mini-Lee Battle Flags

Actually just Mississippi so far as I can see.

State Flags of the US

[Inkidu]

Is a government a person? And... yeah, those probably need at least a good hard look - the one that springs to my mind was chosen as a segregationist statement.

Corporations are people in this country. :P

The point being that a government by the people is supposed to embody the will of the people. If anything it should have come to a vote, not simple capitulation to one side or the other because they shouted a bunch.

EDIT: Okay, so what if it's just Mississippi? How do you think that vote'd go?

[Caehlim]

EDIT: Okay, so what if it's just Mississippi? How do you think that vote'd go?

Sorry, that was just a pedantic reflex. I wasn't trying to disprove your argument there.

I don't think I have the cultural qualifications to comment on this issue. I'm not American and we don't have anything near the same relationship with our flag(s).

[Inkidu]

Sorry, that was just a pedantic reflex. I wasn't trying to disprove your argument there.

I don't think I have the cultural qualifications to comment on this issue. I'm not American and we don't have anything near the same relationship with our flag(s).

Well at it's core a flag is a symbol. A symbol is simultaneously what it physically is and what it represents that isn't physical. So making Mississippi take down the flag would be a pretty big thing. Because there would be a difference between making a government building take down a flag with no state affiliation, and then making a state in the union remove their state flag because it has a confederate battle flag in it.

So either the movement to remove battle flags faces a real obstacle and loses, they didn't really believe all that hard in the cause to begin with (bringing their first victory back into the spotlight more likely than not), or Mississippi is forced to take down the flag, and that's not going to end well either.

I'm just saying there's a lot of political tinder on this issue if it's pressed or not. Almost seems like that situation in chess where you're fine where you are but if you move you're boned no matter what you do.

[Iniquitous]

Actually just Mississippi so far as I can see.

State Flags of the US

Mississippi does have the rebel flag as part of it's state flag. Georgia, on the other hand, has the Stars and Bars with the addition of some emblem in the center of the stars. Seems that would be far more offensive than a battle flag.

[CriminalMindsFan]

If the PC police really want to get it right, they should ask all non-American Indians including themselves to leave the USA and give back the land to the American Indians. Perhaps allow every state to leave the union until we have 13 again as a starting point to give the land back?

[Maiz]

If the PC police really want to get it right, they should ask all non-American Indians including themselves to leave the USA and give back the land to the American Indians. Perhaps allow every state to leave the union until we have 13 again as a starting point to give the land back?

Returning land and respecting sovereignty of the indigenous nations within the US would actually be really awesome, so...

[CriminalMindsFan]

Returning land and respecting sovereignty of the indigenous nations within the US would actually be really awesome, so...

My thinking was we'd also have to experience everything in the past again to get back to the way things were before the founding of the USA. That would mean reliving slavery, all the wars and battles that led to where were are at now.

Basically, hit a reverse button and everyone gets younger and unborn. LOL

[Iniquitous]

My thinking was we'd also have to experience everything in the past again to get back to the way things were before the founding of the USA. That would mean reliving slavery, all the wars and battles that led to where were are at now.

Basically, hit a reverse button and everyone gets younger and unborn. LOL

I liked the idea of getting younger.. but the whole being unborn thing would suck. The having to go through everything we already eff'd up again would suck majorly floppy donkey balls.

[Dice]

I don't think I have the cultural qualifications to comment on this issue. I'm not American and we don't have anything near the same relationship with our flag(s).

Ask a union rep what he thinks of the Eurkia Flag. I think you will find that we do.

[Ephiral]

Corporations are people in this country. :P

The point being that a government by the people is supposed to embody the will of the people. If anything it should have come to a vote, not simple capitulation to one side or the other because they shouted a bunch.[/quote]But raising it in the name of segregation was fine because enough members of government happened to be bigots at the time? Or... is this simply correcting a problematic act?

And I'm reasonably sure we're on the same page here, but corporations-as-people has already gone way too far, and government-as-corporation is a terrible, terrible model.

[Caehlim]

If the PC police really want to get it right, they should ask all non-American Indians including themselves to leave the USA and give back the land to the American Indians. Perhaps allow every state to leave the union until we have 13 again as a starting point to give the land back?

Doesn't seem feasible. There's no guarantee the European countries could take that many people back, especially given how few of them would still retain citizenship at this point. Families of mixed ancestry would be torn apart. The relatively low population of Native Americans remaining wouldn't be numerous enough to maintain the infrastructure of the United States, fight fires in the cities, maintain nuclear power plants, etc. Traditional ways of life and skills have been lost, preventing the Native Americans from returning to previous ways of life assuming that they actually want to. With the smaller population and vastly reduced military there would be the potential risk of military expansion up from South and Central America (probably justified with the history of the Mexican-American war).

While Native Americans are still suffering the effect of European invasion, this doesn't seem the best way to solve it. It's an interesting idea and I get the sentiment behind it. But it doesn't seem either achievable or even all that beneficial for anyone. It also privileges racial history over people's actual experience with many Americans born in the country and having a lifetime of connections there. While it may not go back as far as the native population, it would still mean forceably removing people from the only home they've ever known.

[Inkidu]

The point being that a government by the people is supposed to embody the will of the people. If anything it should have come to a vote, not simple capitulation to one side or the other because they shouted a bunch.But raising it in the name of segregation was fine because enough members of government happened to be bigots at the time? Or... is this simply correcting a problematic act?

And I'm reasonably sure we're on the same page here, but corporations-as-people has already gone way too far, and government-as-corporation is a terrible, terrible model.

Yes, but the great thing about living in a democratic society is that you get to vote for less bigoted people next time around as the country's opinion shifts. Will of the people and all that. I think shouting until they remove something you don't like is childish.

I mean was there even a petition?

[Cycle]

I mean was there even a petition?

There's been more than a petition.  Google "lawsuits confederate flag."  There have been efforts to remove that flag for years.  The Charleston murders were not the only reason that flag is now coming down.  It's just the most recent, most high-profile symbol.

Here is a history concerning South Carolina, listing some of the efforts to remove it

North Carolina's experience with putting up that flag

David Goldfield, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and author of the book "Still Fighting the Civil War," said the battle flag can hold starkly different meanings depending on a person's social perspective.

"The history of the Confederate battle flag, how it was designed and formulated, how it has been used through the years, clearly states that it is a flag of white supremacy," Goldfield said. "I know current Sons of Confederate Veterans would dispute that, saying `Hey, I'm not a racist.' But the fact remains that the battle flag was used by a country that had as its foundation the protection and extension of human bondage."

The NCAA has banned that flag since 2001

A lawsuit against Alabama to remove that flag

The Confederate battle flag had flown over the Alabama state capitol since 1963. Raised by then-Governor George Wallace, it flew as a symbol of his defiance during the struggles of the 1960s to end segregation. Nearly thirty years later, the Center won a lawsuit to remove the flag from the capitol dome.

Gawker comments concerning Mississippi's history with that flag

Ole Miss' experience with the benefits of removing that flag

Over time, people began to see that the benefit of not having that flag tied to our university, or vice versa, was far more valuable than the enjoyment that anybody received from waving that flag," he said. "It was measurably destructive to the university."

At the end of the day, I think what a lot of people want to see is that flag removed from government buildings and institutions.  If a bunch of guys want to wave it around a field on a Sunday while they roleplay a Civil War battle and drink beer, I think most folks would say "fine."  (Though they may laugh if the guys were using the wrong flag for the armies they were trying to portray...)

[kylie]

          The MoveOn petition directed at the South Carolina government, now has over half a million.

      Though Inkidu, I have a feeling you might be more interested in petitions for a simultaneous removal of a monument to the African-American experience on the SC state grounds in the event of removal of the flag (can't imagine there could be any racism involved there, sarcasm intended!)...  Or perhaps -- if this thing is even real, I can't tell after all the other raving on the site -- the petition for SC to secede in the event of the present flag being removed (which supposedly has over 100,000 signatures too)?

[la dame en noir]

No one has tried to tell you how to feel. Feel offended if you want. But no one should have to give you everything you want because you are offended. Period.

where the hell are you getting this from? I didnt ask for shit. I said i dont like and it makes me uncomfortable. Now back off.

[Blythe]

Now is a good time to remember cute adorable kittens



and take a breather from the thread if frustrations are getting high.  :-X

[eternaldarkness]

I'm just going to briefly comment here.

As an american soldier and a black man, I have long ago pledged to lay down my life in service of my country if need be. I made this choice because I am an American. I have lost friends who were black and white and asian and native american and everything else under the sun. My friends did not die so that self-proclaimed'rebels' could fly the flag of a defeated enemy over public buildings and use it as a rallying symbol to support a doctrine of hate and oppression.

The confederate flag is not appropriate to fly over any government structure. Whatever it meant in the past does not matter. What it means now, today, matters. And today it stands for hate, dissent, and division.

So by all means if you as a private citizen want to fly it on your property, paint it on your vehicle or tattoo it on your body, you have that right and I will defend that right to the death.

But in choosing to do so, everyone will know you for what you are. For good or ill.

That is all.

[Haloriel]

I'm just going to briefly comment here.

As an american soldier and a black man, I have long ago pledged to lay down my life in service of my country if need be. I made this choice because I am an American. I have lost friends who were black and white and asian and native american and everything else under the sun. My friends did not die so that self-proclaimed'rebels' could fly the flag of a defeated enemy over public buildings and use it as a rallying symbol to support a doctrine of hate and oppression.

The confederate flag is not appropriate to fly over any government structure. Whatever it meant in the past does not matter. What it means now, today, matters. And today it stands for hate, dissent, and division.

So by all means if you as a private citizen want to fly it on your property, paint it on your vehicle or tattoo it on your body, you have that right and I will defend that right to the death.

But in choosing to do so, everyone will know you for what you are. For good or ill.

That is all.

Perfect.

[Mintprincess]

I'm just going to briefly comment here.

As an american soldier and a black man, I have long ago pledged to lay down my life in service of my country if need be. I made this choice because I am an American. I have lost friends who were black and white and asian and native american and everything else under the sun. My friends did not die so that self-proclaimed'rebels' could fly the flag of a defeated enemy over public buildings and use it as a rallying symbol to support a doctrine of hate and oppression.

The confederate flag is not appropriate to fly over any government structure. Whatever it meant in the past does not matter. What it means now, today, matters. And today it stands for hate, dissent, and division.

So by all means if you as a private citizen want to fly it on your property, paint it on your vehicle or tattoo it on your body, you have that right and I will defend that right to the death.

But in choosing to do so, everyone will know you for what you are. For good or ill.

That is all.

^^  Couldn't have said it better.    Thank you <3

[Cycle]

I agree.

Thank you, eternaldarkness.

[Sho]

Thanks, eternaldarkness. I think that perfectly sums up the argument.

[Blythe]

Ack, got threads mixed up and accidentally posted this in the Charleston thread. Have moved my post here instead.


http://news.yahoo.com/ku-klux-klan-gets-green-light-pro-confederate-101117779.html

Couldn't find a better article...but damn, this was cringe-worthy.

[Ryven]

Ack, got threads mixed up and accidentally posted this in the Charleston thread. Have moved my post here instead.


http://news.yahoo.com/ku-klux-klan-gets-green-light-pro-confederate-101117779.html

Couldn't find a better article...but damn, this was cringe-worthy.

At least they're proving the anti-flag point.  They're a hate group, and they want the flag as their symbol.

[Andol]

I hope it is ok that I answer the original questions asked here, because I feel I can better make my own opinion know that way. Also I want it to be clear that my view on the flag comes from someone who had a relative that lost a leg at Gettysburg(His medical records where an interesting read). I know enough about my family history to tell you he wasn't rich and not a slave owner so I can only hope he was actually fighting for rights that he felt he lost. Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I know it says somewhere in the Constitution or maybe some other document... (Sorry I am so bad at this guys :( ) that people do have the right to try to and bring down a government that they have felt has done them wrong. So I don't see it a being a flag flown by traitors either... simply people fighting for rights they believed stolen, just like the North and the government had the same right to smack them into line. XD On to my best attempts to answer the questions now... hope no one thinks of me as a bad person.

1. I believe I have already answered this question, but will try to add more. It is a battle standard, and that battle standard is a symbol that was co-oped by hate groups later on. The fact it now sits on a memorial in SC to Confederate troops... as it does in a lot of place is quite appropriate. To put anything else over there memorial is dishonoring them. You can't compare it to the Nazi Flag because a vast majority of those Confederate dead where not slave owners and so wouldn't have had a part in the cause of so much suffering. What the nazi's did was on a vastly different scale and the level of participation was as well. Where I am coming from is mostly trying to look through the lens of the men who where fighting and what they where fighting for. So I would put forth that it is only a 'hate symbol' when used as such, but when being used to honor dead American, because they where still Americans as we must remember Lincoln was big into the reconciliation thing and it was only his death that turned Reconstruction into a mess because of loss of proper leadership. (I hope I did a good job of not being confusing... let me know... only second post on E U)

2. I want to still answer this question anyway because when I saw something about this on the new I found it silly. Censoring art and history... even if we don't like it is never acceptable. The victor writes the history be damned, because these movies have been around for long enough, and to let one event(Because these suggestions seem to be propelled by the actions of a crazed individual.)drive us to preform an action like this. If one bans one flag that offends, then you just open a flood gate. I know that argument seems like it lacks common sense, but the desire to censor historical symbols out of media that has already been made is stupid. If people don't feel comfortable from this point on putting that flag up in a movie then go right ahead because it is your movie about the Civil War, but then it just looks inaccurate. Going back to part of the question about the intent of the flags use... well that is a grey line between free speech suppression and trying not to offend people. We do still have free speech and freedom of expression, and people have the freedom not to sell, look at, or regard a symbol they find distasteful. However people need to be educated on the true history of that flag(Which has been sadly co-oped by hate groups), and the real flags the Confederacy used.

3. I will say it again, its use as a battle standard, means that it came to represent something to all those men who died under it. So no I don't see it as the Confederate Flag. The American Flag itself has flow over some pretty bad events in our past... if one thinks of how the Indians where treated. So does that make it any more or less offensive? My opinion on this has more to do with the fact that this flag is something that is and should only be used to honor Confederate dead. The fact it was co-oped into a hate symbol by pop culture methods is where the problem lies... and dishonoring the dead for something those who came after them did isn't right. (Sorry if my argument didn't come out good... I tried my best... :) Let me know how I did guys)

[Cycle]

This is what South Carolina fought for.  In its own words:

Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.

In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."

They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments-- Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: "ARTICLE 1-- His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.

In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.

The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.

If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were-- separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.

By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May , 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.

We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Adopted December 24, 1860

And this is the flag that South Carolina adopted when it seceded:

Not this:

That second flag, the so called "rebel flag" was the symbol of this man:

Look him up.  His name is George Wallace. 

[Ephiral]

You can't compare it to the Nazi Flag because a vast majority of those Confederate dead where not slave owners and so wouldn't have had a part in the cause of so much suffering. What the nazi's did was on a vastly different scale and the level of participation was as well.

This bit stuck out to me. The overwhelming majority of German citizens were not actively gassing Jewish people or running concentration camps; in fact, a significant number of soldiers who marched under the Nazi flag did so under penalty of law. (Unlike the CSA, the Wehrmacht used conscription from its inception.) The comparison holds, if these are your objections.

[Oniya]

Personally, my main issue is with having it fly above government buildings as if it is still a valid flag of state.  That's it.  If someone wants to put it on a cemetery plot, because that was the flag that the occupant fought and died under - that's their business.  If someone wants to fly it outside their house - that's their business.  I would, however, point out that the U.S. Flag Code dictates that

§175. Position and manner of display
    (c) No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy. No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any other national or international flag equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States at any place within the United States or any Territory or possession thereof: Provided, That nothing in this section shall make unlawful the continuance of the practice heretofore followed of displaying the flag of the United Nations in a position of superior prominence or honor, and other national flags in positions of equal prominence or honor, with that of the flag of the United States at the headquarters of the United Nations.
    (d) The flag of the United States of America, when it is displayed with another flag against a wall from crossed staffs, should be on the right, the flag's own right, and its staff should be in front of the staff of the other flag.
    (e) The flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs.
    (f) When flags of States, cities, or localities, or pennants of societies are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the latter should always be at the peak. When the flags are flown from adjacent staffs, the flag of the United States should be hoisted first and lowered last. No such flag or pennant may be placed above the flag of the United States or to the United States flag's right. Source

In other words, if you're flying both the Star Spangled Banner and the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, the Star Spangled Banner should be placed in its appropriate position at the right.   If it's a day to fly the Banner at half-staff, the Battle Flag must also be lowered.

[Cycle]

Senate vote's in:  37 to 3 in favor of removal.

House vote is in too:  94 to 20.



SC Legislators, thank you.

[Cycle]

[Bloodied Porcelain]

I'm going to keep my opinion relatively short and to the point and won't be posting or reading here again.

I don't trust people who fly the flag. They're either hateful or they're ignorant about what they're really saying with that symbol. I don't care what your intentions are, your actions are important to me. If you do the research and you still fly the rebel flag, you're supporting hate. If you don't do the research and still fly it "because heritage" you're just plain ignorant, and with the wealth of information at everyone's fingertips today, no one should be ignorant. Neither hate nor ignorance are things I want to associate myself with. I've been systematically cutting people out of my life who display either of those two things for years, and now that the rebel flag has become a focus of things and people are being more open and loud about their support, it's just shown me more people I want nothing to do with.

Yes to some degree flags and their symbolism is dependent upon the specific person looking at them, but just because you want to apply a specific meaning to a symbol doesn't mean you get to ignore the symbolism attached to it by society as a whole. You don't get to say "I fly this because it's my heritage" and expect everyone else to just be "oh okay then" and be totally okay with you. At best, you can expect them to say okay and then back away slowly and not speak to you much afterward.

All of that said, the above opinion is about individuals.

I do not think that the rebel flag has any business flying over state capital buildings or in any governmental area that isn't part of a historic display. If people want to fly it at the site of a major civil war battle, that's fine. If they want to fly it in a museum, that's also fine. If people want to put it in a historical game or movie, also fine (though I'd prefer they use it more accurately than it usually is). Presenting it in a historical context is fine. Presenting it over a modern governmental building where it has no purpose is not.

It should also be noted that even when the flag was first created, there was a heavy amount of racism attached to it. William T. Thompson was one of the flag's champions and part of designing it. When he did so, he was quoted saying the following:

As a people we are fighting to maintain the heavenly ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause. Such a flag would be a suitable emblem of our young confederacy, and sustained by the brave hearts and strong arms of the south, it would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as the white man's flag.

So if you're one of those "heritage not hate" people, please remember what the designers had in mind when they created the symbol of your "heritage". If it were my heritage (I'm happy to say my family got here after the mess that was the Civil War), I certainly wouldn't want to be associated with it.

[Modern Fairy Tale]

I believe the Confederate Flag controversy has a firm basis in necessity, but we are riding the crest of a very large wave.  This is like that tiny frothy part of a tidal wave on the very top... raised so high up although it seems so unimportant by itself, but once a wave gets to five stories tall or so the destruction it carries is tremendous.  If it were not for other forces, tremendous forces, this discussion would be trivial.

The Confederate Flag is the flag of a defeated nation.  Historically there are many examples of such.  Many Native Americans had flags representing thier traditions.  They fought against America and were defeated and dictated harsh terms of peace.  I think we could say the same about the Civil War.  Defeated national flags are still given respect and a place to fly and represent what they once represented.  The Confederate Flag should be treated the same way.  This is the grounds of how I feel about the Confederate Flag, its just that things got complicated later.

The Confederate Flag went out of circulation for a century.  This was the most costly war for America to outweigh every war since or before put together.  It represented national seperation, a humiliating defeat, and slavery.  Then when the Civil Rights movement really began to push... meaning 100 years later some of the terms of the peace which had been agreed to were still not being honored.  Southern states began to resent being forced to giving any such quarter and that is when the Confederate Flag came out in all of its glory.  "Here... hasnt this flag seen better times."  "Look at this and remember your place."  "Wasnt life better back then?"  Through the distorted lens of opinion, every white Southerner could imagine life was better then... as if all white people were just plantation owners fanning ourselves on our porch while the labor around them 'just got done'... although the truth of the matter was quite different.  Slavery had hurt the nation economically and culturally, and most of the damage had been in the South.

It is alright to have Southern pride.  I have lived in the South my entire life but I think and feel a lot more than just where I am geologically.  With education, communication, the internet, we are able to grow how we think of ourselves and our place in life further than whatever geological barriers which might have once encircled us.  Two hundred years ago we were just 'the people between this forest and that glen past which no one can be trusted.'  I am white, but at this point and on this forum that hardly seems to matter.  If we have learned anything over the last few decades is that we are more than our race/sex/sexual orientation/culture.

I still love where I come from... the poorer side of the Southern states.  I believe the Confederate flag has a place here.  In the back of a gun store, there might be a Confederate flag up.  The Dukes of Hazard should always be as they are.  Just like you might find an American indian national symbol in a tourist shop or glimpsed in an old Western.  In my mind there is no difference, there are tiny places where such a symbol is given legitamacy and allowed to exist and remind us of what was.  It shouldnt be flying at state capitals or part of state flags... that is just a 'screw you' not only to the grindingly slow Civil Rights Act but also to the bloodiest American war to stain our history. 

So in summation I think this shouldnt be about the hate, but placing the right emphasis where it belongs.  The tide I was speaking about earlier is the prejudism still prevalent in our society.  We try and say... we are past that.  We had Dr. King.  Then Rodney King happened, someone had a camera at a situation which was probably way too common.  Then the OJ Simpson trial happened, what?  Black jurors think white cops are out to get them?  Now days over and over acts of hate are captured on technology which didnt exist until cellphones ascended just making calls.  I saw a video of a cop shooting an unarmed black man as he tried to run and then handcuffing him and planting a taser by him... and done so smoothely as if hes thinking in his head, "Damn, this is the third one.  Need to stop doing this."  Systematic prejudism is so prevasive and thick even the white people can see it now.  We cant sweep it under the rug and avoid it in polite conversation anymore.  We never should have.  As soon as the Republican party could it repealed the anti-Jim Crow laws saying something to the effect of 'we dont need it anymore'.  Laws were changed in voter's registration within weeks basicly trying to undo the progress weve had since then.

We see now this isnt a static question or a simple one.  Because of a societal force which has grown under the skin of society like a festering wound, things which should only be relics of our past have been magnified.  We need to uncouple this situation and this symbol.  We need to address the real problem.  We need to uniformly decide how the colors of a country which was defeated at war with the U.S. should be dealt with and handled and do so uniformly and with whatever dignity such cultures deserve just for existing as part of our heritage.  With unbiased choices we should make whatever 'adjustments' we need to our society.  How do we treat the symbols of the Suiox nation, the Cherokee, the Creek, the heartbreaking hundreds of others we have plowed through?  Then into this protected status I say we place the Confederate flag, it seems only fair and perhaps a little bit ironic.

[Drake Valentine]

I'm going to keep my opinion relatively short and to the point and won't be posting or reading here again.

I don't trust people who fly the flag. They're either hateful or they're ignorant about what they're really saying with that symbol. I don't care what your intentions are, your actions are important to me. If you do the research and you still fly the rebel flag, you're supporting hate. If you don't do the research and still fly it "because heritage" you're just plain ignorant, and with the wealth of information at everyone's fingertips today, no one should be ignorant. Neither hate nor ignorance are things I want to associate myself with. I've been systematically cutting people out of my life who display either of those two things for years, and now that the rebel flag has become a focus of things and people are being more open and loud about their support, it's just shown me more people I want nothing to do with.

Yes to some degree flags and their symbolism is dependent upon the specific person looking at them, but just because you want to apply a specific meaning to a symbol doesn't mean you get to ignore the symbolism attached to it by society as a whole. You don't get to say "I fly this because it's my heritage" and expect everyone else to just be "oh okay then" and be totally okay with you. At best, you can expect them to say okay and then back away slowly and not speak to you much afterward.

All of that said, the above opinion is about individuals.

I do not think that the rebel flag has any business flying over state capital buildings or in any governmental area that isn't part of a historic display. If people want to fly it at the site of a major civil war battle, that's fine. If they want to fly it in a museum, that's also fine. If people want to put it in a historical game or movie, also fine (though I'd prefer they use it more accurately than it usually is). Presenting it in a historical context is fine. Presenting it over a modern governmental building where it has no purpose is not.

It should also be noted that even when the flag was first created, there was a heavy amount of racism attached to it. William T. Thompson was one of the flag's champions and part of designing it. When he did so, he was quoted saying the following:

So if you're one of those "heritage not hate" people, please remember what the designers had in mind when they created the symbol of your "heritage". If it were my heritage (I'm happy to say my family got here after the mess that was the Civil War), I certainly wouldn't want to be associated with it.

Actually it is documented in most history books of confederacy as

While we consider the flag which has been adopted by the senate as a very decided improvement of the old United States flag, we still think the battle flag on a pure white field would be more appropriate and handsome. Such a flag would be a suitable emblem of our young confederacy, and sustained by the brave hearts and strong arms of the south, it would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN’S FLAG

Edit: Any who, I am not fully into symbolizing flags as anything. It is 'easy,' to say Confederate flag is a symbol of hate. I rather treat it as a symbol of treason, if anything. Maybe the principles of it was behind white supremacy, however Black people at that time had no rights. Black people at that time were not treated equally by either the North or the South. The only thing Black People at that time had to gain was their freedom, they were still seen beneath both groups. No, I am not being racist in this, I am simply stating facts. Let us take a look at what happened after the Civil War. Were Black People treated any better by the North or South? No. They gained their freedom, but they still didn't or hadn't had any rights of being treated equally. The Confederate Flag was establish well before a time when such views were just as common place. Similar views that went on for many years afterwards till Martin Luther King days that involved a huge movement and many sacrifices to gain equality. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe the U.S flag was flying high during those times, however we can just as easily shuffle the bad under the rug, despite the obvious hate and suppression at that timeline.

So bluntly speaking, where would we be now if not for that movement? Confederacy fell, but hate and superiority of another race still lingered. Once more, within the timeline of civil war, those views were acceptable, not many may voice against them as 'black men' were not seen as equals to whites and again weren't anytime afterwards the Martin Luther King events in timeline. We treat a Confederate flag as a symbol of hate where it really was a symbol of their own independence to be a country of their own and govern over themselves. (And I suppose if they were successful, one may imagine a similarity of North and South Korea, but it would be US instead in that sense.)  Now, they may of gain such independence if they didn't act on tyranny and attacked the North first, why they decided to fire on that fort is still beyond my understanding to this day.

Hmm, and not intending to avoid women equality, though I believe historically that only was addressed sometime after MLK days.

[consortium11]

It should also be noted that even when the flag was first created, there was a heavy amount of racism attached to it. William T. Thompson was one of the flag's champions and part of designing it. When he did so, he was quoted saying the following:

Actually it is documented in most history books of confederacy as

You're both mixing up the flags here; the flag that Thompson helped design, promoted and is describing in the quoted pieces was the second official flag of the Confederacy, the "Stainless Banner". While it incorporated the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virgina (what is now generally called the "Confederate flag"), the battle flag predated it by two years. The records we do have of the reasoning that went into the battle flag's design indicate that there was no particular meaning attached to the elements of it beyond the stars to represent the secessionist states and some revisions to the placement of them and the cross so as to avoid appearing like a religious banner.

That's not to dismiss other points about what the flag came to represent, especially in the 20th Century, but the way the various Confederate flags get mixed up can confuse issues.

[eBadger]

Judging by the number of such flags on display (banners, patches, hats, etc) the KKK certainly sees a tie between the flag and racism:  Inside the KKK

[Blythe]

https://twitter.com/RobGodfrey/status/622494558249684992/photo/1

Considering the KKKers rallying after the Confederate flag decision, I thought the above image was extremely powerful. That a black officer would still reach out to help a KKK member to water and shade was very moving...I would have been hard-pressed in the officer's position to want to bother to help that white supremacist guy at all.

(Edit: As a note, I'm referring only to the original Twitter comment by Godfrey and the photo, not any subsequent commentary by others on the photo)

[Mintprincess]

That image shows that good people are good people. The officer put aside hate and did his job and cared about humanity. If everyone had s few shreds of that in our souls the world would be a better place.  It's a powerful picture and I can hope it sends and message and reaches someone.  One person. 

We have a long way to go -worldwide- but more people everyday fight for equality. 

For everyone <3

[Lustful Bride]

https://twitter.com/RobGodfrey/status/622494558249684992/photo/1

Considering the KKKers rallying after the Confederate flag decision, I thought the above image was extremely powerful. That a black officer would still reach out to help a KKK member to water and shade was very moving...I would have been hard-pressed in the officer's position to want to bother to help that white supremacist guy at all.

(Edit: As a note, I'm referring only to the original Twitter comment by Godfrey and the photo, not any subsequent commentary by others on the photo)

At the end of the day people are still people. We live, we love, we cry, and eventually we all die. Everything else is just a label someone put on another human in order to hate them, but to hate another human, is to hate yourself as well.

[Callie Del Noire]

I admit, as a Southerner, I've always had a bit of mixed feelings on the flag. I grew up in North Carolina, which was the LAST state to join the confederacy. My family had folks fight on both sides, folks in NC and from up north..and down south. The thing is.. it's a mixed thing. To me.. the Dukes of Hazzard was part of it.. along with that car, the daisy dukes..:D. I knew it as something that represented what happened a long long time ago.

Then there is the other side. I had a friend growing up.. Alex Smith, a black kid who was the ONLY one who helped me up when another pair of white guys beat the snot out of me for being snarky to them. Alex was a great guy, big kid who didn't let anyone give anyone else guff. I remember the look on his face when the tools from Benson showed up to 'protest' a pair of white kids getting beaten. (Here is the open secret: they tried to beat up a black kid who JUST happened to be a Jr Golden Gloves student) None of the kids at school, aside from the six racists, backed the tools when they showed. I know the look he had at the flag.

I know the flag that started all this BS was a metaphorical thumb in the eye of the civil rights movement and am glad it's gone.

Do I think banning, hiding and the rest, is the right way to go. No.

Do I have an alternative for what to do? No.

I'm not pulling the Georgia State flag off my cruise jacket (along with the NC and SC flags) but I don't wear it that much anymore. Till I have an idea what I think.. I'll keep from wearing it. Because of that sad look on my long gone friend's face. Because I don't know how to take the flag back from the Hate.

PC censor ship by press release isn't the way. Closing down museums about the confederacy isn't.

Thats hiding your head in the sand.

[Oniya]

I'm assuming that you're talking about the museum up in Harrisburg that's been in the news?  (I'm guessing this because it was a *huge* ranting point shortly after the flag came down.)

There's more to that closing than what you've heard.  The former mayor, Steve Reed, basically misappropriated taxpayer funds to buy the artifacts for that museum.  Not to mention, the museum itself isn't doing so well financially.  It has nothing at all to do with the flag, and the Gettysburg museum is still open for business.

http://abc27.com/2015/07/14/city-leaders-urge-closing-of-civil-war-museum-other-measures-to-move-harrisburg-forward/

[Callie Del Noire]

Thank you, that was NOT what I had heard.

[consortium11]

The former mayor, Steve Reed, basically misappropriated taxpayer funds to buy the artifacts for that museum.

He didn't.

While there's a lot of evidence (I'd suggest overwhelming) that Reed was deeply, deeply corrupt and ego driven there's no allegations that the artifacts in the civil war museum were obtained in anything but the proper way (unlike with the failed Wild West museum where the artifacts... since auctioned off to raise funds... were purchased as a result of public corruption). Its what the civil war artifacts (and the museum itself) aren't part of the charges against the former mayor and the attorney general bringing the charges confirmed that.

It's one of the reasons that the current mayor is very careful in his language. When he discusses the artifacts and agreements with the museum he talks about how "in light of" the other issues they should be reconsidered, essentially trying to connect the corruption to the civil war museum despite knowing that there's no direct link. In essence he's one of the "price of everything, value of nothing" types and is willing to be utterly disingenuous to get what he wants.



Edit: I should also add that the "the council closed the musuem and then activists snuck in and destroyed all the aritfacts" story that went round social media came from a satirical website. Snopes story here. As things stand the museum isn't closed and if it were to be closed then you can be pretty damn sure the city would be very careful in handling the objects... if they're destroyed they can't sell them after all.

[Oniya]

The point that you have overlooked in your verbosity is that even the discussion of closing the museum had absolutely nothing to do with the Confederate Battle Flag or eliminating it from history.

[consortium11]

The point that you have overlooked in your verbosity is that even the discussion of closing the museum had absolutely nothing to do with the Confederate Battle Flag or eliminating it from history.

While I don't particularly want to pick a fight here I'd suggest that linking the the Snopes article that specifically debunks the idea that the museum was closed as a result of the flag controversy and/or that the artifacts had been destroyed and mentioning how the story comes from a satirical website can hardly be said to be overlooking that point.

I was simply giving some context in addition to that and correcting a minor mistake so people aren't misinformed if the topic comes up again.

[Cycle]

Well, I guess these two gentlemen were just wanted everyone to know how proud they are of their "heritage."

Yeah.  That must be it.

Wonder why they didn't tell anyone who they were.

No worries.  Looks like we have them on video anyway.

[HannibalBarca]

I've a lot of family history, as everyone does.  Perhaps what is different is that I know much of it.  It was recorded, and diligently kept by members.  My father's father was French Canadian from Bedford, Massachusetts, and he could trace his first ancestor who arrived in Canada from France in the 1600s.  My father's mother was a North Dakota Blackfoot tribeswoman.  On my mother's side, I have Italian, Welsh, Socttish, Irish, German, Albanian, and Greek roots.  Ancestors of my mother fought on both sides in the Civil War.  Her father came from the Midwest during the Dustbowl to California, just like the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath, and before that, his ancestors came from Ohio and Tennessee.

However, one thing that unites so many of my more recent ancestors and family members is service in the military.  My father spent twenty years in the Air Force.  His father spent thirty years in the Navy and fought in World War Two and Korea.  My other grandfather was a Marine in World War Two.  Two of his sons fought in the Army in Vietnam.

And all of them despised the Confederate flag as a symbol of traitors...of people who could not solve any problems within their nation as citizens, and quit on it...then took up arms against it to defend slavery.

I grew up myself in the military, and thus had occasion to meet many, many people from many, many places, in the US and abroad.  This meant I got to know other Americans who spoke of the War of Northern Aggression, not the Civil War.  People who stated it was fought over states' rights, not slavery.

Pray tell, what rights were those states fighting to keep?

The Dred Scott Supreme Court decision proved the lie of those words.  The rights of Northern states and the people within them to live peaceably and not be kidnapped and re-enslaved in the South were violated by that decision.  That's right--northern states with no slavery had black citizens who were abducted by Southerners they'd escaped from, and were brought back to the South, against the laws of those northern states.  So much for states' rights...at least, the rights of Northern states.

As far as whether slavery was a reason for the war...just read the articles of secession the seceding states.

Georgia:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.

Mississippi:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

Seems like the people of Mississippi felt that slavery was the big reason even before the US Constitution was written.


Texas:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

I live in California, and have spent most of my life here.  Our attorney general, in 1942, was one of the prime motivators in rounding up and placing Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps.  This is an action to rightly be ashamed of.  Fortunately, this same man managed to understand the grave obscenity of his actions, and managed to do better in the future, when he motivated the other members of the Supreme Court to rule unanimously against segregation in Brown vs Board of Education.  This man was Chief Justice Earn Warren.  He accepted his failure in the past, and did something for freedom in the future.

I had ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, and I am ashamed of them for it.  However, flying the Confederate battle flag doesn't represent sitting on the stoop drinking mint juleps.  Its very creation was as a symbol of white supremacy.  Its heritage is that of a slave-owning feudal system of inhumanity.  It was carried by and defended by men who were terribly fearful of sinking below free blacks in the pecking order of their society...a fear that was fed by their own masters, the very same masters of the slaves--the wealthy ruling class of the South.  That flag fell into justified neglect until it was reintroduced by the forces of segregation and racism in the 1950s.  If it symbolizes anything else to you, you need to straighten yourself with history and see it for what it is: a symbol of racism and of traitors to the United States of America who fought and died to keep other humans in bondage so that a small group of whites could maintain their wealth and power like the nobility of old.