The racist history of the confederate flag

[Statistikhengst]

It is not a flag of southern heritage...but a flag of hate and subjugation

The surprisingly uncomplicated racist history of the Confederate flag

First sewn in 1861 — there were about 120 created for the war — the flag was flown by the cavalry of P.G.T. Beauregard, the Confederacy's first duly appointed general, after he took Manassas, Virginia, in the first Battle of Bull Run.
After the Civil War, the flag saw limited (and quite appropriate) use at first: It commemorated the sons of the South who died during the war.
But never did the flag represent some amorphous concept of Southern heritage, or Southern pride, or a legacy that somehow includes everything good anyone ever did south of the Mason-Dixon line, slavery excluded.
Fast-forward about 100 years, past thousands of lynchings in the South, past Jim Crow and Plessy v. Ferguson, past the state-sanctioned economic and political subjugation of black people, and beyond the New Deal that all too often gave privileges to the white working class to the specific exclusion of black people.
In 1948, Strom Thurmond's States' Rights Party adopted the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia as a symbol of defiance against the federal government. What precisely required such defiance? The president's powers to enforce civil rights laws in the South, as represented by the Democratic Party's somewhat progressive platform on civil rights.
Georgia adopted its version of the flag design in 1956 to protest the Supreme Court's ruling against segregated schools, in Brown v. Board of Education.
The flag first flew over the state capitol in South Carolina in 1962, a year after George Wallace raised it over the grounds of the legislature in Alabama, quite specifically to link more aggressive efforts to integrate the South with the trigger of secession 100 years before — namely, the storming of occupied Fort Sumter by federal troops. Fort Sumter, you might recall, is located at the mouth of Charleston Harbor.
Opposition to civil rights legislation, to integration, to miscegenation, to social equality for black people — these are the major plot points that make up the flag's recent history.




..

Do you feel the same way about the southern states as you do about a piece of cloth? If not, I'd suggest you get your priorities straight.

A flag isn't the problem.

Obviously it is

It's obvious it's been co-opted by racists. That's not the same thing, nor grounds for punitive measures against it.

If the South wanted to make a flag specificly to express racist ideology it'd be like that South Park one with white people and a hanging black man on a gallows.

As it is, it's only as racist as the observer makes it. They're nothing whatsoever intrinsically racist about it.

What is intrinsically racist is it represents a country that was formed to ensure the institution of slavery is preserved

BINGO.

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[Bill Angel]

As it is, it's only as racist as the observer makes it. They're nothing whatsoever intrinsically racist about it.

Well, the people in this picture may not be racists, but I don't see any blacks in the crowd.

 

[rightwinger]

As it is, it's only as racist as the observer makes it. They're nothing whatsoever intrinsically racist about it.

Well, the people in this picture may not be racists, but I don't see any blacks in the crowd.
View attachment 43064

Looks like they won't be able to buy those flags at Walmart anymore

 

[gipper]

This is another non-issued ginned up by trouble makers designed to divide Americans.

The flag is the divisive element. It represents the greatest and most costly division in American history.

and so in your small mind that means it must be censored. How is that American?

You of all people, our beloved statist court jester should know imposing censorship is not freedom, but the opposite...but then again, maybe you don't.

...and thanks to your beloved Dishonest Abe for creating the most divisive event in American history.

Censored, maybe not...except the government has no business flying it. Any private citizen who wants to fly it should go right ahead....and we will know them for what they are.

The government has no business doing most of what it does.

Removing a flag is the least of our problems, but it does help to further divide Americans and divert our attention from much bigger problems government is the cause of.

 

[MaryL]

Unsurprisingly we aren't surprised. The Confederacy was all about states rights, and those rights were about preserving the rich white land owners's right to own other people. Not a nobel cause. Given that a lot of slave owning southerners years earlier signed their names to the Constitution. "All men are created equal" wasn't taken literally.

 

[whitehall]

It is not a flag of southern heritage...but a flag of hate and subjugation

The surprisingly uncomplicated racist history of the Confederate flag

First sewn in 1861 — there were about 120 created for the war — the flag was flown by the cavalry of P.G.T. Beauregard, the Confederacy's first duly appointed general, after he took Manassas, Virginia, in the first Battle of Bull Run.
After the Civil War, the flag saw limited (and quite appropriate) use at first: It commemorated the sons of the South who died during the war.
But never did the flag represent some amorphous concept of Southern heritage, or Southern pride, or a legacy that somehow includes everything good anyone ever did south of the Mason-Dixon line, slavery excluded.
Fast-forward about 100 years, past thousands of lynchings in the South, past Jim Crow and Plessy v. Ferguson, past the state-sanctioned economic and political subjugation of black people, and beyond the New Deal that all too often gave privileges to the white working class to the specific exclusion of black people.
In 1948, Strom Thurmond's States' Rights Party adopted the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia as a symbol of defiance against the federal government. What precisely required such defiance? The president's powers to enforce civil rights laws in the South, as represented by the Democratic Party's somewhat progressive platform on civil rights.
Georgia adopted its version of the flag design in 1956 to protest the Supreme Court's ruling against segregated schools, in Brown v. Board of Education.
The flag first flew over the state capitol in South Carolina in 1962, a year after George Wallace raised it over the grounds of the legislature in Alabama, quite specifically to link more aggressive efforts to integrate the South with the trigger of secession 100 years before — namely, the storming of occupied Fort Sumter by federal troops. Fort Sumter, you might recall, is located at the mouth of Charleston Harbor.
Opposition to civil rights legislation, to integration, to miscegenation, to social equality for black people — these are the major plot points that make up the flag's recent history.




..

"First sewn in 1861"? That was a good two hundred years after slavery was established in the new world. The last Northern state to outlaw slavery was New Jersey and it was only about ten years before the "Confederate flag was sewn". How do we judge the other two hundred years of slavery? Do we forgive New Jersey for the other two hundred years and condemn the Confederacy for four years? How do we judge maniacs who commit murder and wave the Stars and Stripes or worse how do we judge mass murders like the jihad Army Major who killed more people on behalf of Mohammed?

 

[Statistikhengst]

As it is, it's only as racist as the observer makes it. They're nothing whatsoever intrinsically racist about it.

Well, the people in this picture may not be racists, but I don't see any blacks in the crowd.
View attachment 43064

Looks like they won't be able to buy those flags at Walmart anymore

Those goddamned Librulz running Walmart!!!

 

[Statistikhengst]

Unsurprisingly we aren't surprised. The Confederacy was all about states rights, and those rights were about preserving the rich white land owners's right to own other people. Not a nobel cause. Given that a lot of slave owning southerners years earlier signed their names to the Constitution. "All men are created equal" wasn't taken literally.

Not just "other people".

Black people.

Indentured servitude of non-blacks was long a thing of the past.

 

[Politico]

To clarify again for all you idiot Millennials. The Southern Cross is not the Confederate flag. The Stars and Bars was. Put down your iPhones and pick up a fucking book.

 

[Camp]

To clarify again for all you idiot Millennials. The Southern Cross is not the Confederate flag. The Stars and Bars was. Put down your iPhones and pick up a fucking book.

The history of the confederate flag is confusing because it changed over time. The Southern Cross was incorporated into the flag in the final two of the three versions according to this chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy and other sources like Wiki.

txudc.org/flags.html

 

[mcguiver1000]

Bullshit... It is not a symbol of racism...
If the confederate side won the civil war then we would be having this discussion over the Stars and Stripes. It is still a symbol of our history and has nothing to do with hatred, racism or bigotry. It is our history and like all, good and bad needs to be remembered and embraced for what it is. A flag of our history and nothing else.



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[rightwinger]

Bullshit... It is not a symbol of racism...
If the confederate side won the civil war then we would be having this discussion over the Stars and Stripes. It is still a symbol of our history and has nothing to do with hatred, racism or bigotry. It is our history and like all, good and bad needs to be remembered and embraced for what it is. A flag of our history and nothing else.



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It is the flag of a racist society

A society formed for the sole purpose of ensuring the right to slavery.

 

[thanatos144]

Bullshit... It is not a symbol of racism...
If the confederate side won the civil war then we would be having this discussion over the Stars and Stripes. It is still a symbol of our history and has nothing to do with hatred, racism or bigotry. It is our history and like all, good and bad needs to be remembered and embraced for what it is. A flag of our history and nothing else.



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It is the flag of a racist society

A society formed for the sole purpose of ensuring the right to slavery.

It is a symbol of democrats and their history of being pro slavery, Jim crow laws , segregation and pro KKK. Al Gores own father filibustered the 1964 civil rights act.

 

[Ravi]

Bullshit... It is not a symbol of racism...
If the confederate side won the civil war then we would be having this discussion over the Stars and Stripes. It is still a symbol of our history and has nothing to do with hatred, racism or bigotry. It is our history and like all, good and bad needs to be remembered and embraced for what it is. A flag of our history and nothing else.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It is the flag of a racist society

A society formed for the sole purpose of ensuring the right to slavery.

It is a symbol of democrats and their history of being pro slavery, Jim crow laws , segregation and pro KKK. Al Gores own father filibustered the 1964 civil rights act.

Then no one will be sad to see it go.

 

[Correll]

the context of the question is the flag raised over castle shuri after the battle of okinawa.

a general who was the son of a confederate general ordered it lowered after several days.

he stated why he though it should be lowered.

it was not because it was treasonous.

it was not because it was hateful.

it was not because it was racist.

It was because americans from all over took part the battle, not just southerners.

At least be honest enough to tell the story or myth the way it is told. An New England officer from another unit complained and the General agreed to take it down. But it is more myth than real history. The small flag in question was attached to a broom stick sized branch and implanted not at the top, but on the side of a pile of rubble. Because the photo has shown up as an American flag, the photo is considered a photo shop. No known photo of the confederate flag flying at Shuri exist.
Correll can't even give evidence of the one case he is trying to use.

link?

criticalpast.com./video/65675052753_1st-Marine-Division_Marine-climbs-hill_American-flag-raised_Shuri-Castle

a video?

i generally dont watch linked videos. and it didn't load anyways.

Here it is on youtube

youtube.com/watch?v=HTUuDFh6sls

It is obvious that the confederate flag photo is taken from this film, especially at the end. It is the same Marine in the same location in the same pose.

what reason did the new england officer give for complaining?

 

[Correll]

your answer does not explain why you left it out.

your answer does not explain why they were flying it. they did not raise the flag over a captured castle to send a message to blacks.

by the time of wwii, the civil war was fading from living memory. the soldiers in question were the great grandchildren of the soldiers who fought in that war.

they were expressing regional pride, as part of a the greater whole of the usa.

the grandchildren of the union soldiers who fought along side them knew that.

i have seen no evidence that anyone was bothered by this display at that time, or at any time after that, until very recently as demonstrated by the dukes of hazzard nationwide acceptance.

By the time of WWII, the flag was a fading memory of a time past
It was not part of southern state flags, it was not flying from statehouses in the south, it was not used by the KKK

Things changed after WWII. Blacks came back from the war and demanded equal rights. That flag was brought front and center as a message to blacks what their proper place in society was

It is no longer a proper symbol

by the time of wwii, the civil war was a fading memory.

but the south was as alive and well as ever, as a strong regional part of the us

these soldiers were from that region, and were proud of their service and wanted their service and victories to honor their homes and ancestors.

it is interesting that they choose a battle flag of the confederacy instead of the national flag of the csa.

i am sure that the fighting men of the south, who did this wrote home and told their family and friends of what they were doing, and those that didn't certainly did when they got home.

and that is the beginning of the rise in popularity of the confederate battle flag in the 20th century.

not as a symbol of resistance to desegregation, but as a symbol of regional pride as part of a greater whole during the world war two.


you can see the easy acceptance that this received from the rest of the country, a generation later, when the dukes of hazzard presented the flag that way, and it was completely unremarked on.

Dukes of Hazard again?

I thought you southerners would be embarassed by that

Maybe they don't get parody.

I just in my right mind can't imagine why anyone would use The Dukes of Hazard as a justification for a state to fly the confederate flag. If I was a proud southerner, The Dukes of Hazard would be a reason I'd want the damned thing taken down

It just boggles my mind

rw, we obviously disagree on this issue.

but all you are doing by constantly misrepresenting my position is dodging the issue.

i have very clearly explained that my point in bringing up the dukes is not as a justification for the flag, but as historical evidence that your claims on the way flag has "Always" been seen is not true. repeatedly

it is not credible that you cannot grasp this difference.

that being covered.

you have claimed that what has changed since the 80s is the "sharp spike" in racist hates groups.

you specifically mentioned david duke.

i pointed out the hate groups are tiny, and that david duke was humiliated in that presidential election.

do you have anything new to say to justify your claim that the flag can ONLY be seen as a symbol of racism and treason and hatred, when it has been shown that that is not true?

or do you have some other reason to explain why the america of 1979 thought of it as a harmless symbol of regional pride?

or are you willing to admit that your stated reasons for your belief have been shown to be false, and you are willing to admit your real reason for your hatred of the south?

 

[Correll]

It is not a flag of southern heritage...but a flag of hate and subjugation

The surprisingly uncomplicated racist history of the Confederate flag

First sewn in 1861 — there were about 120 created for the war — the flag was flown by the cavalry of P.G.T. Beauregard, the Confederacy's first duly appointed general, after he took Manassas, Virginia, in the first Battle of Bull Run.
After the Civil War, the flag saw limited (and quite appropriate) use at first: It commemorated the sons of the South who died during the war.
But never did the flag represent some amorphous concept of Southern heritage, or Southern pride, or a legacy that somehow includes everything good anyone ever did south of the Mason-Dixon line, slavery excluded.
Fast-forward about 100 years, past thousands of lynchings in the South, past Jim Crow and Plessy v. Ferguson, past the state-sanctioned economic and political subjugation of black people, and beyond the New Deal that all too often gave privileges to the white working class to the specific exclusion of black people.
In 1948, Strom Thurmond's States' Rights Party adopted the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia as a symbol of defiance against the federal government. What precisely required such defiance? The president's powers to enforce civil rights laws in the South, as represented by the Democratic Party's somewhat progressive platform on civil rights.
Georgia adopted its version of the flag design in 1956 to protest the Supreme Court's ruling against segregated schools, in Brown v. Board of Education.
The flag first flew over the state capitol in South Carolina in 1962, a year after George Wallace raised it over the grounds of the legislature in Alabama, quite specifically to link more aggressive efforts to integrate the South with the trigger of secession 100 years before — namely, the storming of occupied Fort Sumter by federal troops. Fort Sumter, you might recall, is located at the mouth of Charleston Harbor.
Opposition to civil rights legislation, to integration, to miscegenation, to social equality for black people — these are the major plot points that make up the flag's recent history.




..

Do you feel the same way about the southern states as you do about a piece of cloth? If not, I'd suggest you get your priorities straight.

A flag isn't the problem.

in another thread he was pretty clear that

By the time of WWII, the flag was a fading memory of a time past
It was not part of southern state flags, it was not flying from statehouses in the south, it was not used by the KKK

Things changed after WWII. Blacks came back from the war and demanded equal rights. That flag was brought front and center as a message to blacks what their proper place in society was

It is no longer a proper symbol

by the time of wwii, the civil war was a fading memory.

but the south was as alive and well as ever, as a strong regional part of the us

these soldiers were from that region, and were proud of their service and wanted their service and victories to honor their homes and ancestors.

it is interesting that they choose a battle flag of the confederacy instead of the national flag of the csa.

i am sure that the fighting men of the south, who did this wrote home and told their family and friends of what they were doing, and those that didn't certainly did when they got home.

and that is the beginning of the rise in popularity of the confederate battle flag in the 20th century.

not as a symbol of resistance to desegregation, but as a symbol of regional pride as part of a greater whole during the world war two.


you can see the easy acceptance that this received from the rest of the country, a generation later, when the dukes of hazzard presented the flag that way, and it was completely unremarked on.

Dukes of Hazard again?

I thought you southerners would be embarassed by that

Smart people can be embarrassed.

Those with the IQ of a tin can? Less so...

any comment of the fact that i have demonstrated that the rise of the flag in the 20th begain in wwii, and NOT 10 years later in the resistance to desegregation?

rhetorical question.

i know you are not hear to discuss the topic, but just to be an asshole.

"you are not hear"


Hmmmmmm...

A nice English course for you, maybe...

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wow. you pointed out a typo!!!

what a good day for you!

this is far beyond your normal...contribution?

no.

participation!

this is far beyond your normal participation!

good for you!

 

[Correll]

lol!

it's use was not authorized or official?

that's your answer?

it happened. some american units fought under the confederate battle flag as i said.

it is part of the 20th rise in popularity of hte confederate battle flag.

the soldiers at shuri castle were ordered to take it down, but not because it was racist, or treasonous, but because soldiers from all over the us took part in the battle..

the man that ordered it down was the son of a confederate general.

You are misrepresenting the meaning of "fighting under...". A company of soldiers or more accurately, an individual or group of soldiers pulling out a flag and displaying it on the battlefield after the battle is not anything like fighting under the banner of flag.
Crews of individual APC's and even Huey's or other vehicles or aircraft in Vietnam sometimes displayed flags or even affixed decals or art depicting the confederate flag. No one complained, but that is not the same as a unit fighting under the flag.

In any case, the photo of the confederate flag at Shuri appears to be a photo shop. An older photo shows the soldier displaying an American flag. The whole story came from someone relating a story told by a officer killed shortly after the incident. A murky story to say the least.

you are quibbling over semantics.

these american soldiers and sailors fought and fought bravely, and they flew the flag of their regional homeland, which has for their entire lives been part of the greater whole of the us.

they were member of the us army and navy, and proud of their southern roots and heritage.

Odd that they would be stupid enough to think their heritage is wrapped up in a flag representing only 4 years...and 4 years of loser treason against the U.S. at that. That Southern education of the time, I guess.

your bigoted spin on the issue is not the point. that fact that you disagree with them is not the point.

they were members of the us army and navy and proud of their southern roots and heritage.

A flag that represents 4 years of treachery and LOSING is supposed to be an important Southern heritage?

Stick with your Dukes of Hazzard argument. It was better.

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that is your spin on the issue.

do you really think that us soldiers fighting in okinowa were treasonous?

 

[Skull Pilot]

It's a brightly colored rag just like any other flag nothing more.

It's people who are racist not flags

 

[Correll]

LOL! Is someone arguing that the con flag is cool because the Dukes of Hazzard????????????????????????????????????????????????

link to where i said that.

Well gee, how many times have you posted about the Dukes of Hazzard, numbnut?

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my point about the dukes was clearly not that the confederate flag is cool because of the dukes of hazzard.

does it seem odd to you that you have to lie in order to even pretend to yourself that you have scored a "point" against me?

what with you being so smart and all...