koЯnut

click on one of our sponsors! OR REMOVE ADS

The so-called Rebel flag is the flag of the South -- the symbol of many good things about our culture and history that are dear to the hearts of Southerners, white, black, and red. It becomes racist only in the hands of a racist, just as a gun murders only in the hands of a murderer. This flag flew for less than four years over a country that sanctioned slavery, while the Stars and Stripes of the United States flew for nearly a century over slavery North and South. Why, then, is the Southern flag targeted?

What are your thoughts??

elfoozo

Ignorance of course.

It would also depend on which education system you were put through. Up here in the North, we were told to believe that Lincoln came through and did away with slavery and oh what a hero he was for doing such a thing.... This taints the flag as racist symbolism.

People in the southern states get taught a different version of the events; where slavery was already in motion to be eradicated and many supported it. It became a focus by the Lincoln administration because there were several other government actions going on that they wanted to redirect the focus away from. Perhaps the wrongdoings of the Native Americans and their lands and other stuff like that? Having not been there, we can only go based on which historical version we are following....

I don't know how "accurate" they were, but I enjoyed movies like Gettysburg, Gods & Generals, and even Gangs of New York because they painted a different perspective of that historical period than what I had fed to me in the classroom.

To me - that flag doesn't represent racism but it does represent those peoples allegance to their local government. Probably along the same lines of many of these 3rd world nations who are struggling to find their way as they evolve.

testthemall

I thought the civil war was about states rights.

But the 'rebel flag was originally a battle flag but was incorporated by the KKK as their flag of choice. I think the KKK was started by an ex-confederate soldier if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, I believe that most people associate the rebel flag to the KKK rather than a battle flag of the confederate and thereby rendering it a 'racist' symbol.

koЯnut

Thats the problem. People associate it with racism without knowing the full history of it.

Juan.©amaney

No niggers alive now ever picked a single wad of cotton under slavery.

No crackers alive now ever whipped a nigger for not doing their job.

Get over it.

___________________________________________

schutzenkonig

As for the KKK, it was started by William Beford Forest around 1870. Originally it was just a men's club of confederate soldiers who were being oppressed under reconstruction. A few years later, they were tired of seeing former slaves with more rights than they. They dressed up as ghosts (as many blacks of that time were superstitious) and rode on horseback scaring blacks in the area. This was done without William's approval and he subsequently tried to shut down the organization.

I don't recall hearing that the KKK adopted it, they may have, but I haven't heard anything of it. What I think it comes down to is is a lack of knowledge of the Civil War, blind trust in elementary education which says that Lincoln freed all of the slaves and was a great president, instead of the tyrannical dictator that he really was.

Wayne Brady

It's targeted because the people who have brandished it in the past century used it as a symbol of rebellion against OUR republic and a rallying call for racism and segregation. Firstly, the stars & bars represent REBEL states, i.e. traitors to our constitution. Secondly, All the states that have the stars & bars motif in there state flags had that done in response to the civil rights movement of the 1950's. 99% of the talk of heritage is BS because the states' legislatures only decided to put it in the state flags in the 1950's and 1960's to show indignation toward the federal government and support for Jim Crowism. Finally, succession and war were the worst possible scenarios for the South. The southern aristocrats received officers commission or sat idly by on their plantations while the poor and uneducated citizens were thrown to the Union Army like meat to a blender. Talk about blind trust. They didn't get to grow old and frail like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms before they learned the error of their ways.

thepipebomb

I believe you’re right. Slavery, although one cause, was not the major reason the south left to form their own union. It a common misconception that slavery was the only reason the civil war ever happened.

Juan.©amaney

I honestly think the US could have been a little better had the fight turned out differently. I mean, sooner or later, slave labor would have ended anyway. The values of the East Coast and South West and the lifestyles are just so damned different and causes weird elections with Cowboys sitting in the whitehouse and white-bread people complaining about it.

Either way, I was doing laundry a few weeks ago and next to me was a guy with Szwastika (sp?) tattoo's and the confederate flag on his forearms. We talked for a bit since he noticed I was tossing in a bunch of my cowboy clothes (I was going to go ride my horses in LA and I don't like to pack dirty clothes) in the washing machine and he had a few horses he wanted to get rid of. He said he never met a redneck mexican before and I told him to go fuck his cousin. He admited he didn't know why the fuck he got the rebel flag in the first place, he was born and raised in AZ.

___________________________________________

schutzenkonig

Bastard makes us southerners look bad...



Traitors to the constitution?? How are we traitors to the constitution when the North became nothing more than a dictator run bully? How is it a free state if we can join at will, but are forced to stay? How can you say that the north is so great and against racism when you have senators like Thomas Dodd who made (you guessed it) racist gun control laws based on Hitler's laws in order to keep the blacks from owning weapons (GCA '68)? How can you say the north is so great when it has deceived generation after generation saying that the Emancipation Proclamation was not an illegal method of hurting the south, no, it was a great move by the (dictator) Lincoln to free *all* the slaves. WRONG...as any educated person knows, it only affected the rebeling states, the 13th amendment ended slavery after the war ended. Oh and Wayne...it's secession, and until 1863, the north was having their asses handed to them from Lee's army.

whiteROB

joerockhead

The Rebel flag means different things to different people. Some do consider it a as a negative signal.

How many people knew that the Swastica was a symbol of peace and prosterity for centuries? It was only considered a Racial symbol after Hitler used it on his military uniforms and then everything associated with Nazism.

RumSolvesAll

Plus, hitler flipped it backwards. The original was a Buddhist symbol, and also one used for good luck by the Finnish Air Force (in those days).

As for the Rebel flag, as mentioned before, it was brought back for use against the civil rights movement. In fact, as I heard somewhere, the "rebel" flag was a Confederate naval banner, and not the Confederate national flag, the "stars and bars".

Logic would dictate, that if one was honoring the Confederacy, one would fly the Stars and Bars, and not a naval ensign. But then again, what do I know? I'm just a damnyankee.

As for random, I live in California, and I saw this kid with a shirt with a rebel flag on it, and the label "if at first you don't secede, try again." It made no sense to me, for California was always part of the Union. Whatever. Normals.

Wayne Brady

First of all I not a bastard, my mother and father have been married for over 45 years. Second, the British were kicking our ass before Washington captured Trenton, the Mexican were kicking ass until the Battle of Monterrey, the Spain were "all that and a bag of chips" until Commodore Dewey rolled into Manila Bay, the Japanese were having their way until Midway, and Al Quaeda were conquering heros until Afghanistan. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.... they fuckin' lost and in the worst way. By taking a country that was becoming a great opportunity for all (inspite of its current misgivens like slavery) and turning it against itself. That's the whole legacy of the Confederacy, and their is no pride in that.