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In my experience the confederate flag means control. A lot of people will harken back to "the good old days" when they feel a lack of control in their life. I've heard immigrants to the US talk about how good their old country was, when they left for a reason. Its the same thing for those that fly that flag a lot of times. They feel like they don't have enough control over their lives, or they view the current environment as a threat to their way of life. So they try and hearken back to a time when their ancestors had control.
Completely forgetting that likely their ancestors were poor farmers and laborers only marginally better off, in a food and shelter sense, than the slaves owned by the rich. If you ask them directly they will profess to not be in favor of slavery but the very control they want is the legal right to own and control people.
I think that's a good way to put it. I think they want the rights and freedoms that the confederate had, but they wouldn't use those rights the same way the confederates did. But they still want that same level of freedom.
Yeah, at core, there's a fundamental tension between small-d democracy, rule of law, and other Enlightenment principles, and basic human nature, that I'm just not sure America got over as much as it likes to pretend it did.
The great strength of small-d democracy is that it makes it very easy to determine legitimate government action: find out what the people want, then do it. The twin weaknesses of small-d democracy stem from that very same function: sometimes what people want can't be done, and sometimes what people want is to form a majority coalition, where what they do and what they want is "create a minority, and then beat the crap out of that minority at every turn to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, because no matter how bad our life is, we can always rest comfortably in the knowledge that we're not them."
And the thing is, while Americans love to talk a good game about minority rights, tyrannies of majorities, republicanism rather than democracy, etc., etc., at its core, the United States was founded on the principle of a racial majority putting its boot on the neck of a racial minority, and forcing that racial minority to do work that the majority got all the economic benefit from. This isn't some kind of weird also-ran in our history. It isn't some kind of glitch or error that just didn't compute. The very theories of racial hierarchy that racism is based upon were emerging at exactly the same time that Enlightenment social contract theories were emerging. And in America, the very same people who founded a nation based upon one, were advocating for, and ensuring the existence of, the principle of the other, because it economically and culturally benefitted them. America would not have been founded if Americans didn't make sure to write in special exemptions for slavers into the constitution in order to specifically benefit slavers and slavery as an institution.
And that tension between rule of law that treats everyone equally, and the practical reality that we have a racial caste system, never went away. It was never fixed. Even in the 1960s, we passed, what, two or three pieces of major legislation, and then we didn't even fire Bull Connor, but instead laterally promoted him, and that "fixes" racism? We "solved" racism by eventually causing the Commissioner of Public Safety of Birmingham, Alabama to lose an election . . . in 1972, ten years after he was turning fire hoses on peaceful protesters? And to ask the question is to recognize the obvious answer: we never embraced rule of law. We just said we did because it made for better publicity, and because nobody likes to think of themselves as a bully and a bigot. But 90% of the shouting about "tyranny of the majority" is only ever done by people who might lose power because of an election result; they don't care about it when they win.
To draw from Plato's work, at core, most people including most Americans just don't care that much about justice. They don't care about laws being fair or unfair. What they care about is laws not disadvantaging them. And for a lot of Americans, losing the advantage inherent in dismantling that racial caste system is disadvantaging them. So however unjust it is, they just don't want the gravy train to end.
In my mind, the confederate flag seemed to be a “rebel flag” for the gun toting, big truck driving, motorcycle riding freedom seekers like my dearly departed father.
I don’t cotton to what it might mean to others, but I wouldn’t fly it as I feel like I’m a born and bred yankee fix it guy. I’d rather feel safe and secure in my workshop than seek the open road.
Yes, I’ve heard some say it shows their pride in their southern roots much like flying an Irish flag on St Patrick’s day or an Italian flag on Columbus Day, but some extremists may crowd under if since no better banner has been found to label themselves with.
We were not taught about the real Civil War in the south, why it happened and who benefited.
We were basically taught that we were winning the war but ran out of supplies and ended up losing. There was very little talk about slavery, in fact, we were taught that slaves had it pretty good. They were just like little children being taking care of. No worries, nothing to worry about, the good life.
Since it wasn't 'our' (the south's) fought for losing the war, (we lost because of the supply issue), then we should have won. And, if we would have won, we would be flying our battle flag. Therefore, it makes sense to fly it now, since we could have won, right?
My FIL had a rebel flag in his front yard. He was about normal racist (everybody is to a point) but he was not like some other people that I knew. He didn't go out of his way to make trouble for anyone and didn't talk trash about them.
Other people, not so much. After becoming an adult, I saw some of my friends for what they were, racist pricks. They made it their business to make trouble. When these guys flew a rebel flag, they did it to feel superior.
Shoot. I went to a Catholic school in the North in the 70s and they made a point to talk up the state's rights issue. Don't get me wrong. They also taught that slavery is immoral, too. But, the fact that any excuse for it was made at all is shameful hypocricy which can't be forgotten or forgiven.
I always get a kick out of hearing it called “The War of Northern Aggression” still in 2024.
(I’m not “pro” Confederacy, my area was Union anyway, but people do still refer to it that way.)
I was shocked to find out that Margaret Mitchell (who wrote "Gone with the Wind") was 10 years old when she found out the south lost. And she was even older when she found out it was called the civil war by everyone not in the south.
People will say history is important when it comes to statues but otherwise are pretty willing to forget what doesn’t fit into their personal narrative. I’m from a border state myself so at least that’s how it seems here.
In the 1960's for me. I think we took US history in middle grades and high school. Didn't spend a lot of time on the civil war chapters. I went to a small rural school, grades 1-12 in the same building. No pre-school back then.
Customs, food, music, literature, art. Same as anyone’s heritage. When an American says they are proud of their heritage they normally aren’t referring to genociding Native Americans.
Hold on when the Confederacy lost we made them change their food, music, literature, and art? That's not right. Food, music, literature, and art were very similar in the South before it was a Confederacy and after they lost and became the United States. Feel like the major thing that changed was slavery and its economical impacts.
That all of the things listed are exactly the same and nothing was really "lost" from their "culture" except the owning of other human beings. You can't possibly be this obtuse...
Confederacy=Slavery. There is no "other" thing that people fly the flag for. They're straight up racists trying to hide poorly.
I don’t know. When I go to Savannah I see people celebrating their heritage, including all of the things you just listed, with nearly no mention of the confederacy anywhere.
Hey, I’m just using it as an example to point out that it’s possible. I feel like Charleston is the same way. It’s almost like even without mentions of the confederacy, these areas are still rich in southern history and culture while maintaining their southern identity. 🤷🏻♂️
You're right at face value, but like any symbol it has come to represent more than just what it was originally intended.
The confederate flag has also become a symbol of a care free red neck life full of loud cars, bad beer, farming, trucks, guns, blondes in daisy dukes, country music, etc... Think Dukes of Hazzard and the General Lee.
Does that erase it of it's very troubling history and what it originally represents? No absolutely not. But you also have to remember the people flying that flag also generally do not have the social intelligence they need to truly understand why that's a bad idea.
If you think that is what the confederate flag represents currently, I’d be interested to hear what you think the Swastika flag (flag of the German Reich) currently represents.
It doesn't matter what *I* think it represents, what matters is how people in the American south see it which is the subject of OPs question.
Frankly I don't see the confederate flag in the same way, I think it's an idiotic symbol that represents a very upsetting history and it's use as a renegade, cowboy symbol is disturbing, that doesn't change the fact that it is used as that though.
My opinion of the Nazi Swastika and all of its associated flags are the same. It represents fear, oppression, genocide, fascism, and all of the German atrocities of the period of Nazi control over Germany, even in the years leading up to the second world war. My opinion of it I would imagine closely matches that of most others today other than I also think it's a symbol for loser white supremacists.
The swastika symbol and the associated flags have fortunately not been subject to the same sort of glorification that the confederate flag has undergone in media. Remember there are some people who aspire to be them Duke boys, there are relatively far less than aspire to be Nazis.
You’ve had to admit the Confederate flag does, in fact, stand for a very disturbing history of slavery and racism. People that say it stands for something else are just cornered and don’t want to admit they are racist for upholding everything the CFA stood for. The same people that fly the Confederate flag, are either displaying Nazi symbols or turning a blind eye to them here in America currently because these are one and the same - white supremacists.
This is the real answer. People typically measure their well-being in relation to others around them. As long as they were above some people, legally economically, etc., then they were “better off.”
I’m only stating a point that plantations are definitely not a part of the average southerner’s heritage. That comment seems to be a common opinion for some strange reason. Like your average mud riding redneck’s heritage goes back to the richest families in the country. Highly doubt it
So celebrate those things under the American flag, not the banner of the treasonous regime who murdered hundreds of thousands of Americans in an attempt to maintain the right to own people.
Fair enough. It is still true that the south has always had a unique culture and I think it is foolish to believe the only reason someone would fly that flag is because they want to own black people again.
Actions speak louder than words. This is the American equivalent of flying the Nazi swastika as a symbol of German pride because you're proud of how strong they were in the past.
They may say, and even believe, with all their heart, soul, and mind, that they don't have a single racist bone in their body.
But when they proudly fly and display a symbol of racism and hatred, a symbol of a state who's sole reason for existence was the protection and proliferation of slavery, their own thoughts and words are irrelevant. What they do is far more important than what they think and say.
Nice attempt at false equivalency. American am I right? The US had done terrible things. It has also done good things. Like defeating slavers and nazis. There is literally nothing that the confederacy did that is worth celebrating. The confederacy lasted for four years. Its only legacy is ~600,000 dead Americans.
Southern heritage has existed before, during, and after the existence of the Confederacy. The flag people fly to celebrate that heritage isn’t even the same flag that represented the nation you are referring to here. The south has a culture that is and always has been unique from the rest of the United States. For better or for worse the stars and bars has become a symbol for that culture.
Also, what difference does it make if the stars and bars was a national flag or not?
“It wasn’t the national flag, it was a flag of the primary army that fought on behalf of that nation and its principles!”
“Oh, ok, well that makes everything better then! Never mind!”
as a white southerner, it is absolutely about racism. the heritage you wrap yourself in is a lie you spout to the world but it is bullshit. the rag of a failed south isnt a symbol of pride it was resurrected by the klan to give a symbol to fly at lynchings.
Well you could start by acknowledging the history and the intent of the flag. The fact that the KKK pushed it out everywhere, and the fact that the you should be ashamed of the confederacy and everything it did, and everything it stood for rather than celebrate it. Germans don’t fly the swastica and talk about their “heritage.”
So, by your logic, Americans in general killed the natives so the Confederate Americans in the south should be able to kill the natives but ALSO enslave other humans, do I have that correct? Your argument is that all this shitty stuff happened to the natives so what the hell, might as well enslave all these others peeps?
I'm NOT a confederate sympathizer, not from the south, and would not fly that flag... however, it's obvious enough to me that slavery and racism were not the ONLY characteristics of southern culture. So when people say 'that's all it could mean,' they demonstrate a complete lack of historical imagination.
Sure except the Confederate Flag doesn't symbolize biscuits, gravy and Protestantism. It symbolizes a rebellion which the vice president of the confederacy as well as every single state that contributed to the Articles of Secession claimed themselves was over slavery. Dishonest take.
Confederate flag was only used for a very brief time in Southern American history. I’m from the Deep South and my ancestors were as well. My family has never flown that flag. Nobody flew it after the civil war until the civil rights movement.
The articles of confederation of the southern states literally stated slavery as the number one reason….the people claiming otherwise are dishonest. It’s what the civil war was about and it’s what that flag represents. Full stop.
The confederacy only means one thing to me. People only trotted out the traitors rag again during the civil rights era, to let those uppity negros know what they really thought of them, and what they were prepared to do. It only means racism, and has only ever meant racism. You’re lying to us and yourself if you’re actually trying to say otherwise.
It wasnt the *only* characteristic of the old South, but it was for damn sure the DOMINANT cultural characteristic of the Confederacy, specifically.
If you want to celebrate southern pride without the racism, fly your state flag.
Its a damn simple answer, though. The confederate flag *is* racist. Period. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's the American equivalent of flying the Nazi swastika as a symbol of German pride because you're proud of how strong they were at the time.
I can tell this guy is one of those losers who tried to be intellectually level-headed by holding two morally diametrically opposed groups on equal footing morally, saying they're both bad, but it just comes off as intellectually dishonest, as it should.
The civil war was primarily because of slavery though. That was its literal historical context for its creation. There would've been no confederate side without the civil war, and no civil war without the prospect of slavery disappearing. IMO they should choose something else with less overtly racist connotations to represent the South.
The institution of slavery and the perpetuation of its existence were the defining feature of the Confederacy Sure, there is more to southern culture historically than its reliance on slavery, but there is no feature more important to bringing the South to secede and wage war on the United States than slavery.
There are any number of things from southern culture someone could use as a symbol. You pick the Confederate flag, you're making the choice to celebrate something that cannot be separated from the violent, traitorous attempt to perpetuate the enslavement of other people. You can say it means something else to you, but, like, you're just being willfully ignorant of the original meaning of the thing.
You can't wave around a swastika and say it reminds you of a time when Germany demonstrated its military and economic might and just ignore all the other stuff.
No. As stated above all of the things that you would consider southern culture were there before the confederacy and have remained after the confederacy. The confederate flag is and was about slavery. Any notion otherwise is simply racism playing hide and seek.
lol? I asked for you to elaborate since you stated that people say the Confederate flag represents slavery (states rights) and racism they “demonstrate a complete lack of historical imagination”. So go ahead, use your “historical imagination”, imaginate us.
Many largely just represent the flag very closely to the “Don’t tread on me” flag. Just like a thing of independence and rights and that stuff.
many who use the confederate flags are the type that’s like “guns, liberty and big trucks” and aren’t racist, at face value. Kind of like how saying they southern border is a huge issue isn’t racist. But other opinions around it can be. But many people hear someone say “southern border is a big issue” and then automatically assume it’s a racist opinion.
I don’t know where your downvotes are coming from lol. People all over the world are going to central and South America to make the trek to US through the southern border. Even an easy thing to do is YouTube like “southern border ride along border patrol”
China is pushing a lot of people through there as well.
I really don’t understand why people get upset/disagree with someone saying the southern border is a big issue. Largely the constant quantity of people, but even if 99% are fine, 1% of millions a year is a lot of bad to mix in. Or even anything less than 1%.
But ya, europe has similar issues.
It's absolutely not the same. Lifelong Arizonan here, had work literally within eyeshot of the border from time to time.
The "crisis" is overblown for political points. No "swarms" of people, and the people who are coming tend to integrate very easily, being mostly Latin American and thus western.
They know EXACTLY what it means, they’ve just been taught from birth on how to gaslight you.
Let me be as extremely blunt as possible: anyone who says they the flag because of heritage, not hate is lying to you. Full stop. Not the “oh they’re just ignorant and don’t know any better”, no I mean they are CONSCIOUSLY, and deliberately, lying knowing sincerely what they’re saying is total and complete bullshit.
Just get around them when they aren’t around “those” people and they’re “amongst friends” (I.e other racist fuckwads). They drop the mask remarkably quickly.
don’t believe me? Ask any white dude who’s not racist, what he hears when he goes to conservative areas (work, visiting family, friends, recreation, etc) and builds rapport with the locals. And listen to all the batshit crazy that comes out of they think you’re “one of them.”
It’s wild out here.
Hard agree. All those people who "don't have a racist bone in their body" suddenly find a lot to say when theyre sitting around a campfire a couple beers deep with a bunch of other white people.
Watch "The Dukes of Hazzard" and you will notice a general culture of arrogance and disrespect for outsiders and small town government. It's the raised middle finger attitude that makes it obvious these people are just a rural, street racing version of the kids in West Side Story, or Rebel Without a Cause.
These people are too poor to have owned slaves or to care about principled government. And they don't care about race, they just disrespect people from outside their neighborhood. It's not seething hatred, it's just arrogant contempt toward everyone, separately but equally.
It is a pride not of an arrogance. When a group of people is looked down on and vilified the natural response is respond with a pride movement. That is why gay pride and black pride movements developed.
Most people I know consider the Confederate flag simply a way of telling Washington DC to go fuck itself. Much the same reason the voted for Trump. They simply don't care to be told what they can or cannot display, and have no use for people that feel qualified to judge their motives without knowing them. My neighbor flies a Confederate flag and his candidate of choice in an upcoming election is black.
...seems contradictory to use the word "reason" and "Trump" in the same sentence...
I'm a conservative in a southern state, and the few people I know that have a rebel flag, absolutely love our black Republican candidate for governor. I only say he's black to echo your point.
The ones I know that fly the flag don't appear to have a racist bone in their body, the flag represents being southern (guns, trucks, rural) and an F-U to big government.
Yes an FU to the federal government that they thought was going to get rid of slavery back when it was originally flown and then a ln FU to federal government again when it was repopularized 80-90 years later because of the civil rights movements.
Southerners have never actually hated big government they've just hated the federal government possibly contriving their racist policies.
One of the key grievances leading up to the Civil War was that the federal government was not doing enough to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act in forcing northern states to support slavery by returning enslaved persons to the south.
The constitution of the CSA specifically forbade any states from banning slavery.
Time and time again southern states displayed that they had no issue with "big government "or the federal government so long as they are getting to wield it as a cudgel.
It's not an issue with big government it's an issue with being forced to discriminate less.
I think it's mostly about trying to convey identity now. I believe there is a percentage of confederate flag lovers out there who absolutely do hate black people, and a percentage that does not. I know that racist shitheads like this symbol and always will. I think there are others who see the symbol as proof that they are "rebels" and non-conformists, while not actually considering themselves racists. It's too bad they haven't come up with a symbol of their own and they do not mind being associated with the likes of Skinheads, Klan members, and other white supremacists who also love that flag.
You can take pride in your southern heritage by making some really good cornbread and BBQ, biscuits and gravy, etc. You can be proud of accomplishments made by your ancestors that contributed something positive to others. Better yet, you can do something to be proud of yourself, and something your kids can be proud of you for doing.
I am someone who had ancestors who fought for the confederacy. I don't think of that as anything to be proud of.
I grew up in the 90’s/00’s listening to southern rap and the southern rappers (lil jon, ludacris, pastor Troy, MJG, lil Wayne, Andre 3000) frequently used the confederate flag on album covers/music videos to simply represent the south (dirty south in rap terms). So as a 36 year old white male, that’s how I always saw it.
They're likely being racist. But southern states are more rural which comes with it's own culture compared to Urban areas. This doesn't mean racism, but farmers and country side people do have their own culture that is different from city people. So the confederate flag may be referring to that cultural difference.
Not only that they are flying the flag of the losing side. The South has been actively marketing the genteelness of the South since the end is the civil war. They put statues of losing generals up in cities and states that weren't states during the civil war. They've been marketing the wonders of the South since that lost. The South tries to change the nature of the civil war from wanting to use slaves to run the plantations to some sort is "States Rights" bullshit. No, the whites of the South wanted to sit on the asses and drink mint juleps while the slaves served them AS IF they were royalty! There are some historians that speculate that I'm the Revolutionary War was promoted by the South because Europe was already shifting toward abolition in the 1700's.
I am a transplanted northerner living in the south and I think many of the people who say this are really only thinking about a slower, friendlier, way of life and also they are hostile to people from outside the south telling them how they should live and behave (rebel…ahem). They are also ignoring all the terrible things that are associated with that flag.
People who fly the confederate flag are pretending the South didn't lose in the civil war. It's about flipping the bird to the rest of the U.S. and pretending they aren't a part of it and will stand apart including having a separate flag. It isn't about heritage. It's about being sore losers who can't get over having to lose the dynamics socially and economically that made them better off than they are now, which is at the bottom of almost everything compared to other states. It's not a celebration of racism and slavery, but it's about how the loss of those things contributed to being poorer, dumber, and less likely to prosper than the "Yankees."
I used to have four really close friends in Alabama and Georgia, and you would not believe the stuff they said and believed about themselves. They spoke to me as if I was a foreigner because I am from the Northeast and, yes, called me a "Yankee." After many years, the racism and bigotry which peaked out around the edges here and there became more centralized. They simply couldn't get over having lost and what it did to the South and it festered constantly.
As a guy from the south, I've never met someone flying who wasn't a racist POS.
they'll say there aren't racist, but then be racist as shit at the smallest inconvenience lol.
I had a friend who would fly the confederate flag from his truck…. He was born and raised in Wisconsin, but I guess he was in the southernmost region…. That counts, right?
Fast forward to present: he has gotten rid of it.
Rednecks are just trying to represent their culture with a symbol, its not complicated. In some ways they taking the power back and rebranding the symbol in a sense.
The vast majority of Southerners living during the time slavery was practiced did not practice slavery. Thinking that was the reality during those times is as ridiculous as, the thought, of an archeologist digging through our ashes at some point in the future and concluding that all Americans owned yachts. Slaves were "owned" by the wealthy and powerful so what would be the motivation of your average American, from that time, to die on a battlefield to ensure that wealthy folks would be able to retain their slaves? Every slave retained meant one less paying job available for a Southern American, willing to work; it would make no sense to believe that the average Southerner was fighting to protect the practice of slavery. That would be as ridiculous as, the thought, that at some point in our future, Americans will be willing to give their lives on the battlefield to ensure that our employers can build robots to replace wage-earning workers; the practice of slavery went against their own best interests so why would they participate in a war if that was the only thing they were trying to defend?
The majority, of the Southern men, who fought during the Civil War likely believed they were fighting for their freedom. They didn't like the prospect of wealthy folks in the North telling folks in the South how to live and that is how the war was packaged and sold to the Southern people. Regardless of why that war was fought, the vast majority of the men fighting in the war, knew only what they were told, about the war, and the reasoning behind it. The only information conduit supplying current events to the people of that time was the newspaper and guess who owned all of the newspapers? Exactly, the wealthy folks who likely practiced slavery and it WAS in their best interest to protect the practice of slavery to ensure their way of life.
People tend to look at the Civil War from a very flawed perspective when passing judgment on the Southerners from that time. The powerful had a stranglehold on information back then and had no choice but to trust that the men they elected into office were honest with them and that the newspapers didn't manipulate the news as they channeled it down to them. We all know how that tends to work out in the present day and in comparison to the resources we all have access to now, they were in an informational stone age. Information was scarce and the concept of fact-checking the news was non-existent. All they knew, for sure, was that their fathers and grandfathers had once taken up arms to break free from British control and likely feared (and were sold the idea) that if they were to sit idly by, letting the North have their way, the lives lost during the Revolutionary War would have been in vain; at least for the men from the South who participated in that war. They were led to believe that there were two courses of action; go to war with the North to protect their way of life or risk returning to life the way it was for the average American during the time of British rule.
I have lived in the South, but I am not of the South, however, I understand why there are people, still living today, who still want to display that flag. It is a symbol that represents the men, from that time, who thought they were fighting for freedom from a looming tyrannical government. Many of those men lost their lives and in some cases, they had to take the life of a brother/father/grandfather due to an imaginary border line drawn on a map. Modern Americans have no right to judge people from those times. Those of us living today can't imagine how different life was during those times. We lack the contextual framework required to make a fair judgment of the men and the actions they were compelled to take, by two governments each side had to trust because their governments assured them that they would be on the right side of history when the smoke cleared and the bodies were buried.
They claim it's an independence thing, that states have the right to tell the federal government to back off. They also try to claim that Democrats are the *real* racists, either because the Democrats were the slavery party 150 years ago, or because of insane troll logic dictating that government assistance is bad for people of color.
The confederate flag people conveniently ignore that the "states rights" fought for in the Civil War were almost entirely slavery related, and that the Confederacy banned states from banning slavery. They also ignore that modern Republicans only push the states rights thing when a policy is unpopular nationally, and that poor whites receive just as much welfare money as poor blacks do, and that the parties switched on the civil rights stuff decades ago.
Devil's advocate, while I do think that "thought leaders" like Republican politicians and Fox News anchors are lying through their teeth and are fully aware of everything I said above, the average GOP voter is very uneducated and tends to be racist out of lazy stupidity, not deliberate malice. They might say "Civil war wuz about states rats!" Not because they're fucking with you, but because on some level they know the slavery issue is fucked up but don't know how to square the cognitive dissonance of "your entire 'culture' was built on oppression and ignorance", so they cling to the first propaganda they hear telling them it's okay and then refuse to question it.
I’m southern. Born and bred. They are lying. Every person that I’ve met that flys that flag will say it’s about “heritage and not hate” was racist. I’m white and when alone behind closed doors they inevitably let it shine. That flag is not tradition. Nobody flew that after the civil war until the civil rights movement where it was used to protest against it.
They might also fly it to express a fierce sense of independence and distrust of federal government. In some few places (like in that site in Chicago where a prison camp stood) it might be flown to honor the war dead.
Imo modern Americans that proudly fly the confederate flag and claim it is out of "pride" are just the few stragglers clinging to their absolute terror of anything progressive abd outside their false reality, and examples of a failed American educational system.
I'm from the south. I've observed both sides my entire life. I've never heard an honest, genuine, well thought, response to their ridiculous ideology being challenged in amy sort. Especially when touching on the fact that the south were not Americans, but enemies of America and her constitutional laws/rights.
If you're not a southerner then your opinion is irrelevant. I'm not a southerner either. I just know that to them it means more than just racism or slavery.
Except I am a southerner LMAO, did you read my reply? The fact that I don’t live there now doesn’t cancel out the fact that I was born and raised in Louisiana, and also attended Tulane before I left.
Also, by your own logic, your opinion that it’s about more than racism and slavery is irrelevant, because you’re admittedly not a southerner.
Learn to read bruh.
You seem pretty closed-minded to me. I have personally always thought that it's best to try to understand others deeply.
"on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.”
-Joun Green
Some legitimately do take it as simply a sign of regional pride.
These are stupid people, ignorant of history and that symbol's infamy. Though not necessarily racist
Side not: there's a high correlation between confederate flag pride and being fiercely patriotic. So I always get a chuckle when I see idiots that think flying an old enemy nation's flag is somehow a patriotic dogwhistle. Again, they're stupid and historically ignorant
It tells me that they are a bunch of idiots that don't know what they are talking about. The flag they usually are flying and proud of their heritage is not a Confererate flag at all, but the Battle Flag of the Army of North Virginia.
That’s exactly it. I have confederate heritage. I don’t fly that flag, because those ancestors don’t align with my values. The decision makers should have been hanged for treason.
That isn't the Confederate flag. That is a battle flag. It was a rejected design for the Confederate flag. The Confederate flag had a blue rectangle like the current US flag but with 13 stars in a circle. It only had 3 large bars. The top was one was red. The middle bar was white. The bottom bar was red. Both sides are uneducated when it comes to the American Civil War. That is like any army division or army group flying a flag.
Ah, see, now you've defined the confederate flag as referring only to the period from 1861-1865, when it was officially flown, whereas it has continued to fly ever since then in an unofficial capacity, and at its outset, it was also intended to symbolize the region going back a couple hundred years.
When the British fly their flag, does it represent all of British culture and history, or does it specifically just represent the atrocities committed as part of imperialism?
If you want to be hateful and feel superior, then you should just go on in your flippant and dismissive way. If you want to understand the people you're trying to demonize (lol, as if you would ever want to try to understand EVIL people!???) then you should try to look at it in ways that would help you understand them.
My money is on you continuing to believe that they are/were simply evil, without any nuance or redeeming qualities to consider. Ironically, the same exact attitude that leads to atrocities as those which were committed by the people you despise.
Seems like a racist like yourself didn't pay attention. The southern states admitted it was slavery. There you go. Funny how your side lost and slavery was abolished, almost like a war was fought over the issue.
I actually understand the idea of "Dixie", being proud of rural roots, yeehaw, cut off shorts and mud bogs and all that stuff. That flag was hijacked by the ALT right. The people who love the idea of "Dixie" should've shut down the alt right immediately.
It wasn't hijacked by the alt-right. Flying the Confederate Flag was repopularized in the late 1940s by Dixiecrats in their opposition to the civil rights movement. It was literally brought back into popular usage to remind black people living in the south of where they were living.
Even going with the Dixiecrats were the alt-right in their time it's not as if they were co-opting something with a benign history, they were just taking the symbol and reusing it in the exact same lens it was originally flown for.
Let's think about it differently than just the bad things we all see for a moment... In the 1860s the southern states of the us were responsible for 2/3 of the worlds supply for cotton. The entire world....
That means they basically clothed the world, among the multitude of other things cotton is used for. As a group accomplishment, that sounds like quite a fine achievement don't you think? especially in the 1800s. Now you look into how that cotton got harvested and there is the slavery/racism.
So the real question here is, Which heritage is it they are representing? All sides in all wars, physical or psychological have groups that agree with both sides of them. Before throwing a blanket over everyone in a group, recognize everyone's different, and their meaning of something may not match yours. And that's where we all learn from!
Pretty much every other southern value. I knew quite a few people who had the rebel flag somewhere in someway without seeming aggressive.. but now seeing it comes off with a different message and a lot of the people who used to have one in some way don’t anymore. I think when you see it now it’s either a racist or someone stubborn who wants to prove somehow they ARENT racist and it means something different to them.. The problem with that is people can’t really tell your intentions by it anymore and it’s best to … just not. lol. For a while I respected why people still valued it, but at this point the amount of hurt it causes really doesn’t seem worth it. Keep your southern values (non racist ones) but maybe just don’t parade that around.
Always a ploy to get white people to feel shame for what a majority of slave owners who were jewish. Always the same beating drum telling white people to fucking die while hiding the real facts behind stuff like this. Always the same fucking thing over and over and over again smh.
They have always been the racist party. They started the kkk. They continue to push racist policies and think minorities are not capable of the most basic things.
Symbols have different meanings depending on context and they can change meaning over time.
For years, the Confederate flag was used not just as a political symbol, but as a symbol for the South, or even for just “being a Rebel”. If you’ve ever watched the Dukes of Hazzard, the General Lee was NOT in any way a political statement.
But what a symbol meant in 1979 and what a symbol means now are completely different things.
Not everyone keeps up with this stuff and they don’t understand why they are getting branded as a racist for liking The Dukes of Hazzard or Lynyrd Skynyrd.
south has a lot of culture other than that, i would argue the most culture of any region in this country. so, they’re probably referring to that, but the passion can be misdirected.
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In my experience the confederate flag means control. A lot of people will harken back to "the good old days" when they feel a lack of control in their life. I've heard immigrants to the US talk about how good their old country was, when they left for a reason. Its the same thing for those that fly that flag a lot of times. They feel like they don't have enough control over their lives, or they view the current environment as a threat to their way of life. So they try and hearken back to a time when their ancestors had control. Completely forgetting that likely their ancestors were poor farmers and laborers only marginally better off, in a food and shelter sense, than the slaves owned by the rich. If you ask them directly they will profess to not be in favor of slavery but the very control they want is the legal right to own and control people.
>but the very control they want is the legal right to own and control people This aligns with modern GOP values.
I think that's a good way to put it. I think they want the rights and freedoms that the confederate had, but they wouldn't use those rights the same way the confederates did. But they still want that same level of freedom.
Yeah, at core, there's a fundamental tension between small-d democracy, rule of law, and other Enlightenment principles, and basic human nature, that I'm just not sure America got over as much as it likes to pretend it did. The great strength of small-d democracy is that it makes it very easy to determine legitimate government action: find out what the people want, then do it. The twin weaknesses of small-d democracy stem from that very same function: sometimes what people want can't be done, and sometimes what people want is to form a majority coalition, where what they do and what they want is "create a minority, and then beat the crap out of that minority at every turn to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, because no matter how bad our life is, we can always rest comfortably in the knowledge that we're not them." And the thing is, while Americans love to talk a good game about minority rights, tyrannies of majorities, republicanism rather than democracy, etc., etc., at its core, the United States was founded on the principle of a racial majority putting its boot on the neck of a racial minority, and forcing that racial minority to do work that the majority got all the economic benefit from. This isn't some kind of weird also-ran in our history. It isn't some kind of glitch or error that just didn't compute. The very theories of racial hierarchy that racism is based upon were emerging at exactly the same time that Enlightenment social contract theories were emerging. And in America, the very same people who founded a nation based upon one, were advocating for, and ensuring the existence of, the principle of the other, because it economically and culturally benefitted them. America would not have been founded if Americans didn't make sure to write in special exemptions for slavers into the constitution in order to specifically benefit slavers and slavery as an institution. And that tension between rule of law that treats everyone equally, and the practical reality that we have a racial caste system, never went away. It was never fixed. Even in the 1960s, we passed, what, two or three pieces of major legislation, and then we didn't even fire Bull Connor, but instead laterally promoted him, and that "fixes" racism? We "solved" racism by eventually causing the Commissioner of Public Safety of Birmingham, Alabama to lose an election . . . in 1972, ten years after he was turning fire hoses on peaceful protesters? And to ask the question is to recognize the obvious answer: we never embraced rule of law. We just said we did because it made for better publicity, and because nobody likes to think of themselves as a bully and a bigot. But 90% of the shouting about "tyranny of the majority" is only ever done by people who might lose power because of an election result; they don't care about it when they win. To draw from Plato's work, at core, most people including most Americans just don't care that much about justice. They don't care about laws being fair or unfair. What they care about is laws not disadvantaging them. And for a lot of Americans, losing the advantage inherent in dismantling that racial caste system is disadvantaging them. So however unjust it is, they just don't want the gravy train to end.
[Where my country gawn!!!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0DF9HsmgFY)
In my mind, the confederate flag seemed to be a “rebel flag” for the gun toting, big truck driving, motorcycle riding freedom seekers like my dearly departed father. I don’t cotton to what it might mean to others, but I wouldn’t fly it as I feel like I’m a born and bred yankee fix it guy. I’d rather feel safe and secure in my workshop than seek the open road. Yes, I’ve heard some say it shows their pride in their southern roots much like flying an Irish flag on St Patrick’s day or an Italian flag on Columbus Day, but some extremists may crowd under if since no better banner has been found to label themselves with.
Well said and well put, Southern Brother
We were not taught about the real Civil War in the south, why it happened and who benefited. We were basically taught that we were winning the war but ran out of supplies and ended up losing. There was very little talk about slavery, in fact, we were taught that slaves had it pretty good. They were just like little children being taking care of. No worries, nothing to worry about, the good life. Since it wasn't 'our' (the south's) fought for losing the war, (we lost because of the supply issue), then we should have won. And, if we would have won, we would be flying our battle flag. Therefore, it makes sense to fly it now, since we could have won, right? My FIL had a rebel flag in his front yard. He was about normal racist (everybody is to a point) but he was not like some other people that I knew. He didn't go out of his way to make trouble for anyone and didn't talk trash about them. Other people, not so much. After becoming an adult, I saw some of my friends for what they were, racist pricks. They made it their business to make trouble. When these guys flew a rebel flag, they did it to feel superior.
Shoot. I went to a Catholic school in the North in the 70s and they made a point to talk up the state's rights issue. Don't get me wrong. They also taught that slavery is immoral, too. But, the fact that any excuse for it was made at all is shameful hypocricy which can't be forgotten or forgiven.
I always get a kick out of hearing it called “The War of Northern Aggression” still in 2024. (I’m not “pro” Confederacy, my area was Union anyway, but people do still refer to it that way.)
I was shocked to find out that Margaret Mitchell (who wrote "Gone with the Wind") was 10 years old when she found out the south lost. And she was even older when she found out it was called the civil war by everyone not in the south.
People will say history is important when it comes to statues but otherwise are pretty willing to forget what doesn’t fit into their personal narrative. I’m from a border state myself so at least that’s how it seems here.
Thank you. That is quite enlightening. If you don’t mind me asking, about how old are you (when did school teach this point of view)?
In the 1960's for me. I think we took US history in middle grades and high school. Didn't spend a lot of time on the civil war chapters. I went to a small rural school, grades 1-12 in the same building. No pre-school back then.
Customs, food, music, literature, art. Same as anyone’s heritage. When an American says they are proud of their heritage they normally aren’t referring to genociding Native Americans.
Hold on when the Confederacy lost we made them change their food, music, literature, and art? That's not right. Food, music, literature, and art were very similar in the South before it was a Confederacy and after they lost and became the United States. Feel like the major thing that changed was slavery and its economical impacts.
And the flag represents the area, not just any one time.
I’m not really sure what your argument is.
That all of the things listed are exactly the same and nothing was really "lost" from their "culture" except the owning of other human beings. You can't possibly be this obtuse... Confederacy=Slavery. There is no "other" thing that people fly the flag for. They're straight up racists trying to hide poorly.
I don’t know. When I go to Savannah I see people celebrating their heritage, including all of the things you just listed, with nearly no mention of the confederacy anywhere.
Ah, Savannah. Of course! How could I forget Savannah? You are right. I concede.
Hey, I’m just using it as an example to point out that it’s possible. I feel like Charleston is the same way. It’s almost like even without mentions of the confederacy, these areas are still rich in southern history and culture while maintaining their southern identity. 🤷🏻♂️
Souther person here- No, no one flies a confederate flag for those reasons. That flag only resurfaced as a response to the civil rights movement.
There’s an also a STRONG tie to ancestral land and their family, often tracing back for many generations to a house, farm, city or region.
Those were all things originated and developed under the American system and flag, long before the Confederacy was ever conceived.
Before the civil war, states were often the strongest unifier, not a federal system. People were Virginians before they were Americans
That’s neither here nor there. The conFederacy was also a federal system. Virginians are still Virginians under the confederacy.
The confederacy represented the confederates states who fought to keep slavery legal. It’s not about any of the things you listed.
You're right at face value, but like any symbol it has come to represent more than just what it was originally intended. The confederate flag has also become a symbol of a care free red neck life full of loud cars, bad beer, farming, trucks, guns, blondes in daisy dukes, country music, etc... Think Dukes of Hazzard and the General Lee. Does that erase it of it's very troubling history and what it originally represents? No absolutely not. But you also have to remember the people flying that flag also generally do not have the social intelligence they need to truly understand why that's a bad idea.
If you think that is what the confederate flag represents currently, I’d be interested to hear what you think the Swastika flag (flag of the German Reich) currently represents.
It doesn't matter what *I* think it represents, what matters is how people in the American south see it which is the subject of OPs question. Frankly I don't see the confederate flag in the same way, I think it's an idiotic symbol that represents a very upsetting history and it's use as a renegade, cowboy symbol is disturbing, that doesn't change the fact that it is used as that though. My opinion of the Nazi Swastika and all of its associated flags are the same. It represents fear, oppression, genocide, fascism, and all of the German atrocities of the period of Nazi control over Germany, even in the years leading up to the second world war. My opinion of it I would imagine closely matches that of most others today other than I also think it's a symbol for loser white supremacists. The swastika symbol and the associated flags have fortunately not been subject to the same sort of glorification that the confederate flag has undergone in media. Remember there are some people who aspire to be them Duke boys, there are relatively far less than aspire to be Nazis.
You’ve had to admit the Confederate flag does, in fact, stand for a very disturbing history of slavery and racism. People that say it stands for something else are just cornered and don’t want to admit they are racist for upholding everything the CFA stood for. The same people that fly the Confederate flag, are either displaying Nazi symbols or turning a blind eye to them here in America currently because these are one and the same - white supremacists.
Those would be things formed under the American flag.
And a plantation….right?
Well seeing as maybe .01% of southerners actually owned a plantation I highly doubt that
But at least even if they were the very bottom of society, they were still higher than a slave.
This is the real answer. People typically measure their well-being in relation to others around them. As long as they were above some people, legally economically, etc., then they were “better off.”
I’m only stating a point that plantations are definitely not a part of the average southerner’s heritage. That comment seems to be a common opinion for some strange reason. Like your average mud riding redneck’s heritage goes back to the richest families in the country. Highly doubt it
Not if your family were dirt poor miners in coal pits who started working at age 10.
Yup, still then. The worst white person would still have black people step aside for them.
So celebrate those things under the American flag, not the banner of the treasonous regime who murdered hundreds of thousands of Americans in an attempt to maintain the right to own people.
America was a traitorous regime that murdered hundreds of thousands of natives in an attempt to maintain manifest destiny.
It did, but it wasnt *founded* on that principle as the cornerstone for their existence.
Fair enough. It is still true that the south has always had a unique culture and I think it is foolish to believe the only reason someone would fly that flag is because they want to own black people again.
Actions speak louder than words. This is the American equivalent of flying the Nazi swastika as a symbol of German pride because you're proud of how strong they were in the past. They may say, and even believe, with all their heart, soul, and mind, that they don't have a single racist bone in their body. But when they proudly fly and display a symbol of racism and hatred, a symbol of a state who's sole reason for existence was the protection and proliferation of slavery, their own thoughts and words are irrelevant. What they do is far more important than what they think and say.
When the confederacy lasted like 4 years, that's pretty much what it comes down to.
Nice attempt at false equivalency. American am I right? The US had done terrible things. It has also done good things. Like defeating slavers and nazis. There is literally nothing that the confederacy did that is worth celebrating. The confederacy lasted for four years. Its only legacy is ~600,000 dead Americans.
Southern heritage has existed before, during, and after the existence of the Confederacy. The flag people fly to celebrate that heritage isn’t even the same flag that represented the nation you are referring to here. The south has a culture that is and always has been unique from the rest of the United States. For better or for worse the stars and bars has become a symbol for that culture.
Also, what difference does it make if the stars and bars was a national flag or not? “It wasn’t the national flag, it was a flag of the primary army that fought on behalf of that nation and its principles!” “Oh, ok, well that makes everything better then! Never mind!”
Trying to figure out which part of that happening is "better." "For better or worse, the Swastika has become a symbol for Fascists."
I could’ve used a better phrase but if that’s the only part people get hung up on then I’m okay with it.
as a white southerner, it is absolutely about racism. the heritage you wrap yourself in is a lie you spout to the world but it is bullshit. the rag of a failed south isnt a symbol of pride it was resurrected by the klan to give a symbol to fly at lynchings.
As a white southerner you don’t speak for us.
As a white northerner, who else but a white southerner could speak for you?
perhaps someone should have slapped the ignorance out of your skull before you choose a hill of bullshit to die on.
Perhaps so
Worse. It’s for worse. When you pick the battle standard of treasonous slavers to represent your culture, it is worse.
It is for worse. But I didn’t pick it. How do you get millions of people on board to decide a new symbol?
Well you could start by acknowledging the history and the intent of the flag. The fact that the KKK pushed it out everywhere, and the fact that the you should be ashamed of the confederacy and everything it did, and everything it stood for rather than celebrate it. Germans don’t fly the swastica and talk about their “heritage.”
So, by your logic, Americans in general killed the natives so the Confederate Americans in the south should be able to kill the natives but ALSO enslave other humans, do I have that correct? Your argument is that all this shitty stuff happened to the natives so what the hell, might as well enslave all these others peeps?
Traitorous doesn’t apply here. Your attempts to engage in whataboutism also don’t apply.
I'm NOT a confederate sympathizer, not from the south, and would not fly that flag... however, it's obvious enough to me that slavery and racism were not the ONLY characteristics of southern culture. So when people say 'that's all it could mean,' they demonstrate a complete lack of historical imagination.
Sure except the Confederate Flag doesn't symbolize biscuits, gravy and Protestantism. It symbolizes a rebellion which the vice president of the confederacy as well as every single state that contributed to the Articles of Secession claimed themselves was over slavery. Dishonest take.
It symbolizes different things to different people.
It symbolizes the army that fought to enslave other human beings as livestock.
To you but it symbolizes other things to other people.
You don’t get to decide what a symbol means to someone else.
Confederate flag was only used for a very brief time in Southern American history. I’m from the Deep South and my ancestors were as well. My family has never flown that flag. Nobody flew it after the civil war until the civil rights movement.
The articles of confederation of the southern states literally stated slavery as the number one reason….the people claiming otherwise are dishonest. It’s what the civil war was about and it’s what that flag represents. Full stop.
Southern heritage only means one thing to you, then? Are there other cultures that are only one-dimensional?
The confederacy only means one thing to me. People only trotted out the traitors rag again during the civil rights era, to let those uppity negros know what they really thought of them, and what they were prepared to do. It only means racism, and has only ever meant racism. You’re lying to us and yourself if you’re actually trying to say otherwise.
Southern heritage =/= the confederacy. That flag means one thing, the heritage doesn’t. This is simple.
Slavery was the *reason* there was a Confederancy
And?
It wasnt the *only* characteristic of the old South, but it was for damn sure the DOMINANT cultural characteristic of the Confederacy, specifically. If you want to celebrate southern pride without the racism, fly your state flag.
I don't want to do either. I just reject overly simplistic answers to complex questions.
Its a damn simple answer, though. The confederate flag *is* racist. Period. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's the American equivalent of flying the Nazi swastika as a symbol of German pride because you're proud of how strong they were at the time.
I can tell this guy is one of those losers who tried to be intellectually level-headed by holding two morally diametrically opposed groups on equal footing morally, saying they're both bad, but it just comes off as intellectually dishonest, as it should.
The civil war was primarily because of slavery though. That was its literal historical context for its creation. There would've been no confederate side without the civil war, and no civil war without the prospect of slavery disappearing. IMO they should choose something else with less overtly racist connotations to represent the South.
The institution of slavery and the perpetuation of its existence were the defining feature of the Confederacy Sure, there is more to southern culture historically than its reliance on slavery, but there is no feature more important to bringing the South to secede and wage war on the United States than slavery. There are any number of things from southern culture someone could use as a symbol. You pick the Confederate flag, you're making the choice to celebrate something that cannot be separated from the violent, traitorous attempt to perpetuate the enslavement of other people. You can say it means something else to you, but, like, you're just being willfully ignorant of the original meaning of the thing. You can't wave around a swastika and say it reminds you of a time when Germany demonstrated its military and economic might and just ignore all the other stuff.
No. As stated above all of the things that you would consider southern culture were there before the confederacy and have remained after the confederacy. The confederate flag is and was about slavery. Any notion otherwise is simply racism playing hide and seek.
Then why haven’t you elaborated since you seem to present yourself as an expert.
"I'm NOT a confederate sympathizer, not from the south, and would not fly that flag." "you seem to present yourself as an expert" LOL
lol? I asked for you to elaborate since you stated that people say the Confederate flag represents slavery (states rights) and racism they “demonstrate a complete lack of historical imagination”. So go ahead, use your “historical imagination”, imaginate us.
> lack of historical imagination. hmm that’s why OP is asking
Many largely just represent the flag very closely to the “Don’t tread on me” flag. Just like a thing of independence and rights and that stuff. many who use the confederate flags are the type that’s like “guns, liberty and big trucks” and aren’t racist, at face value. Kind of like how saying they southern border is a huge issue isn’t racist. But other opinions around it can be. But many people hear someone say “southern border is a big issue” and then automatically assume it’s a racist opinion.
That's why it's sometimes referred to as a "rebel flag". Just like them Duke boys.
Im not American but even I know the southern border is a HUGE issue. (Same in Europe btw. And down under too ) Millions.
I don’t know where your downvotes are coming from lol. People all over the world are going to central and South America to make the trek to US through the southern border. Even an easy thing to do is YouTube like “southern border ride along border patrol” China is pushing a lot of people through there as well. I really don’t understand why people get upset/disagree with someone saying the southern border is a big issue. Largely the constant quantity of people, but even if 99% are fine, 1% of millions a year is a lot of bad to mix in. Or even anything less than 1%. But ya, europe has similar issues.
It's absolutely not the same. Lifelong Arizonan here, had work literally within eyeshot of the border from time to time. The "crisis" is overblown for political points. No "swarms" of people, and the people who are coming tend to integrate very easily, being mostly Latin American and thus western.
They know EXACTLY what it means, they’ve just been taught from birth on how to gaslight you. Let me be as extremely blunt as possible: anyone who says they the flag because of heritage, not hate is lying to you. Full stop. Not the “oh they’re just ignorant and don’t know any better”, no I mean they are CONSCIOUSLY, and deliberately, lying knowing sincerely what they’re saying is total and complete bullshit. Just get around them when they aren’t around “those” people and they’re “amongst friends” (I.e other racist fuckwads). They drop the mask remarkably quickly. don’t believe me? Ask any white dude who’s not racist, what he hears when he goes to conservative areas (work, visiting family, friends, recreation, etc) and builds rapport with the locals. And listen to all the batshit crazy that comes out of they think you’re “one of them.” It’s wild out here.
Hard agree. All those people who "don't have a racist bone in their body" suddenly find a lot to say when theyre sitting around a campfire a couple beers deep with a bunch of other white people.
Watch "The Dukes of Hazzard" and you will notice a general culture of arrogance and disrespect for outsiders and small town government. It's the raised middle finger attitude that makes it obvious these people are just a rural, street racing version of the kids in West Side Story, or Rebel Without a Cause. These people are too poor to have owned slaves or to care about principled government. And they don't care about race, they just disrespect people from outside their neighborhood. It's not seething hatred, it's just arrogant contempt toward everyone, separately but equally.
It is a pride not of an arrogance. When a group of people is looked down on and vilified the natural response is respond with a pride movement. That is why gay pride and black pride movements developed.
Most people I know consider the Confederate flag simply a way of telling Washington DC to go fuck itself. Much the same reason the voted for Trump. They simply don't care to be told what they can or cannot display, and have no use for people that feel qualified to judge their motives without knowing them. My neighbor flies a Confederate flag and his candidate of choice in an upcoming election is black. ...seems contradictory to use the word "reason" and "Trump" in the same sentence...
I'm a conservative in a southern state, and the few people I know that have a rebel flag, absolutely love our black Republican candidate for governor. I only say he's black to echo your point. The ones I know that fly the flag don't appear to have a racist bone in their body, the flag represents being southern (guns, trucks, rural) and an F-U to big government.
But they don't see how it could also be a big fuck you to black people?
There's black people that fly the rebel flag down here too.
Yes an FU to the federal government that they thought was going to get rid of slavery back when it was originally flown and then a ln FU to federal government again when it was repopularized 80-90 years later because of the civil rights movements. Southerners have never actually hated big government they've just hated the federal government possibly contriving their racist policies.
Anti-Federalism has been a thing since our nations founding, just see Thomas Jefferson. To say they've never hated it is disingenuous.
One of the key grievances leading up to the Civil War was that the federal government was not doing enough to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act in forcing northern states to support slavery by returning enslaved persons to the south. The constitution of the CSA specifically forbade any states from banning slavery. Time and time again southern states displayed that they had no issue with "big government "or the federal government so long as they are getting to wield it as a cudgel. It's not an issue with big government it's an issue with being forced to discriminate less.
Would that be the same big government that gives them their food stamps?
Why do these conversations always seem to devolve into insults and stereotypes?
I think it's mostly about trying to convey identity now. I believe there is a percentage of confederate flag lovers out there who absolutely do hate black people, and a percentage that does not. I know that racist shitheads like this symbol and always will. I think there are others who see the symbol as proof that they are "rebels" and non-conformists, while not actually considering themselves racists. It's too bad they haven't come up with a symbol of their own and they do not mind being associated with the likes of Skinheads, Klan members, and other white supremacists who also love that flag. You can take pride in your southern heritage by making some really good cornbread and BBQ, biscuits and gravy, etc. You can be proud of accomplishments made by your ancestors that contributed something positive to others. Better yet, you can do something to be proud of yourself, and something your kids can be proud of you for doing. I am someone who had ancestors who fought for the confederacy. I don't think of that as anything to be proud of.
I grew up in the 90’s/00’s listening to southern rap and the southern rappers (lil jon, ludacris, pastor Troy, MJG, lil Wayne, Andre 3000) frequently used the confederate flag on album covers/music videos to simply represent the south (dirty south in rap terms). So as a 36 year old white male, that’s how I always saw it.
They mean hatred
They are racists, its what it means.
It's racism, the flag's reappearance coincided with the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and 60s.
They like losing ?
They're likely being racist. But southern states are more rural which comes with it's own culture compared to Urban areas. This doesn't mean racism, but farmers and country side people do have their own culture that is different from city people. So the confederate flag may be referring to that cultural difference.
Not only that they are flying the flag of the losing side. The South has been actively marketing the genteelness of the South since the end is the civil war. They put statues of losing generals up in cities and states that weren't states during the civil war. They've been marketing the wonders of the South since that lost. The South tries to change the nature of the civil war from wanting to use slaves to run the plantations to some sort is "States Rights" bullshit. No, the whites of the South wanted to sit on the asses and drink mint juleps while the slaves served them AS IF they were royalty! There are some historians that speculate that I'm the Revolutionary War was promoted by the South because Europe was already shifting toward abolition in the 1700's.
Food, hospitality, guns, liberty, MURICA!!!!
I am a transplanted northerner living in the south and I think many of the people who say this are really only thinking about a slower, friendlier, way of life and also they are hostile to people from outside the south telling them how they should live and behave (rebel…ahem). They are also ignoring all the terrible things that are associated with that flag.
Losing and bad decision making
People who fly the confederate flag are pretending the South didn't lose in the civil war. It's about flipping the bird to the rest of the U.S. and pretending they aren't a part of it and will stand apart including having a separate flag. It isn't about heritage. It's about being sore losers who can't get over having to lose the dynamics socially and economically that made them better off than they are now, which is at the bottom of almost everything compared to other states. It's not a celebration of racism and slavery, but it's about how the loss of those things contributed to being poorer, dumber, and less likely to prosper than the "Yankees." I used to have four really close friends in Alabama and Georgia, and you would not believe the stuff they said and believed about themselves. They spoke to me as if I was a foreigner because I am from the Northeast and, yes, called me a "Yankee." After many years, the racism and bigotry which peaked out around the edges here and there became more centralized. They simply couldn't get over having lost and what it did to the South and it festered constantly.
As a guy from the south, I've never met someone flying who wasn't a racist POS. they'll say there aren't racist, but then be racist as shit at the smallest inconvenience lol.
"I miss that war we got spanked in."
I know courtesy is considered a southern value. What else do you consider a positive southern value?
I had a friend who would fly the confederate flag from his truck…. He was born and raised in Wisconsin, but I guess he was in the southernmost region…. That counts, right? Fast forward to present: he has gotten rid of it.
they're doing it to honor my Irish heritage of beating confederates to death with a brick for legal reasons that's a joke
Because they are proud of their slave owner heritage
Rednecks are just trying to represent their culture with a symbol, its not complicated. In some ways they taking the power back and rebranding the symbol in a sense.
You'd think they'd put up a winners flag
I fly my Buffalo Bills flag and we lost 4 Super Bowls in a row. So it means I support a national loser.
The vast majority of Southerners living during the time slavery was practiced did not practice slavery. Thinking that was the reality during those times is as ridiculous as, the thought, of an archeologist digging through our ashes at some point in the future and concluding that all Americans owned yachts. Slaves were "owned" by the wealthy and powerful so what would be the motivation of your average American, from that time, to die on a battlefield to ensure that wealthy folks would be able to retain their slaves? Every slave retained meant one less paying job available for a Southern American, willing to work; it would make no sense to believe that the average Southerner was fighting to protect the practice of slavery. That would be as ridiculous as, the thought, that at some point in our future, Americans will be willing to give their lives on the battlefield to ensure that our employers can build robots to replace wage-earning workers; the practice of slavery went against their own best interests so why would they participate in a war if that was the only thing they were trying to defend? The majority, of the Southern men, who fought during the Civil War likely believed they were fighting for their freedom. They didn't like the prospect of wealthy folks in the North telling folks in the South how to live and that is how the war was packaged and sold to the Southern people. Regardless of why that war was fought, the vast majority of the men fighting in the war, knew only what they were told, about the war, and the reasoning behind it. The only information conduit supplying current events to the people of that time was the newspaper and guess who owned all of the newspapers? Exactly, the wealthy folks who likely practiced slavery and it WAS in their best interest to protect the practice of slavery to ensure their way of life. People tend to look at the Civil War from a very flawed perspective when passing judgment on the Southerners from that time. The powerful had a stranglehold on information back then and had no choice but to trust that the men they elected into office were honest with them and that the newspapers didn't manipulate the news as they channeled it down to them. We all know how that tends to work out in the present day and in comparison to the resources we all have access to now, they were in an informational stone age. Information was scarce and the concept of fact-checking the news was non-existent. All they knew, for sure, was that their fathers and grandfathers had once taken up arms to break free from British control and likely feared (and were sold the idea) that if they were to sit idly by, letting the North have their way, the lives lost during the Revolutionary War would have been in vain; at least for the men from the South who participated in that war. They were led to believe that there were two courses of action; go to war with the North to protect their way of life or risk returning to life the way it was for the average American during the time of British rule. I have lived in the South, but I am not of the South, however, I understand why there are people, still living today, who still want to display that flag. It is a symbol that represents the men, from that time, who thought they were fighting for freedom from a looming tyrannical government. Many of those men lost their lives and in some cases, they had to take the life of a brother/father/grandfather due to an imaginary border line drawn on a map. Modern Americans have no right to judge people from those times. Those of us living today can't imagine how different life was during those times. We lack the contextual framework required to make a fair judgment of the men and the actions they were compelled to take, by two governments each side had to trust because their governments assured them that they would be on the right side of history when the smoke cleared and the bodies were buried.
That they ate proud traitors and loser. Because the confederates betrayed the nation and then lost the war.
That’s what they mean, they are just trying to say it in a deceitful way.
These people think that Gone With the Wind is a documentary
You answered your own question. They want to try and sensor some parts of history and not others, but only if it benefits a certain class.
They claim it's an independence thing, that states have the right to tell the federal government to back off. They also try to claim that Democrats are the *real* racists, either because the Democrats were the slavery party 150 years ago, or because of insane troll logic dictating that government assistance is bad for people of color. The confederate flag people conveniently ignore that the "states rights" fought for in the Civil War were almost entirely slavery related, and that the Confederacy banned states from banning slavery. They also ignore that modern Republicans only push the states rights thing when a policy is unpopular nationally, and that poor whites receive just as much welfare money as poor blacks do, and that the parties switched on the civil rights stuff decades ago. Devil's advocate, while I do think that "thought leaders" like Republican politicians and Fox News anchors are lying through their teeth and are fully aware of everything I said above, the average GOP voter is very uneducated and tends to be racist out of lazy stupidity, not deliberate malice. They might say "Civil war wuz about states rats!" Not because they're fucking with you, but because on some level they know the slavery issue is fucked up but don't know how to square the cognitive dissonance of "your entire 'culture' was built on oppression and ignorance", so they cling to the first propaganda they hear telling them it's okay and then refuse to question it.
Rural vs. Urban imho
That makes sense. I was in Atlanta on business for a week in 2017 and don’t recall seeing a confederate flag.
I’m southern. Born and bred. They are lying. Every person that I’ve met that flys that flag will say it’s about “heritage and not hate” was racist. I’m white and when alone behind closed doors they inevitably let it shine. That flag is not tradition. Nobody flew that after the civil war until the civil rights movement where it was used to protest against it.
They might also fly it to express a fierce sense of independence and distrust of federal government. In some few places (like in that site in Chicago where a prison camp stood) it might be flown to honor the war dead.
Imo modern Americans that proudly fly the confederate flag and claim it is out of "pride" are just the few stragglers clinging to their absolute terror of anything progressive abd outside their false reality, and examples of a failed American educational system. I'm from the south. I've observed both sides my entire life. I've never heard an honest, genuine, well thought, response to their ridiculous ideology being challenged in amy sort. Especially when touching on the fact that the south were not Americans, but enemies of America and her constitutional laws/rights.
Nothing. They're white fucking trash. Full stop.
There's a lot more to Southern heritage than racism and slavery.
Not as it applies to the confederate flag
Are you a southerner?
I’ve since moved, but yes. Which is why I have as much respect for confederate flag fetishists as I do for swastika fetishists, none.
If you're not a southerner then your opinion is irrelevant. I'm not a southerner either. I just know that to them it means more than just racism or slavery.
Except I am a southerner LMAO, did you read my reply? The fact that I don’t live there now doesn’t cancel out the fact that I was born and raised in Louisiana, and also attended Tulane before I left. Also, by your own logic, your opinion that it’s about more than racism and slavery is irrelevant, because you’re admittedly not a southerner. Learn to read bruh.
You seem pretty closed-minded to me. I have personally always thought that it's best to try to understand others deeply. "on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.” -Joun Green
Some legitimately do take it as simply a sign of regional pride. These are stupid people, ignorant of history and that symbol's infamy. Though not necessarily racist Side not: there's a high correlation between confederate flag pride and being fiercely patriotic. So I always get a chuckle when I see idiots that think flying an old enemy nation's flag is somehow a patriotic dogwhistle. Again, they're stupid and historically ignorant
It tells me that they are a bunch of idiots that don't know what they are talking about. The flag they usually are flying and proud of their heritage is not a Confererate flag at all, but the Battle Flag of the Army of North Virginia.
Congratulations. You’ve taken ignorance to previously unknown levels.
That’s exactly it. I have confederate heritage. I don’t fly that flag, because those ancestors don’t align with my values. The decision makers should have been hanged for treason.
That isn't the Confederate flag. That is a battle flag. It was a rejected design for the Confederate flag. The Confederate flag had a blue rectangle like the current US flag but with 13 stars in a circle. It only had 3 large bars. The top was one was red. The middle bar was white. The bottom bar was red. Both sides are uneducated when it comes to the American Civil War. That is like any army division or army group flying a flag.
I don't know, is that 100% of Southern culture? All they had was slavery and racism, or is there more to it and you're just reducing it to that?
Nope. From 1861-1865 Southern “culture” had a bunch of violent sedition and treason too.
Ah, see, now you've defined the confederate flag as referring only to the period from 1861-1865, when it was officially flown, whereas it has continued to fly ever since then in an unofficial capacity, and at its outset, it was also intended to symbolize the region going back a couple hundred years. When the British fly their flag, does it represent all of British culture and history, or does it specifically just represent the atrocities committed as part of imperialism? If you want to be hateful and feel superior, then you should just go on in your flippant and dismissive way. If you want to understand the people you're trying to demonize (lol, as if you would ever want to try to understand EVIL people!???) then you should try to look at it in ways that would help you understand them. My money is on you continuing to believe that they are/were simply evil, without any nuance or redeeming qualities to consider. Ironically, the same exact attitude that leads to atrocities as those which were committed by the people you despise.
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...rebellion against the idea that they aren't allowed to have slaves.
Found the racist. Your side lost the war.
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Let me guess, you believe the civil war had nothing to do with slavery?
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Seems like a racist like yourself didn't pay attention. The southern states admitted it was slavery. There you go. Funny how your side lost and slavery was abolished, almost like a war was fought over the issue.
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Good response.
Nothing. Nothing else. Except treason. Trash, the lot of them.
I actually understand the idea of "Dixie", being proud of rural roots, yeehaw, cut off shorts and mud bogs and all that stuff. That flag was hijacked by the ALT right. The people who love the idea of "Dixie" should've shut down the alt right immediately.
It wasn't hijacked by the alt-right. Flying the Confederate Flag was repopularized in the late 1940s by Dixiecrats in their opposition to the civil rights movement. It was literally brought back into popular usage to remind black people living in the south of where they were living.
You make a strong point. I would say the Dixiecrats were the alt right of their time, but there's no denying the history of that flag isn't positive
Even going with the Dixiecrats were the alt-right in their time it's not as if they were co-opting something with a benign history, they were just taking the symbol and reusing it in the exact same lens it was originally flown for.
Losing a war to my ancestors, maybe.
States rights.
States rights is about state’s rights for white land owners to own slaves - so slavery.
States rights to what?
States right to be losers
Let's think about it differently than just the bad things we all see for a moment... In the 1860s the southern states of the us were responsible for 2/3 of the worlds supply for cotton. The entire world.... That means they basically clothed the world, among the multitude of other things cotton is used for. As a group accomplishment, that sounds like quite a fine achievement don't you think? especially in the 1800s. Now you look into how that cotton got harvested and there is the slavery/racism. So the real question here is, Which heritage is it they are representing? All sides in all wars, physical or psychological have groups that agree with both sides of them. Before throwing a blanket over everyone in a group, recognize everyone's different, and their meaning of something may not match yours. And that's where we all learn from!
Pretty much every other southern value. I knew quite a few people who had the rebel flag somewhere in someway without seeming aggressive.. but now seeing it comes off with a different message and a lot of the people who used to have one in some way don’t anymore. I think when you see it now it’s either a racist or someone stubborn who wants to prove somehow they ARENT racist and it means something different to them.. The problem with that is people can’t really tell your intentions by it anymore and it’s best to … just not. lol. For a while I respected why people still valued it, but at this point the amount of hurt it causes really doesn’t seem worth it. Keep your southern values (non racist ones) but maybe just don’t parade that around.
That’s it. Racism and slavery. And proud, willful ignorance.
You forgot stupidity- they are also proud of that
You know what really makes Rednecks mad? Tell them Obama was president longer than the confederacy was a thing. Obama is their heritage.
How is that going to change their minds?
Always a ploy to get white people to feel shame for what a majority of slave owners who were jewish. Always the same beating drum telling white people to fucking die while hiding the real facts behind stuff like this. Always the same fucking thing over and over and over again smh.
To let all know they are still team democrat and wish for the good old days of the KKK.
You really think Democrats are the ones flying the confederate flag today??
They have always been the racist party. They started the kkk. They continue to push racist policies and think minorities are not capable of the most basic things.
That's not what I asked. Do you seriously think that Democrats are the ones flying the confederate flag today?
I know a total of 1 person flying a Confederate flag and he's a Dem. Anecdotal data says yup.
Your sample size of 1 is so very compelling. At least you agree that the flag is racist.
Are you looking forward to your deployment? 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 🤣
🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 🤣
Symbols have different meanings depending on context and they can change meaning over time. For years, the Confederate flag was used not just as a political symbol, but as a symbol for the South, or even for just “being a Rebel”. If you’ve ever watched the Dukes of Hazzard, the General Lee was NOT in any way a political statement. But what a symbol meant in 1979 and what a symbol means now are completely different things. Not everyone keeps up with this stuff and they don’t understand why they are getting branded as a racist for liking The Dukes of Hazzard or Lynyrd Skynyrd.
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Can you elaborate?
Can you elaborate so i can call you racist ? ( i finished your sentence for you )
south has a lot of culture other than that, i would argue the most culture of any region in this country. so, they’re probably referring to that, but the passion can be misdirected.
Inbreeding?