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I think it's pretty clear to see why C-D values your contributions enough to have given you an award for them.
I agree, on all counts. I think that last part, about people who came up not understanding the full "flavor" if you will, of the context behind the flag explains the current clash we have going between people who try to explain that it is terribly offensive and people who keep on saying that everyone is just too "PC."
It's just more complicated than that, as you've stated here.
Great post all around.
I am in agreement.......awesome job poppydog! Very well written!
It really just boils down to "when you know better, you do better". I am willing to say maybe in the past some white folks really didn't realize how offensive it was to many people, but surely they know now. So they gotta do the second part of that and "do better".
It's fantastic to remember the Civil War and the Confederacy and all the lives lost and ruined by war and slavery, and put the dang flag in a museum.
There was a recent era in the 70s and into the 80s where it was around a lot on beach towels, and lighters, and t-shirts, and hats, Lynyrd Skynrd LPS, the Dukes of Hazzard etc, and white kids of that era may not have realized that the reason that it was so popular was because it was brought out of retirement when some Southern whites like George Wallace (though certainly not all Southern whites) were trying to cling to segregation.
This should be copied-and-pasted into every internet thread about the flag. Growing up in New England in the 70s, all I knew was that it was a flag from the Civil War and (according to TV) southerners put it on everything. It was just an "emblem" like a lobster for Maine or a pilgrim hat for Massachusetts. I didn't learn that it had been revived during the civil rights era until much later, which puts a whole different spin on it.
I think most Southern white kids of that Dukes of Hazzard era didn't know, either, scratchie. But I think we all know now that it's viewed as offensively racist by many people, so I don't think it should be flown on government buildings. If people want to fly it from their coal-rolling 4x4s that's their right, but I won't think very highly of them for it. But my guess is they don't give a poop what other people think.
It really just boils down to "when you know better, you do better". I am willing to say maybe in the past some white folks really didn't realize how offensive it was to many people, but surely they know now. So they gotta do the second part of that and "do better".
It's fantastic to remember the Civil War and the Confederacy and all the lives lost and ruined by war and slavery, and put the dang flag in a museum.
Yes. So much yes here.
I tell you, I have even had to argue with my own mother about this stuff lately. She sees it as people trying to rob her of her heritage somehow, and she watches Fox News and it drives me CRAZY.
I have to remind her of what it looks like to the people who were hurt by it. And I have to ask her why everyone is so freaked out. It's not like anyone is saying that it should be outlawed. Just that it has no place on government buildings/grounds.
Why is that "robbing the South of its heritage," I ask you?
Of course, my mom didn't really understand that the flag didn't go up in SC until 1962 to protest desegregation.
I think that people often react before reading and considering a situation. Which is a shame, but it's human nature sometimes.
There are a good many "Yankees" (for lack of a better term, but they're mostly people from rural areas of the NE) who move here and adopt the stars and bars because, let's be really serious. If you look at maps of where you find the most racist attitudes, they do flow right up from the South to the more rural areas of the NE.
So, there ya go.
Doesn't make it right, but it does explain the larger numbers of people than I would've originally expected that support the Confederate flag (or, rather, the Battle Flag of Virginia) like they do, even now.
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I'm not surprised Raleigh doesn't have a Confederate Flag by our Confederate monument, that would have been taken down ages ago if we did. I feel like we've never been that hung up on Confederate heritage.
The sad thing about this whole flag thing is that I'm afraid the Klan will once again raise it's ugly head.
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