Georgia should just leave the past in the past.. (Atlanta: real estate, homes)

[Ant131531]

This is the deep South. The whole region is decades behind the NE, Midwest, and the West. You can see this in the attitudes of the people, the education of the masses, and the cities' built form.

[Cameron H]

Originally Posted by erick295

Help me understand something here, folks... if that flag offends you because it symbolizes an entity that supported slavery, then are you also offended by the American flag?

Come on, man. It's the Battle Flag of the Confederacy. It was created in 1861 expressly as the symbol of treason perpetrated for the cause of white supremacy and chattel slavery. That's why it exists. That's the only reason it exists. It languished after the war was lost but was returned to service by those opposing the dismantling of the white surpremacist Jim Crow regime.

National flags can be said to represent a lot of things, good and bad, because every nation has good and bad deeds on its record. The Battle Flag, like the Swastika, is not such a symbol. Its reason for being and symbolism pretty much begin and end with the evil you want to pretend is just incidental.

[demonta4]

Why don't they use the regular flag instead of the battle one? It would at least be less offensive.

[jpk1292000]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

This is the deep South. The whole region is decades behind the NE, Midwest, and the West. You can see this in the attitudes of the people, the education of the masses, and the cities' built form.

I think that this an oversimplification. I can assure you that the area of eastern PA that I moved to Atlanta from is NOT decades ahead of Atlanta.

[erick295]

Originally Posted by Cameron H

Come on, man. It's the Battle Flag of the Confederacy. It was created in 1861 expressly as the symbol of treason perpetrated for the cause of white supremacy and chattel slavery. That's why it exists. That's the only reason it exists. It languished after the war was lost but was returned to service by those opposing the dismantling of the white surpremacist Jim Crow regime.

National flags can be said to represent a lot of things, good and bad, because every nation has good and bad deeds on its record. The Battle Flag, like the Swastika, is not such a symbol. Its reason for being and symbolism pretty much begin and end with the evil you want to pretend is just incidental.

It's quite a stretch to say the Civil War was a fight for "white supremacy" and "evil." You almost make it sound as if the rest of the US saw blacks as equals, but that wasn't the case at all--wasn't it in the 1850s that the Supreme Court overwhelmingly ruled that they couldn't even be citizens? The South didn't have a monopoly on racism, and the war wasn't about that--it was about protecting the economy and states' rights from what was perceived as oppression from the North. Yes, slavery was a major issue, but it's not like people were thinking "Man, I really love chaining up blacks and hitting them with sticks... I think I'll go shoot some Northerners so I can keep doing that."

If it's the treasonous aspect that bothers you, I feel I need to remind you that we were once under the rule of Great Britain. The American flag is also a symbol of treason.

Please leave swastikas out of this. I know this the Internet and hence everything must be related to Hitler, but ethnic cleansing and world domination are hardly comparable to the South's desire to protect an established way of life which had been sanctioned by the US government.

Please also for the love of God do not take my post and twist it to pieces and make it look like I'm supporting slavery or some stupid s**t like that. I'm just saying the Confederate flag was never flown to symbolize the hatred of blacks during the Civil War. Later generations added that connotation as they nudged history around to turn the war into some epic battle of Good vs Evil instead of the far more boring political fallout that it was.

It's sad that I need to emphasize this, but this is the Internet, so: I do not condone slavery.

[Cameron H]

Originally Posted by erick295

It's sad that I need to emphasize this, but this is the Internet, so: I do not condone slavery.

I never said or even implied that you did. I explained at some length what the flag represents -- all it represents. I explained why it was created and how it was used.

That raises a good point, though, and maybe you can explain something to me. I think it's a wonderful thing to celebrate your heritage. I think it's a wonderful thing to celebrate our southern heritage. I think southern heritage is incredibly rich. So why choose that symbol, the symbol of white supremacy and slavery, to represent that heritage? The South is way more than that, isn't it?

As for the Swastika comparison, I think it's apt. If you can demonstrate that 250 years of racial slavery followed by a hundred years of apartheid and domestic terrorism is "less evil" than a decade of ethnic cleansing and war, your moral calculus is far more sophisticated than mine.

And finally, I just want to reiterate the point in my first post. If the battle flag is the particular symbol of your heritage that you choose to embrace, more power to you. You have that right. But I also think it's a mistake for the State to endorse that choice.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by neil0311

I won't debate whether people have the "right" to display a license plate with the Confederate flag. I will however comment on the poor taste and tone deafness associated with doing it.

First, this notion that the Confederacy and the Confederate flag are divorced from slavery and racism is complete nonsense. The southern states seceding was squarely about the election of Lincoln and rise of the "Radical Republicans" and the growing political power of abolitionists. To say the Civil War was about "states' rights" is like saying the US joining WWII was about "naval base security" or 9/11/2001 was about "architectural destruction."

When you then look at further historical context of Reconstruction and into the mid-20th century and the civil rights era, the Confederate flag was used by the KKK and southerners as a symbol of segregation, Jim Crow, and racism.

Frankly, could you imagine the German gov't putting swastikas on license plates of German veterans of WWII? After all, it's a part of their "heritage"...right?

100% agree.

It is disgusting and completely unpatriotic that a piece of public property will now go toward glorifying a bastard government that declared itself as the sworn enemy of the United States of America. Reconstruction aside, I have no respect for this thinly-veiled racism. If the Confederate flag's supporters are serious about "heritage" and "history," then let's have an open conversation about dark, depraved, and evil institution that enslaved an entire race of people.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by erick295

It's quite a stretch to say the Civil War was a fight for "white supremacy" and "evil."

100% disagree. Trivializing the racist causes of secession, and thus the Civil War, does a great injustice to the millions of lives who have been oppressed, past and present, by the scourge of racism. I, too, want to see the history of the South exposed for what it really is.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by Cameron H

I think it's a wonderful thing to celebrate your heritage. I think it's a wonderful thing to celebrate our southern heritage. I think southern heritage is incredibly rich. So why choose that symbol, the symbol of white supremacy and slavery, to represent that heritage? The South is way more than that, isn't it?

That is EXTREMELY well said.

[erick295]

Originally Posted by Cameron H

I never said or even implied that you did.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you did personally. That was directed at the general populous. Although no one accused me of that yet, since this is the Internet it was bound to happen

Originally Posted by Cameron H

I think southern heritage is incredibly rich. So why choose that symbol, the symbol of white supremacy and slavery, to represent that heritage? The South is way more than that, isn't it?

I agree that there are better things to celebrate about the South (and the US as a whole) than slavery, but that plate is for war veterans. A battle flag seems appropriate for that. I don't find anything offensive about that image in that context, and I don't see it as an endorsement of slavery or racism by Georgia. SCV is just an educational nonprofit with no ties to the actual Confederacy. They do not condone racism or secession.

Originally Posted by Cameron H

As for the Swastika comparison, I think it's apt. If you can demonstrate that 250 years of racial slavery followed by a hundred years of apartheid and domestic terrorism is "less evil" than a decade of ethnic cleansing and war, your moral calculus is far more sophisticated than mine.

The Confederacy only existed during the Civil War, so you can't very well put all 250 years of atrocities on them just because they fought to keep something which was an American institution for centuries. I'll point this out again: The US practiced slavery until the 1860s and segregation until the 1960s. If you believe fighting to defend it as the Confederacy did is worse than practicing it as the US did, then that's where we disagree.