I will not argue about the Confederate Flag (anymore)

[TemplarKormac]

Well, it's pretty much settled. The Confederate Battle Flag is representative of short lived nation that wished to impose slavery and invoked white supremacy. They even fought for it. That was the very picture of racism. Whatever your theories are about how the Confederacy was coerced or how it was somehow wronged by the US Government ... I have no desire to debate them. I was bouncing this around amongst my sparse thoughts on whether to post this or not, but given how badly I made myself look in a thread I posted a few hours ago I think I will.

The Confederate flag is a relic of a shameful past. It should never be venerated as some symbol of heritage. Think about it, do you want your heritage to be one of white supremacy and slavery? "Heritage, not hate?"That is a heritage OF hate. Please understand I am not labeling anyone.

What Dylann Roof did was a racial hate crime, and in a negative way, his invocation of the Confederate Flag whilst sitting atop his car is appropriate, a reminder of a sick and twisted past. At the time Nikki Haley gave her response to the shooting, she was not aware of Roof's motivations, and now she has altered her stance according to the evidence being presented. This was racially motivated. And as long as that flag flies at the Capital Statehouse, it will only proceed to keep the painful wounds of the night of June 17, 2015 bare and raw.

However, I will note that selling the General Lee toy car from the Dukes of Hazzard without the Confederate flag on the top is a bit overkill.

Let's keep one thing in mind here though, and I am playing devil's advocate, the flag itself isn't racist. It was never intended to be. It was the Battle flag of Northern Virginia. But what it was made to stand for and represent was in fact racist and conducive to slavery. The Swatstika was originally a Hindu symbol of reverence and auspiciousness, yet it was brutalized by Hitler and the Nazis to help further the cause of exterminating an entire ethnicity from the face of the world.

The US Flag was also flown high in times of barbarity, like the Trail of Tears, the Japanese internment camps, or with the Ku Klux Klan, under false pretense to justify the enactment of suffering among others. The Council for Conservative Citizens and the Aryan Nation have done the same. So, remember, the symbol you see isn't always being used in a way it is supposed to represent.

I would ask those to consider this before reflexively demanding to ban the Confederate Battle Flag from existence:Shall we then ban our US flag, for which flew over far more suffering under its name?

Still yet the battle flag represents racism and slavery to a great deal many, the longer we flout this "symbol" of pride and our "heritage," the more wounds we keep open. We can't keep doing that.

I will not argue about the Confederate Flag anymore, beyond this thread.

[THIS IS A DISCLAIMER: Not all of the views expressed by the author of the article quoted below represent my own.]

The murder of nine Americans by a terrorist in Charleston Wednesday night, besides being a monumental tragedy, also gave us the absurd spectacle of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (a woman of color) telling us “that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another” as pictures emerged of the killer wearing flags of apartheid regimes on his jacket, sitting on his car with a Confederate States faux license plate, all in a state where the only flag not lowered to half-mast was the Confederate Battle Flag that sits astride the front approach to South Carolina’s capitol. The mental gymnastics it took for Haley to blithely claim we’ll never know the motives of a killer who actually told victims what his motives were as well asliterally wearing those motives on his sleeve defy imagination. She has since added more nuance to her public statements on the tragedy (for which the bar was set remarkably low), but still ignores one area in which much of the state–and nation–has focused on: the continuing official presence of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds in Columbia. How can one try to explain away the racist motives of Dylann Roof in a state where the flag of an actual racist regime occupies such pride of place? The short answer is that one cannot do so without extraordinary exertions of willful ignorance. But we also know that this hasn’t stopped racists before.

It’s clear to anyone with a conscience that the battle flag’s continuing prominence in South Carolina, especially at the official level, is an outrage that, especially in the wake of the Charleston shootings, must end. Indeed, there have been some eloquent and eminently persuasive arguments made precisely along those lines in the past 48 hours, and the launch of an online petition. My purpose here is not to parrot those arguments or rehearse the history of the Confederate Flag’s presence in South Carolina. But I am a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras, and I am qualified to engage with the arguments marshaled in defense of the Confederate Flag now intensifying in reaction to the critical voices emanating from throughout the country. When I was completing my Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, the flag actually flew atop the state house dome, along with the US and state flags. In 2000, me and fifteen thousand or so of my closest friends marched on the capitol to demand the flag be removed. It eventually was, but it now sits next to a statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman right in front of the capitol–or, as one pro-flag T-Shirt proclaimed, “Off the dome and IN YOUR FACE.” Then, as now, the pro-flaggers’ arguments (at least the ones they use for respectable public occasions) boil down to “the flag represents the history and heritage of our southern ancestors, not slavery. The Civil War wasn’t about slavery, and neither is the flag. It’s about honor/chivalry/states’ rights/pride/memorializing/crippingly dogmatic ancestor worship.” In short, as the pro-flaggers argued in 2000, as they have before and since, it’s “Heritage, not Hate.”

I Will Not Argue About the Confederate Flag. The Tattooed Professor

And some reading material for people who use the "Heritage not hate" mantra.


Cornerstone Speech - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Columbia American History Online
Avalon Project - Constitution of the Confederate States March 11 1861
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature Nov. 16 1858 where he advocates secession if an abolitionist is elected president.
Louisiana Commissioner Geo. Williamson urges Texas to secede to preserve the blessings of African slavery.
African Colonization Unveiled
Correspondence between Gov. A. B. Moore and Alabama s Commissioner to Delaware
Gilder Lehrman Center Sources Negro Slavery Sociology for the South or the Failure of Free Society
Mississippi. Convention 1861 .Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention Held January 7th to 26th A. D. 1861. Including the Ordinances as Finally Adopted Important Speeches and a List of Members Showing the Postoffice Profession Nativity Politics Age Religious Preference and Social Relations of Each.
Declaration of Causes of Secession
Full text of Journal of the Secession convention of Texas 1861
Documenting the American South Subject Index
Library of Virginia Civil War Research Guide - Secession
Secession Debated Paperback William W. Freehling - Oxford University Press
University of Virginia Press Books

 

[Steve_McGarrett]

Well, it's pretty much settled. The Confederate Battle Flag is representative of short lived nation that wished to impose slavery and invoked white supremacy. They even fought for it. That was the very picture of racism. Whatever your theories are about how the Confederacy was coerced or how it was somehow wronged by the US Government ... I have no desire to debate them. I was bouncing this around amongst my sparse thoughts on whether to post this or not, but given how badly I made myself look in a thread I posted a few hours ago I think I will.

The Confederate flag is a relic of a shameful past. It should never be venerated as some symbol of heritage. Think about it, do you want your heritage to be one of white supremacy and slavery? "Heritage, not hate?"That is a heritage OF hate. Please understand I am not labeling anyone.

What Dylann Roof did was a racial hate crime, and in a negative way, his invocation of the Confederate Flag whilst sitting atop his car is appropriate, a reminder of a sick and twisted past. At the time Nikki Haley gave her response to the shooting, she was not aware of Roof's motivations, and now she has altered her stance according to the evidence being presented. This was racially motivated. And as long as that flag flies at the Capital Statehouse, it will only proceed to keep the painful wounds of the night of June 17, 2015 bare and raw.

However, I will note that selling the General Lee toy car from the Dukes of Hazzard without the Confederate flag on the top is a bit overkill.

I will not argue about the Confederate Flag anymore, beyond this thread.

[THIS IS A DISCLAIMER: Not all of the views expressed by the author of this article represent my own.]

The murder of nine Americans by a terrorist in Charleston Wednesday night, besides being a monumental tragedy, also gave us the absurd spectacle of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (a woman of color) telling us “that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another” as pictures emerged of the killer wearing flags of apartheid regimes on his jacket, sitting on his car with a Confederate States faux license plate, all in a state where the only flag not lowered to half-mast was the Confederate Battle Flag that sits astride the front approach to South Carolina’s capitol. The mental gymnastics it took for Haley to blithely claim we’ll never know the motives of a killer who actually told victims what his motives were as well asliterally wearing those motives on his sleeve defy imagination. She has since added more nuance to her public statements on the tragedy (for which the bar was set remarkably low), but still ignores one area in which much of the state–and nation–has focused on: the continuing official presence of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds in Columbia. How can one try to explain away the racist motives of Dylann Roof in a state where the flag of an actual racist regime occupies such pride of place? The short answer is that one cannot do so without extraordinary exertions of willful ignorance. But we also know that this hasn’t stopped racists before.

It’s clear to anyone with a conscience that the battle flag’s continuing prominence in South Carolina, especially at the official level, is an outrage that, especially in the wake of the Charleston shootings, must end. Indeed, there have been some eloquent and eminently persuasive arguments made precisely along those lines in the past 48 hours, and the launch of an online petition. My purpose here is not to parrot those arguments or rehearse the history of the Confederate Flag’s presence in South Carolina. But I am a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras, and I am qualified to engage with the arguments marshaled in defense of the Confederate Flag now intensifying in reaction to the critical voices emanating from throughout the country. When I was completing my Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, the flag actually flew atop the state house dome, along with the US and state flags. In 2000, me and fifteen thousand or so of my closest friends marched on the capitol to demand the flag be removed. It eventually was, but it now sits next to a statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman right in front of the capitol–or, as one pro-flag T-Shirt proclaimed, “Off the dome and IN YOUR FACE.” Then, as now, the pro-flaggers’ arguments (at least the ones they use for respectable public occasions) boil down to “the flag represents the history and heritage of our southern ancestors, not slavery. The Civil War wasn’t about slavery, and neither is the flag. It’s about honor/chivalry/states’ rights/pride/memorializing/crippingly dogmatic ancestor worship.” In short, as the pro-flaggers argued in 2000, as they have before and since, it’s “Heritage, not Hate.”

I Will Not Argue About the Confederate Flag. The Tattooed Professor

And some reading material for people who use the "Heritage not hate" mantra.


Cornerstone Speech - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Columbia American History Online
Avalon Project - Constitution of the Confederate States March 11 1861
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature Nov. 16 1858 where he advocates secession if an abolitionist is elected president.
Louisiana Commissioner Geo. Williamson urges Texas to secede to preserve the blessings of African slavery.
African Colonization Unveiled
Correspondence between Gov. A. B. Moore and Alabama s Commissioner to Delaware
Gilder Lehrman Center Sources Negro Slavery Sociology for the South or the Failure of Free Society
Mississippi. Convention 1861 .Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention Held January 7th to 26th A. D. 1861. Including the Ordinances as Finally Adopted Important Speeches and a List of Members Showing the Postoffice Profession Nativity Politics Age Religious Preference and Social Relations of Each.
Declaration of Causes of Secession
Full text of Journal of the Secession convention of Texas 1861
Documenting the American South Subject Index
Library of Virginia Civil War Research Guide - Secession
Secession Debated Paperback William W. Freehling - Oxford University Press
University of Virginia Press Books

Hey, Obama apparently loves the Confederate Flag as this little gem has just been revealed.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Well, it's pretty much settled. The Confederate Battle Flag is representative of short lived nation that wished to impose slavery and invoked white supremacy. They even fought for it. That was the very picture of racism. Whatever your theories are about how the Confederacy was coerced or how it was somehow wronged by the US Government ... I have no desire to debate them. I was bouncing this around amongst my sparse thoughts on whether to post this or not, but given how badly I made myself look in a thread I posted a few hours ago I think I will.

The Confederate flag is a relic of a shameful past. It should never be venerated as some symbol of heritage. Think about it, do you want your heritage to be one of white supremacy and slavery? "Heritage, not hate?"That is a heritage OF hate. Please understand I am not labeling anyone.

What Dylann Roof did was a racial hate crime, and in a negative way, his invocation of the Confederate Flag whilst sitting atop his car is appropriate, a reminder of a sick and twisted past. At the time Nikki Haley gave her response to the shooting, she was not aware of Roof's motivations, and now she has altered her stance according to the evidence being presented. This was racially motivated. And as long as that flag flies at the Capital Statehouse, it will only proceed to keep the painful wounds of the night of June 17, 2015 bare and raw.

However, I will note that selling the General Lee toy car from the Dukes of Hazzard without the Confederate flag on the top is a bit overkill.

I will not argue about the Confederate Flag anymore, beyond this thread.

[THIS IS A DISCLAIMER: Not all of the views expressed by the author of this article represent my own.]

The murder of nine Americans by a terrorist in Charleston Wednesday night, besides being a monumental tragedy, also gave us the absurd spectacle of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (a woman of color) telling us “that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another” as pictures emerged of the killer wearing flags of apartheid regimes on his jacket, sitting on his car with a Confederate States faux license plate, all in a state where the only flag not lowered to half-mast was the Confederate Battle Flag that sits astride the front approach to South Carolina’s capitol. The mental gymnastics it took for Haley to blithely claim we’ll never know the motives of a killer who actually told victims what his motives were as well asliterally wearing those motives on his sleeve defy imagination. She has since added more nuance to her public statements on the tragedy (for which the bar was set remarkably low), but still ignores one area in which much of the state–and nation–has focused on: the continuing official presence of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds in Columbia. How can one try to explain away the racist motives of Dylann Roof in a state where the flag of an actual racist regime occupies such pride of place? The short answer is that one cannot do so without extraordinary exertions of willful ignorance. But we also know that this hasn’t stopped racists before.

It’s clear to anyone with a conscience that the battle flag’s continuing prominence in South Carolina, especially at the official level, is an outrage that, especially in the wake of the Charleston shootings, must end. Indeed, there have been some eloquent and eminently persuasive arguments made precisely along those lines in the past 48 hours, and the launch of an online petition. My purpose here is not to parrot those arguments or rehearse the history of the Confederate Flag’s presence in South Carolina. But I am a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras, and I am qualified to engage with the arguments marshaled in defense of the Confederate Flag now intensifying in reaction to the critical voices emanating from throughout the country. When I was completing my Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, the flag actually flew atop the state house dome, along with the US and state flags. In 2000, me and fifteen thousand or so of my closest friends marched on the capitol to demand the flag be removed. It eventually was, but it now sits next to a statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman right in front of the capitol–or, as one pro-flag T-Shirt proclaimed, “Off the dome and IN YOUR FACE.” Then, as now, the pro-flaggers’ arguments (at least the ones they use for respectable public occasions) boil down to “the flag represents the history and heritage of our southern ancestors, not slavery. The Civil War wasn’t about slavery, and neither is the flag. It’s about honor/chivalry/states’ rights/pride/memorializing/crippingly dogmatic ancestor worship.” In short, as the pro-flaggers argued in 2000, as they have before and since, it’s “Heritage, not Hate.”

I Will Not Argue About the Confederate Flag. The Tattooed Professor

And some reading material for people who use the "Heritage not hate" mantra.


Cornerstone Speech - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Columbia American History Online
Avalon Project - Constitution of the Confederate States March 11 1861
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature Nov. 16 1858 where he advocates secession if an abolitionist is elected president.
Louisiana Commissioner Geo. Williamson urges Texas to secede to preserve the blessings of African slavery.
African Colonization Unveiled
Correspondence between Gov. A. B. Moore and Alabama s Commissioner to Delaware
Gilder Lehrman Center Sources Negro Slavery Sociology for the South or the Failure of Free Society
Mississippi. Convention 1861 .Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention Held January 7th to 26th A. D. 1861. Including the Ordinances as Finally Adopted Important Speeches and a List of Members Showing the Postoffice Profession Nativity Politics Age Religious Preference and Social Relations of Each.
Declaration of Causes of Secession
Full text of Journal of the Secession convention of Texas 1861
Documenting the American South Subject Index
Library of Virginia Civil War Research Guide - Secession
Secession Debated Paperback William W. Freehling - Oxford University Press
University of Virginia Press Books

Hey, Obama apparently loves the Confederate Flag as this little gem has just been revealed.

Oh yes, and anyone who attempts to capitalize off of it are despicable.

 

[Steve_McGarrett]

Well, it's pretty much settled. The Confederate Battle Flag is representative of short lived nation that wished to impose slavery and invoked white supremacy. They even fought for it. That was the very picture of racism. Whatever your theories are about how the Confederacy was coerced or how it was somehow wronged by the US Government ... I have no desire to debate them. I was bouncing this around amongst my sparse thoughts on whether to post this or not, but given how badly I made myself look in a thread I posted a few hours ago I think I will.

The Confederate flag is a relic of a shameful past. It should never be venerated as some symbol of heritage. Think about it, do you want your heritage to be one of white supremacy and slavery? "Heritage, not hate?"That is a heritage OF hate. Please understand I am not labeling anyone.

What Dylann Roof did was a racial hate crime, and in a negative way, his invocation of the Confederate Flag whilst sitting atop his car is appropriate, a reminder of a sick and twisted past. At the time Nikki Haley gave her response to the shooting, she was not aware of Roof's motivations, and now she has altered her stance according to the evidence being presented. This was racially motivated. And as long as that flag flies at the Capital Statehouse, it will only proceed to keep the painful wounds of the night of June 17, 2015 bare and raw.

However, I will note that selling the General Lee toy car from the Dukes of Hazzard without the Confederate flag on the top is a bit overkill.

I will not argue about the Confederate Flag anymore, beyond this thread.

[THIS IS A DISCLAIMER: Not all of the views expressed by the author of this article represent my own.]

The murder of nine Americans by a terrorist in Charleston Wednesday night, besides being a monumental tragedy, also gave us the absurd spectacle of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (a woman of color) telling us “that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another” as pictures emerged of the killer wearing flags of apartheid regimes on his jacket, sitting on his car with a Confederate States faux license plate, all in a state where the only flag not lowered to half-mast was the Confederate Battle Flag that sits astride the front approach to South Carolina’s capitol. The mental gymnastics it took for Haley to blithely claim we’ll never know the motives of a killer who actually told victims what his motives were as well asliterally wearing those motives on his sleeve defy imagination. She has since added more nuance to her public statements on the tragedy (for which the bar was set remarkably low), but still ignores one area in which much of the state–and nation–has focused on: the continuing official presence of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds in Columbia. How can one try to explain away the racist motives of Dylann Roof in a state where the flag of an actual racist regime occupies such pride of place? The short answer is that one cannot do so without extraordinary exertions of willful ignorance. But we also know that this hasn’t stopped racists before.

It’s clear to anyone with a conscience that the battle flag’s continuing prominence in South Carolina, especially at the official level, is an outrage that, especially in the wake of the Charleston shootings, must end. Indeed, there have been some eloquent and eminently persuasive arguments made precisely along those lines in the past 48 hours, and the launch of an online petition. My purpose here is not to parrot those arguments or rehearse the history of the Confederate Flag’s presence in South Carolina. But I am a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras, and I am qualified to engage with the arguments marshaled in defense of the Confederate Flag now intensifying in reaction to the critical voices emanating from throughout the country. When I was completing my Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, the flag actually flew atop the state house dome, along with the US and state flags. In 2000, me and fifteen thousand or so of my closest friends marched on the capitol to demand the flag be removed. It eventually was, but it now sits next to a statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman right in front of the capitol–or, as one pro-flag T-Shirt proclaimed, “Off the dome and IN YOUR FACE.” Then, as now, the pro-flaggers’ arguments (at least the ones they use for respectable public occasions) boil down to “the flag represents the history and heritage of our southern ancestors, not slavery. The Civil War wasn’t about slavery, and neither is the flag. It’s about honor/chivalry/states’ rights/pride/memorializing/crippingly dogmatic ancestor worship.” In short, as the pro-flaggers argued in 2000, as they have before and since, it’s “Heritage, not Hate.”

I Will Not Argue About the Confederate Flag. The Tattooed Professor

And some reading material for people who use the "Heritage not hate" mantra.


Cornerstone Speech - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Columbia American History Online
Avalon Project - Constitution of the Confederate States March 11 1861
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature Nov. 16 1858 where he advocates secession if an abolitionist is elected president.
Louisiana Commissioner Geo. Williamson urges Texas to secede to preserve the blessings of African slavery.
African Colonization Unveiled
Correspondence between Gov. A. B. Moore and Alabama s Commissioner to Delaware
Gilder Lehrman Center Sources Negro Slavery Sociology for the South or the Failure of Free Society
Mississippi. Convention 1861 .Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention Held January 7th to 26th A. D. 1861. Including the Ordinances as Finally Adopted Important Speeches and a List of Members Showing the Postoffice Profession Nativity Politics Age Religious Preference and Social Relations of Each.
Declaration of Causes of Secession
Full text of Journal of the Secession convention of Texas 1861
Documenting the American South Subject Index
Library of Virginia Civil War Research Guide - Secession
Secession Debated Paperback William W. Freehling - Oxford University Press
University of Virginia Press Books

Hey, Obama apparently loves the Confederate Flag as this little gem has just been revealed.

Oh yes, and anyone who attempts to capitalize off it are despicable.

I love that flag. It's a symbol of states rights and great southern prideful heritage. It's just a beautiful sight to behold.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Well, it's pretty much settled. The Confederate Battle Flag is representative of short lived nation that wished to impose slavery and invoked white supremacy. They even fought for it. That was the very picture of racism. Whatever your theories are about how the Confederacy was coerced or how it was somehow wronged by the US Government ... I have no desire to debate them. I was bouncing this around amongst my sparse thoughts on whether to post this or not, but given how badly I made myself look in a thread I posted a few hours ago I think I will.

The Confederate flag is a relic of a shameful past. It should never be venerated as some symbol of heritage. Think about it, do you want your heritage to be one of white supremacy and slavery? "Heritage, not hate?"That is a heritage OF hate. Please understand I am not labeling anyone.

What Dylann Roof did was a racial hate crime, and in a negative way, his invocation of the Confederate Flag whilst sitting atop his car is appropriate, a reminder of a sick and twisted past. At the time Nikki Haley gave her response to the shooting, she was not aware of Roof's motivations, and now she has altered her stance according to the evidence being presented. This was racially motivated. And as long as that flag flies at the Capital Statehouse, it will only proceed to keep the painful wounds of the night of June 17, 2015 bare and raw.

However, I will note that selling the General Lee toy car from the Dukes of Hazzard without the Confederate flag on the top is a bit overkill.

I will not argue about the Confederate Flag anymore, beyond this thread.

[THIS IS A DISCLAIMER: Not all of the views expressed by the author of this article represent my own.]

The murder of nine Americans by a terrorist in Charleston Wednesday night, besides being a monumental tragedy, also gave us the absurd spectacle of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (a woman of color) telling us “that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another” as pictures emerged of the killer wearing flags of apartheid regimes on his jacket, sitting on his car with a Confederate States faux license plate, all in a state where the only flag not lowered to half-mast was the Confederate Battle Flag that sits astride the front approach to South Carolina’s capitol. The mental gymnastics it took for Haley to blithely claim we’ll never know the motives of a killer who actually told victims what his motives were as well asliterally wearing those motives on his sleeve defy imagination. She has since added more nuance to her public statements on the tragedy (for which the bar was set remarkably low), but still ignores one area in which much of the state–and nation–has focused on: the continuing official presence of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds in Columbia. How can one try to explain away the racist motives of Dylann Roof in a state where the flag of an actual racist regime occupies such pride of place? The short answer is that one cannot do so without extraordinary exertions of willful ignorance. But we also know that this hasn’t stopped racists before.

It’s clear to anyone with a conscience that the battle flag’s continuing prominence in South Carolina, especially at the official level, is an outrage that, especially in the wake of the Charleston shootings, must end. Indeed, there have been some eloquent and eminently persuasive arguments made precisely along those lines in the past 48 hours, and the launch of an online petition. My purpose here is not to parrot those arguments or rehearse the history of the Confederate Flag’s presence in South Carolina. But I am a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras, and I am qualified to engage with the arguments marshaled in defense of the Confederate Flag now intensifying in reaction to the critical voices emanating from throughout the country. When I was completing my Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, the flag actually flew atop the state house dome, along with the US and state flags. In 2000, me and fifteen thousand or so of my closest friends marched on the capitol to demand the flag be removed. It eventually was, but it now sits next to a statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman right in front of the capitol–or, as one pro-flag T-Shirt proclaimed, “Off the dome and IN YOUR FACE.” Then, as now, the pro-flaggers’ arguments (at least the ones they use for respectable public occasions) boil down to “the flag represents the history and heritage of our southern ancestors, not slavery. The Civil War wasn’t about slavery, and neither is the flag. It’s about honor/chivalry/states’ rights/pride/memorializing/crippingly dogmatic ancestor worship.” In short, as the pro-flaggers argued in 2000, as they have before and since, it’s “Heritage, not Hate.”

I Will Not Argue About the Confederate Flag. The Tattooed Professor

And some reading material for people who use the "Heritage not hate" mantra.


Cornerstone Speech - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Columbia American History Online
Avalon Project - Constitution of the Confederate States March 11 1861
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature Nov. 16 1858 where he advocates secession if an abolitionist is elected president.
Louisiana Commissioner Geo. Williamson urges Texas to secede to preserve the blessings of African slavery.
African Colonization Unveiled
Correspondence between Gov. A. B. Moore and Alabama s Commissioner to Delaware
Gilder Lehrman Center Sources Negro Slavery Sociology for the South or the Failure of Free Society
Mississippi. Convention 1861 .Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention Held January 7th to 26th A. D. 1861. Including the Ordinances as Finally Adopted Important Speeches and a List of Members Showing the Postoffice Profession Nativity Politics Age Religious Preference and Social Relations of Each.
Declaration of Causes of Secession
Full text of Journal of the Secession convention of Texas 1861
Documenting the American South Subject Index
Library of Virginia Civil War Research Guide - Secession
Secession Debated Paperback William W. Freehling - Oxford University Press
University of Virginia Press Books

Hey, Obama apparently loves the Confederate Flag as this little gem has just been revealed.

Oh yes, and anyone who attempts to capitalize off it are despicable.

I love that flag. It's a symbol of states rights and great southern prideful heritage. It's just a beautiful sight to behold.

And you are entitled to your "heritage."

 

[Steve_McGarrett]

Well, it's pretty much settled. The Confederate Battle Flag is representative of short lived nation that wished to impose slavery and invoked white supremacy. They even fought for it. That was the very picture of racism. Whatever your theories are about how the Confederacy was coerced or how it was somehow wronged by the US Government ... I have no desire to debate them. I was bouncing this around amongst my sparse thoughts on whether to post this or not, but given how badly I made myself look in a thread I posted a few hours ago I think I will.

The Confederate flag is a relic of a shameful past. It should never be venerated as some symbol of heritage. Think about it, do you want your heritage to be one of white supremacy and slavery? "Heritage, not hate?"That is a heritage OF hate. Please understand I am not labeling anyone.

What Dylann Roof did was a racial hate crime, and in a negative way, his invocation of the Confederate Flag whilst sitting atop his car is appropriate, a reminder of a sick and twisted past. At the time Nikki Haley gave her response to the shooting, she was not aware of Roof's motivations, and now she has altered her stance according to the evidence being presented. This was racially motivated. And as long as that flag flies at the Capital Statehouse, it will only proceed to keep the painful wounds of the night of June 17, 2015 bare and raw.

However, I will note that selling the General Lee toy car from the Dukes of Hazzard without the Confederate flag on the top is a bit overkill.

I will not argue about the Confederate Flag anymore, beyond this thread.

[THIS IS A DISCLAIMER: Not all of the views expressed by the author of this article represent my own.]

The murder of nine Americans by a terrorist in Charleston Wednesday night, besides being a monumental tragedy, also gave us the absurd spectacle of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (a woman of color) telling us “that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another” as pictures emerged of the killer wearing flags of apartheid regimes on his jacket, sitting on his car with a Confederate States faux license plate, all in a state where the only flag not lowered to half-mast was the Confederate Battle Flag that sits astride the front approach to South Carolina’s capitol. The mental gymnastics it took for Haley to blithely claim we’ll never know the motives of a killer who actually told victims what his motives were as well asliterally wearing those motives on his sleeve defy imagination. She has since added more nuance to her public statements on the tragedy (for which the bar was set remarkably low), but still ignores one area in which much of the state–and nation–has focused on: the continuing official presence of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds in Columbia. How can one try to explain away the racist motives of Dylann Roof in a state where the flag of an actual racist regime occupies such pride of place? The short answer is that one cannot do so without extraordinary exertions of willful ignorance. But we also know that this hasn’t stopped racists before.

It’s clear to anyone with a conscience that the battle flag’s continuing prominence in South Carolina, especially at the official level, is an outrage that, especially in the wake of the Charleston shootings, must end. Indeed, there have been some eloquent and eminently persuasive arguments made precisely along those lines in the past 48 hours, and the launch of an online petition. My purpose here is not to parrot those arguments or rehearse the history of the Confederate Flag’s presence in South Carolina. But I am a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras, and I am qualified to engage with the arguments marshaled in defense of the Confederate Flag now intensifying in reaction to the critical voices emanating from throughout the country. When I was completing my Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, the flag actually flew atop the state house dome, along with the US and state flags. In 2000, me and fifteen thousand or so of my closest friends marched on the capitol to demand the flag be removed. It eventually was, but it now sits next to a statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman right in front of the capitol–or, as one pro-flag T-Shirt proclaimed, “Off the dome and IN YOUR FACE.” Then, as now, the pro-flaggers’ arguments (at least the ones they use for respectable public occasions) boil down to “the flag represents the history and heritage of our southern ancestors, not slavery. The Civil War wasn’t about slavery, and neither is the flag. It’s about honor/chivalry/states’ rights/pride/memorializing/crippingly dogmatic ancestor worship.” In short, as the pro-flaggers argued in 2000, as they have before and since, it’s “Heritage, not Hate.”

I Will Not Argue About the Confederate Flag. The Tattooed Professor

And some reading material for people who use the "Heritage not hate" mantra.


Cornerstone Speech - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Columbia American History Online
Avalon Project - Constitution of the Confederate States March 11 1861
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature Nov. 16 1858 where he advocates secession if an abolitionist is elected president.
Louisiana Commissioner Geo. Williamson urges Texas to secede to preserve the blessings of African slavery.
African Colonization Unveiled
Correspondence between Gov. A. B. Moore and Alabama s Commissioner to Delaware
Gilder Lehrman Center Sources Negro Slavery Sociology for the South or the Failure of Free Society
Mississippi. Convention 1861 .Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention Held January 7th to 26th A. D. 1861. Including the Ordinances as Finally Adopted Important Speeches and a List of Members Showing the Postoffice Profession Nativity Politics Age Religious Preference and Social Relations of Each.
Declaration of Causes of Secession
Full text of Journal of the Secession convention of Texas 1861
Documenting the American South Subject Index
Library of Virginia Civil War Research Guide - Secession
Secession Debated Paperback William W. Freehling - Oxford University Press
University of Virginia Press Books

Hey, Obama apparently loves the Confederate Flag as this little gem has just been revealed.

Oh yes, and anyone who attempts to capitalize off it are despicable.

I love that flag. It's a symbol of states rights and great southern prideful heritage. It's just a beautiful sight to behold.

And you are entitled to your "heritage."

Of course and I embrace every bit of it.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Well, you don't have to listen to a word I have to say, Steve but I will not associate myself with a confederation of states which fought for and carried out institutionalized slavery and racism.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Now, this does not give some liberals (yes, you know who you are) the excuse to continue labeling The South, as it is now, as inherently racist for its past. That is quite dishonest.

 

[DarkFury]

Well, you don't have to listen to a word I have to say, Steve but I will not associate myself with a confederation of states which fought for and carried out institutionalized slavery and racism.

Now you may have hit a small problem. It was under the U.S. flag native Americans were placed on reservations. It was ALSO under that SAME flag Japanese were interned.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Now you may have hit a small problem. It was under the U.S. flag native Americans were placed on reservations. It was ALSO under that SAME flag Japanese were interned.

Of course. But the Confederate Battle Flag was the very exclamation "I am fighting for slavery and the supremacy of my blood, and I will shed blood for it!"

Bastardizing the American flag to perpetuate the Trail of Tears or the Japanese internment cams is no better. "My freedom dictates that I take away yours."

 

[DarkFury]

Now you may have hit a small problem. It was under the U.S. flag native Americans were placed on reservations. It was ALSO under that SAME flag Japanese were interned.

Of course. But the Confederate Battle Flag was the very exclamation "I am fighting for slavery and the supremacy of my blood, and I will shed blood for it!"

Bastardizing the American flag to perpetuate the Trail of Tears or the Japanese internment cams is no better. "My freedom dictates that I take away yours."

The greater point I was trying to make was is there ANY flag not adorned with some sort of hate? I honestly cannot think of one.

 

[TemplarKormac]

And I find it interesting that people are now trying to bring down the American flag as some sort of misused symbol of hatred and oppression like the Confederate Battle Flag allegedly was. I would appreciate it if people wouldn't do that.

We have healed those wounds, the American Flag represents (or is supposed to) the freedom of everyone, of every race, of any creed or conscience. By continuing to paint the Confederate Battle Flag as some symbol of heritage only keeps centuries old wounds from healing.

 

[TemplarKormac]

The greater point I was trying to make was is there ANY flag not adorned with some sort of hate? I honestly cannot think of one.

I agree, flags will represent some form of hatred to someone. But one was made to send a statement of slavery and racial oppression, the other is supposed to represent the antithesis of the other.

But like I said heretofore in my other thread, what people are doing with the Confederate Flag is a misrepresentation of its history. You can't say "it's my heritage" without full well knowing what it was intended to stand for.

 

[TemplarKormac]

"The symbol was used to enslave the little brothers and sisters of Jesus, to bomb little girls in church buildings, to terrorize preachers of the gospel and their families with burning crosses on front lawns by night. . . . The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire.”

--Russell D. Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention

 

[TemplarKormac]

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil with evil. Be careful to do what is honorable in the eyes of everyone. If at all possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

Romans 12:14-18

 

[irosie91]

Well, it's pretty much settled. The Confederate Battle Flag is representative of short lived nation that wished to impose slavery and invoked white supremacy. They even fought for it. That was the very picture of racism. Whatever your theories are about how the Confederacy was coerced or how it was somehow wronged by the US Government ... I have no desire to debate them. I was bouncing this around amongst my sparse thoughts on whether to post this or not, but given how badly I made myself look in a thread I posted a few hours ago I think I will.

The Confederate flag is a relic of a shameful past. It should never be venerated as some symbol of heritage. Think about it, do you want your heritage to be one of white supremacy and slavery? "Heritage, not hate?"That is a heritage OF hate. Please understand I am not labeling anyone.

What Dylann Roof did was a racial hate crime, and in a negative way, his invocation of the Confederate Flag whilst sitting atop his car is appropriate, a reminder of a sick and twisted past. At the time Nikki Haley gave her response to the shooting, she was not aware of Roof's motivations, and now she has altered her stance according to the evidence being presented. This was racially motivated. And as long as that flag flies at the Capital Statehouse, it will only proceed to keep the painful wounds of the night of June 17, 2015 bare and raw.

However, I will note that selling the General Lee toy car from the Dukes of Hazzard without the Confederate flag on the top is a bit overkill.

I will not argue about the Confederate Flag anymore, beyond this thread.

[THIS IS A DISCLAIMER: Not all of the views expressed by the author of this article represent my own.]

The murder of nine Americans by a terrorist in Charleston Wednesday night, besides being a monumental tragedy, also gave us the absurd spectacle of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (a woman of color) telling us “that we’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another” as pictures emerged of the killer wearing flags of apartheid regimes on his jacket, sitting on his car with a Confederate States faux license plate, all in a state where the only flag not lowered to half-mast was the Confederate Battle Flag that sits astride the front approach to South Carolina’s capitol. The mental gymnastics it took for Haley to blithely claim we’ll never know the motives of a killer who actually told victims what his motives were as well asliterally wearing those motives on his sleeve defy imagination. She has since added more nuance to her public statements on the tragedy (for which the bar was set remarkably low), but still ignores one area in which much of the state–and nation–has focused on: the continuing official presence of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds in Columbia. How can one try to explain away the racist motives of Dylann Roof in a state where the flag of an actual racist regime occupies such pride of place? The short answer is that one cannot do so without extraordinary exertions of willful ignorance. But we also know that this hasn’t stopped racists before.

It’s clear to anyone with a conscience that the battle flag’s continuing prominence in South Carolina, especially at the official level, is an outrage that, especially in the wake of the Charleston shootings, must end. Indeed, there have been some eloquent and eminently persuasive arguments made precisely along those lines in the past 48 hours, and the launch of an online petition. My purpose here is not to parrot those arguments or rehearse the history of the Confederate Flag’s presence in South Carolina. But I am a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras, and I am qualified to engage with the arguments marshaled in defense of the Confederate Flag now intensifying in reaction to the critical voices emanating from throughout the country. When I was completing my Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, the flag actually flew atop the state house dome, along with the US and state flags. In 2000, me and fifteen thousand or so of my closest friends marched on the capitol to demand the flag be removed. It eventually was, but it now sits next to a statue of Pitchfork Ben Tillman right in front of the capitol–or, as one pro-flag T-Shirt proclaimed, “Off the dome and IN YOUR FACE.” Then, as now, the pro-flaggers’ arguments (at least the ones they use for respectable public occasions) boil down to “the flag represents the history and heritage of our southern ancestors, not slavery. The Civil War wasn’t about slavery, and neither is the flag. It’s about honor/chivalry/states’ rights/pride/memorializing/crippingly dogmatic ancestor worship.” In short, as the pro-flaggers argued in 2000, as they have before and since, it’s “Heritage, not Hate.”

I Will Not Argue About the Confederate Flag. The Tattooed Professor

And some reading material for people who use the "Heritage not hate" mantra.


Cornerstone Speech - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
Columbia American History Online
Avalon Project - Constitution of the Confederate States March 11 1861
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature Nov. 16 1858 where he advocates secession if an abolitionist is elected president.
Louisiana Commissioner Geo. Williamson urges Texas to secede to preserve the blessings of African slavery.
African Colonization Unveiled
Correspondence between Gov. A. B. Moore and Alabama s Commissioner to Delaware
Gilder Lehrman Center Sources Negro Slavery Sociology for the South or the Failure of Free Society
Mississippi. Convention 1861 .Proceedings of the Mississippi State Convention Held January 7th to 26th A. D. 1861. Including the Ordinances as Finally Adopted Important Speeches and a List of Members Showing the Postoffice Profession Nativity Politics Age Religious Preference and Social Relations of Each.
Declaration of Causes of Secession
Full text of Journal of the Secession convention of Texas 1861
Documenting the American South Subject Index
Library of Virginia Civil War Research Guide - Secession
Secession Debated Paperback William W. Freehling - Oxford University Press
University of Virginia Press Books

Hey, Obama apparently loves the Confederate Flag as this little gem has just been revealed.

Oh yes, and anyone who attempts to capitalize off it are despicable.

I love that flag. It's a symbol of states rights and great southern prideful heritage. It's just a beautiful sight to behold.

OK----it WAS a symbol of DIXIE-----your good ole' boy DYLAAN ---stained it with innocent blood FOREVER. It's all over for the BONNIE BLUE

 

[TyroneSlothrop]

 

[JoeB131]

However, I will note that selling the General Lee toy car from the Dukes of Hazzard without the Confederate flag on the top is a bit overkill.

Did you see the "Auto-Trader" commercial with the washed up actors from that show? They've already removed the Stars and Bars from the car.

 

[Statistikhengst]

Ahhh, the most odious smell of RWNJ butthurt on a Wednesday morning.. fun!

 

[Kondor3]

Personally, I will be sad to see it go.

I'm a Union Man, through and through, as were that portion of "my people" who were living in America at the time, and the broader family lost one of its own in that war.

But the flag has kept alive the memory of Rebellion and States Rights and Defending One's Home and its soldiers fought with great tenacity and cunning and courage and heart.

It represents a huge part of the American Past and the American Soul, and it has been tolerated for 150 years as a way to heal the Old Breach between North and South.

To White Folk of the South, it stands far more for regional pride and heritage and to honor their Sacred Dead, than it has anything to do in their minds with Slavery or Jim Crow.

Of course, for Black Folk, it's a different perception, but, this is another instance of a Minority making demands of the Majority.

With the Majority showing its present-day spinelessness and caving into those demands without regard for the precious nature fo what is being lost.

If it means something good, to more people than those for which it means something bad, then it should be retained.

If not, it should go.

It was once the flag of those who tried to dissolve their (until then) voluntary allegiance to The Union, and to create a new country of their own, out of its Southern regions.

The high-profile people of the times - Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Chamberlain, et al - were far kinder to the Losers of the Civil War, than we are at a distance of 150 years.

The high-profile people of the times treated their vanquished adversaries with respect and honor and allowed them to retain their symbols, once they made their submission.

We have continued to provide that accommodation to their heirs and descendants out of a sense of awe and wonder for the agony through which our Nation passed.

Until now.

Now... with a Black President in his waning lame-duck days, and fueled by the Left-leaning elements of the mainstream media in the wake of a frightful and gawdawful racism-motivated mass shooting in a Charleston, SC, church... killing 9 innocent souls... we now find ourselves in the rushed and hurried orgasmic spasm of such flag-bashing.

Knee-jerk reactions made possible by a distance of 150 years since the close of the Civil War and the passing of most of those to whom the old symbols meant something, in the context of pride and honor and self-determination.

The times have changed, once again.

The People have spoken.

So be it.