Rebel flag, racist or not?

Post Reply New Topic

If the secession were not so bound up with slavery I might agree with you.

ruveyn

It is part of your history. If you are not racist you have nothing to worry about.

In fact I would fly it because you are not racist.

I don't think white supremacy moment get much out of flying it, it doesn't really sum them up enough, they tend to fly different flags, and they are also not all in the south, quite a lot of the chapter are in very northern, former industrial towns, and a lot of them are part fo the gernal trend of prison gang, which is sort a expected clique for all the ethnicities.

History is history, flying the confederacy flag means you identify with the culture of those states, it doesn't mean you endorse everything that the confederate army stood for.

People say the South=Republican, but Lincoln was a Republican. The historical parties were a lot different than they are today aswell

Before 1960 the South was solidly Democrat.

ruveyn

I don't think it is racist since everyone was a racist back then, including Lincoln, who originally thought he could just send all of them back to Africa. I think it is overblown.

Most people wanted slavery abolished because the South would then have to pay wages to its labor force. Slavery was an economic construct, and anti-slavery did not mean anti-racism during those times.

There were those back then who in fact cared about the human rights of the slaves, such as the radical Republican extraordinaire, Thadeus Stevens, and of course, black people, themselves.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

These people were a marginal group at the time. Everything I said was historically accurate. David Wilmot and most politicians crafting anti-slavery legislation were racist. The country wasn't this happy place where northerners were grouping together to take care of black people and end slavery for their well-being. A good number just wanted to screw over the South economically.

The flag doesn't have any extra value of racism to it looking at the history of the time. It just distinguished which racists were on which side.

And even more, there was a serious plan to separate Southern slaves holders from their property and ship the black people back to Africa. That is how Liberia got its start.

Abraham Lincoln was against slavery but he did not for one minute believe in the equality of white and black people.

ruveyn

That plan went back to Monroe. Hence, Liberia's capital, Monrovia.

The amendments that he pushed through were about granting full citizenship and equal rights to Black folks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GVIAypsnh8&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCC9VHk13JY&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtube]

In all fairness, while the majority of southerners were not slave owners, neither were they the ones who had instigated the war. It was the wealthy plantation owners who had started the war in order to preserve slavery.
As for the notion that southerners were not properly represented in government - the fact is, the majority of presidents, supreme court judges, and heads of congressional committees were in fact southerners. As the video had stated, southerners constituted only 30% of the country's population, and yet they had actually held a disproportionate degree of power.
And it should be pointed out, there had been plenty of poor southern whites who had supported the union cause. Many of these men either had gone to the north to fight in the Union army, or had carried out guerrilla warfare against the Confederacy within the heart of Dixie. Most notable of these was perhaps Newton Knight, who knowing the war was only going to benefit the rich, had formed a ragtag army of Confederate deserters and escaped slaves, and had practically caused Johnson county Mississippi to have seceded from the Confederacy(!). Sherman had made mention of Knight's guerrilla force of self-described "southern Yankees." Knight after the war took part in Reconstruction, had fought the KKK, and had even married a black lady when it was illegal to do so in Mississippi.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Is this parody?

as a black dude currently living in the south.. i don't find it racist. when i see the confederate flag i generally believe that the thought behind its use is the desire for small government and states having more power to govern themselves....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GnoZ_6iuUM&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtube]


The victor in any war usually rewrites history,the conquered is usually made to look like total villains,and after those Yankees got finished terrorizing the South they were bored so decided to exterminate the Natives,example Custer.Too bad Sherman and Grant weren't with him when he got what he had coming.
So how do you know your Yankee history books are accurate?Like any history book is 100% accurate,do you believe the Bible?Well,it's a book,so it must be true!! !!
Three sides to any story,yours,mine,and the truth.

But the thing is, the Confederates after the war were hardly made out to be the bad guys - even in the north. Rather, they were regarded as fighting for states rights in popular fiction, history, and in the perception of the public. In fact, it was the radical Republicans such as Thadeus Stevens, James Stanton, and the so called "carpet baggers" who were regarded as the bad guys. Movies like Gone With The Wind reflected this sympathy toward the Confederacy. It wasn't till the civil rights era that the pendulum of recoded history and public perception began to swing in favor of the Union cause as a battle for liberty and anti-racism - and with it, an Anti-Confederate sentiment.
I'm sure the issue may not have been entirely black and white in reality for both sides. But as I personally see things, I tend to sympathetic toward the union cause, as millions of people were freed from bondage due to a Union victory, and the country was kept from splitting in two. I admit, if I had been by accident of birth grown up in the south, I might very well have a different perception of things.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I agree with the freeing of the slaves,wish it could have been done without a war and that they got the mule and land they were promised.
But people assume that everyone down here had slaves.
The really sad thing is that in lots of cases poor blacks and whites got caught up in sharecropping,which sucked equally for them but the greedy land owner still stayed on top.
And since the economy was pretty well shot here you had and still do have businesses that take advantage of people's poverty by offering low paying dead end jobs.
They build a factory down here,then pollute at will and pay a low wage without locating in another country.
And the colorful names we are given,such as slack jawed yokel,cracker(which means a poor white person,not someone cracking a whip),ignorant redneck,in- bred hillbilly, white trash,and the assumption that we are all cross burning and prejudiced.
Things are getting better,for example about 15 years ago the KKK adopted a stretch of highway,the ACLU even took their case. They had a right to do this even though it was disgusting to see the sign that said this stretch of highway was adopted by them.The funny thing is when they tried to pick up litter off the road people would drive by and throw things at them.They no longer pick up litter on the side of the road and the sign is gone.