Confederate flag? Yes or no?

**downzy** · July 3, 2015

Another false equivalency. Transgendered issues isn't tied or historically connected to the sins of a given society. I get you're attempting to make the point that all things are relative, but in this case, there is no pejorative history surrounding the rights of the LGBT community versus a symbol that was repurposed for the sake of combating civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

**downzy** · July 3, 2015

Nobody is calling individuals who fly the flag as racists or rednecks (or, at the very least, if I have, I take it back and was speaking flippantly). However, considering where the flag comes from, it's fair to call that person ignorant on the matter. If people are comfortable with repurposing a symbol that was used by the pro-slavery side, then repurposed again to fight back desegregation and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, then fine. While we're at it, let's repurpose the Nazi flag to mean something else entirely as well. Let's just forget the historical context of these symbols and come up with entirely new meanings for them. And fuck if anyone takes offence to them because they happen to remember their original connotations. That's their problem, not ours. :facepalm:

Georgy Zhukov · July 3, 2015

The Confederacy was the biggest threat to the United States and everything it stood for. Bigger than Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Taliban, Al Qaida, ISIL, Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan even Great Britain.

Then again the British were the ones that burned the capital.

**downzy** · July 3, 2015

First, you're likening historical realities to a fictional movie. To suggest that the act of reconstituting a flag with deep historical ties to white supremacy, slavery, and segregation with a fictional movie from thirty years ago that's being rebooted with four female leads is absurd at its best.

Second, no one has called anyone who supports the flag a racist. Ignorant, sure, but let's not create a straw man argument when there is no grounds for what you're saying. I say ignorant, as those who fly the flag either do not understand the historical relevance. Anyone claiming that the flag means nothing more than Southern Pride is ignorant on the matter.

Third, where did you get your understanding of the term racist? It's a little more involved than you're describing. One can still be considered a racist even if they do not use the n word or generalize about black people. Moreover, racism, like any ideology, is susceptible to degrees and gradations. It's not a binary phenomenon.

Len Cnut · July 3, 2015

Which is why its called drawing a parrallel regarding a key principle and not highlighting two wholly identical instances, if you see the parallel then you see what i mean, fleshing out the details to explain how the two instances differ is immatierial because im not trying to say they are two totally identical instances, you're just prevaricating.

Iron MikeyJ · July 3, 2015

Like Len said, I'm just simply drawing parallels to similiar discussions I had. Obviously comparing a fictional movie to historical events is ridiculous, but I wasn't doing that now was I? I was comparing feminism and racism, and we can go a head and add transgender or transexuals to the conversation as well. Why? Because it's all relevant to the larger point that myself and others are making that you keep ignoring, all while you keep going back to the original flag issue. Most of us here are not even talking about that anymore, we are talking about how this issue is a microcosm of a larger issue that is effecting our society today. Just today, I read about people getting attacked for refusing to perform same sex marriages. I'm not opposed to same sex marriages in any way shape or form, but I don't believe it is right to call "discrimination" when someone refuses to perform a ceremony based upon their own beliefs. That person has the right to believe, feel, and act however they choose to. But in today's society they get attacked for it, which imo is NO different than when homosexuals were attacked for their beliefs.

When a certain group gains a new sense of rights or freedoms, it doesn't give them the right to turn around and attack those that don't believe the way they do. Which is my point that you keep dodging. Hence my discussion on this topic, hence my posts.

To circle it back here, you said liking that flag doesn't make you a racist, just ignorant. But what gives you the right to make even that claim? You don't agree with the flag, which is your right. But instead of saying "I don't agree with the flag, but it their right as an American to fly it, no matter the reason" you call them ignorant. By using personal attacks you have gone down to the level of those that actually do fly it for racist purposes. It doesn't matter if you are not a pig, but when you roll around in the mud with them, you might get confused for one...

**downzy** · July 3, 2015

Fine, you want to say you're drawing parallels, then so be it. But even through that lens it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. People can say whatever they want when it comes to the flag and its meaning, but their individual interpretation doesn't render mute the historical context by which the flag was flown and what it represented. A transgendered individual does not tap into a history of racial subjugation and discrimination by declaring their self-identified gender; certainly not in the same manner as someone who opts to fly the confederate flag.

**downzy** · July 3, 2015

And I'm saying that there is little merit in the parallels that are being drawn.

Let me summarize my personal viewpoint regarding those who choose to fly the flag. They are one of three things: ignorant, racist, or an asshole. They're ignorant if they fly the flag not knowing its history. They're racist if they do know the history and are proud of it. They're an asshole if they know the history and don't give a shit because it means something else to them.

I reserve the right to have that opinion because I strongly oppose the notion of moral relativism, particularly in this case. Again, you have misunderstood my opinion. No where have I said that people do not have a right to fly it. Anyone has a right to fly whatever bullshit flag they want. But it is my right to call them out on it; to take them to task for either being ignorant, racist, or an asshole.

Right, so I call out others for supporting a symbol of white supremacy and I'm no different than those who choose to fly it. That makes a load of fucking sense.

Iron MikeyJ · July 3, 2015

By calling them out, you are discriminating them, that is my point. So how does that make you any better? Discrimination, in any form, is the problem. You can sit there and say "well my discrimination is just cause." But that doesn't make it true, that just makes it your opinion.

Edited July 3, 2015 by Iron MikeyJ

**downzy** · July 3, 2015

How am I discriminating them?

Dazey · July 3, 2015

Yeeeeee hawwwwwwww!!!!! :lol:

Thing is that you don't have to be a racist to fly the confederate flag but if a racist is looking for a flag to fly it's gonna be up there on the list.

Edited July 3, 2015 by Dazey

AxlisOld · July 3, 2015

I thought your point was that you were bored and never cared in the first place.

Iron MikeyJ · July 4, 2015

Well I do and then again I don't. I don't support racisim or any other form of discrimination, but I also feel people have right to be however they want to be, and that shouldn't be ridiculed for feeling they way they believe.

But I did start in on this topic because I was bored at the time, and it has provided me with more than enough entertainment. So yes I was bored, and to a certain degree no I don't really give a Shit. But I am an opinionated asshole as well. ?

Edited July 4, 2015 by Iron MikeyJ

**downzy** · July 7, 2015

The South Carolina Senate voted today to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds by a vote of 37-3.

Here's one of the few that spoke out against the bill:

And no, that's not a typo, his real last name is actually Bright. Oh the irony

Georgy Zhukov · July 7, 2015

37 to 3? Shocking.

sweetness · July 7, 2015

I think the confederate flag is aesthetically pleasing

I think people who are offended by imagery are stupid

I don't think any modern state capitol should be flying the flag of a rebel coalition that was defeated over a century ago

Len Cnut · July 8, 2015

Well, OK, for arguments sake, couldn't you say a transgender persons interpretations of what it feels like to be the gender they want to become does not mute the biological reality of what they are and who they are and as such have no right to call themselves or expect others to call them a woman if they were born a man or a man if they were born a woman? And if that person refuses to identify them as such then they are immediately pegged as someone who is prejudiced, in the same way that racism is a prejudice. My point is why is it OK to accept human re-interpretation of a reality in the one instance but not in the other?

Your answer is the historical context of prejudice right? Well their answer is the biological reality of gender, so whats the difference here?

Edited July 8, 2015 by Len B'stard

**downzy** · July 8, 2015

Well, with gender, if you understand it as such, is a relative concept, which many social scientists and psychiatric professionals view more so as a continuum than a binary consideration. Remember, sex and gender are two different things; one can identify as female with respect to gender but still acknowledge that they are male biologically (unless, of course, they go through sex therapy). That's why they differentiate between transexuals and transgendered. Gender is a social construct, much like race, built upon fabricated notions of what male or female gender is assumed to be. Re-interpretation is fine so long as you're willing to accept the baggage that comes with such an act. So individuals can re-interpret symbols if they choose to; the Nazis did it with the Swastika and the segregationists did it with the bars and stars flag in the late 1940s through the 1960s. So an individual in 2015 could argue that they do not recognize the history of the Confederate flag, that they fly it for reasons that are relative to them. And that's all well and good, but that person is throwing their lot in with KKK members who plan to hold a rally in support of the flag.

What I'm trying to get at is that the interpretation of gender does not tap into the history of oppression and subjugation. The act of a biological man identifying as a female in terms of gender (again, not sex) does not have a history of victimization outside of the person transitioning themselves. As a biological male who identifies with the male gender, I do not, and should not, feel threatened or injured by another man who innately identifies with the social construct of the female gender. A white man who flies the bars and stars and identifies the flag as a symbol of heritage is either ignoring or doesn't care how those who suffered under that symbol might be injured by it.

I read an article by a Southern individual who spoke about his experiences growing up in the South (it's an interesting article that can be found here: http://www.organicstudentministry.com/?p=62195#more-62195). As he points out at the end of the article,

"If you want to wear the “stars and bars” on a t-shirt or hat, be my guest.

If you want to fly it proudly on your lawn, go ahead.

If you want to make it a law that it has to fly on the lawn of your state capitol, feel free.

But know this…

When you do this you are throwing your lot in with racists, segregationists, white supremacists, neo-nazis, bigots and murderers. You will be counted, not among a group of people supposedly celebrating “heritage” but among those whose lips drip with the venom of hate."

Those who identify with the gender opposite to their biological sex do not throw their lot in with a people and a history that should not be given much consideration. That's why I think your analogy doesn't fit. A transgendered individual does not tap into such a history or group of people, other than the fact that they too have been the victims of bigotry for acting out on what they feel inside themselves. A person who supports the Confederate flag may view it as nothing more than a symbol of southern pride, but that is to ignore its sinister origins and its later re-intrepretation by bigoted segregationists. I can't think of a similar dynamic when a biological male identifies with the female gender.

Len Cnut · July 8, 2015

It just appears like a sort of laxity in approach in the one instance, an openness to a different way of looking at things whereas in the other it's kinda closed of, that makes me immediately suspicious. I get what you mean about sinister origins and it is a dangerous game to play in one sense but then in another sense, to call it the ignoring of sinister origins isn't quite right either, you could look at it is an awareness of sinister origins and a not shying away from whilst at the same time reinterpreting, because i mean thats the point of reinterpretation isn't it, I mean there's no ignoring going on in reinterpretation, there's a specific rejection going on.

The meaning of things belongs in mass interpretation, not in textbooks or ideas...and if a vast majority view a given entity as meaning something other than what the textbook meaning of it is that doesn't mean that it's textbook interpretation becomes eradicated, which is why there is value to the suspicion of your approach...but at the same time the ideas of the greater mass of people, i think, has a slightly greater value because meaning only exists if there are people there to interpret it.

Something occurs to me though it kinda lends to your perspective on the matter, the thing appeared to be saying that the fact that, to a great many this thing being seperated from the ugliness of it's original meaning is kind of like the logical conclusion of successful oppression. Cuz i mean like, post holocaust great efforts were made by the Jewish community to like, y'know, never forget these things, in ways that are two numerous to explain but it's this entire cultural thing across a race, from kinda big important things right down to like, these sort of unwritten things Jewish people had and many many still have like, y'know, you don't drive a Volkswagen or whatever. So, with the confederate flag, whoose doing the reinterpreting? It's the people accused of the oppression in the first place right? To kinda maintain this banner, there's something a little strange in that. And a lot of it is to do with education y'know, like the education of remembrance that Jewish people really preserved in terms of the holocaust, black people don't have the same thing i think, American black people and it could be said to be about not really having that same education of remembrance in place. I mean there is and everything...but not in the same way. I guess cuz the end of slavery didn't mean the end of oppression for black people and the success of civil rights still didn't mean the end of oppression or even the beginnings of an education, i mean right into the 80s and 90s there was this thing of 'we don't have an awareness of our own history'. And even today, if there is a black history month it's cuz white people put it there. Then again you could answer slavery was a lot longer ago than holocaust so perhaps I'm talking bullshit but i don't think I am entirely.

Point being i do understand your point and i don't dismiss it but, taking all things into account, it does end up becoming about personal freedom and a sort of very public grandstanding and singling out of an entire people and a geographical area because I mean, for whatever else you feel that the banner is the most representative of there are a great many in the South, from what I've read and heard from people, that consider it also representative of the region they're from and you tread a very dangerous path where, in the interest of equality, you begin to single out certain groups, even if you do it without meaning to, when you tread on people like that, eventually you will get a reaction to it and that would be really counter-productive in terms of what i think people like yourself seek to achieve in condemning the flag.

As a sort of a really small peephole of a view into certain minds, I'm studying for my A levels the other month right, and this southern school teacher has a video up on youtube where he's talking about Bismarck and doing one of those bitesize revision tool thing and, anyway he's talking about some instance or another of German nationalism and the troubles encountered in attempting to unify Germany and he drew a parallel with a certain instance in German history and the south and their feelings towards the north and i got the distinct impression that this feel of a certain cultural divide is still inherent between North and South, to where he was saying that down south they still don't celebrate some auspicious American holiday like they do up north, i think it was Lincolns birthday or something I'm not entirely sure...and he kind of touched upon this divide in way of thinking and such that clearly highlighting a separation there...and if, based on that, there are enough people who will look at the flag and see it as much as a historical thing as it is representative of a currently existing symbol of identity, well then you tread a very dangerous path by telling a big bunch of people like 'hey, thats a bad symbol that stands for bad things that bad people wave'. And this guy wasn't some raving white power lunatic, just some normal young southern guy from what I could gather. Not saying this as the centre-piece of some kind of point but just to illustrate that, from reading things online, hearing from people from lots of different experiences, it is clear that this divide still exists in the hearts and minds of a great many.

People have to come to things on their own terms, if at all. And y'know, this particular initiative has probably done more for the preservation of this banner and the consolidating of the feelings of a group of people, and possibly a vast group of people, about it than just leaving it alone and not picking at old wounds might have. You never ever achieve anything by barking at people, dictating to people, making people feel their voice doesn't matter or that they are just interchangeable pawns in some sort of intellectual mind game you have going on, it shows a lack of respect and a lack of regard, there is no compassion, no humanity, in a militant Stalinist approach to things, thats for anybody, the idea that 'henceforth things shall be such because WE say so', it gets you nowhere, most especially when it's an imposition. In times of great change it's important that, in the pomp and gusto of 'the new way' (and the world is most surely changing rapidly) you don't find yourself marginalising people and becoming your own kind of subtle and sinister oppressor.

Edited July 8, 2015 by Len B'stard

DieselDaisy · July 8, 2015

Many southerners hate Lincoln but they hate Sherman even more. They regard Sherman as basically a war criminal.

shades · July 9, 2015

he was a war criminal.

and on topic all those claiming they know the meaning of the flag and therefor that has to be the same meaning it has to everyone should check themselves.

Kind of an arrogant philosophy to walk around with.

The flag represents the southern states standing up for their independence to a lot of people. Not everything the south stood for was to be proud of but neither is everything the US flag stands for to be proud of , or any flag.

Take it down from the state house, burn it in the town center as some sort of symbol that you suddenly care, although you didnt care one iota a month ago until CNN told you to care.

check yourselves.

And you just made that flag mean a lot more to the haters that used it as their badge of racism by the way.

Len Cnut · July 9, 2015

Out of interest, for anyone who'd like to answer, where did this actually come from all of a sudden? Is it cuz of that mental kid who shot up the black church? I mean fuck me, it's a bit late in the day to be getting wound up about it isn't it?

Słash · July 9, 2015

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33457169

DieselDaisy · July 9, 2015

The Southern economy, her civilian capacity, was sustaining the South's continued ability to continue the war. Many would argue that Sherman merely used the entire arsenal of 'total war' at his disposable to finish the war as soon as possible.

shades · July 9, 2015

the war was over at the point Sherman decided to burn, rape, and pillage his path to Charleston.

and to Len's question, basically yes when the church shooting happened liberals suddenly saw another opening to paint the republicans another shade of racist leading up to this election cycle.

Hillary and co will do anything and everything with no shame to secure the minority vote they so desperately need to win the white house.

It's shameful and transparent but with the stupidity the voting base has stooped to as of late it just might work, again.

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