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I honestly don't understand how the Confederate flag has been able to keep flying for so long. It represents one of the most shameful parts of American history with 600,000 people dead to defend an evil, racist, dehumanizing institution. The only place it belongs today are at museums.
Looks like even young kids in Mississippi realize what an embarrassment their flag is. I wonder how much the old racist rednecks are going to cry about this?
I honestly don't understand how the Confederate flag has been able to keep flying for so long. It represents one of the most shameful parts of American history and the only place it belongs today are at museums.
I understand why. I live in Georgia. In some cases, many people don't think about it. In other cases, some people are incredibly desperate to hang on to that past. I feel like some people wish the South had won. Before, people were not shy about admitting to why they wanted secession. Fast forward a few generations later. It is no longer okay to be openly bigoted. Nowadays, some people say it's about heritage and will come up with so many things to downplay the cause. Some people cling to what they know and don't want change.
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I didn't grow up in Mississippi, but I grew up practically on its doorstep: Northeast Louisiana (which as an aside, for those who don't know, is not a thing at all like NOLA and the Cajun country. Instead the area is practically indistinguishable from the rest of the Deep South, as is N. La. in general - including support levels of the "rebel flag").
Anyway, I'm all for the removal of any Confederate flag from state run institutions. I actually favor private schools removing it, too; and finding another mascot besides. But because they are private institutions, I can support their legal right to fly it and have the mascot. I don't like it, but I acknowledge their right to do so.
As for the people who support it, it's the old line of "Heritage, Not Hate", and they are being sincere about it. They're miseducated about what the Civil War was about, but they are sincere (that or else they see the education about the Civil War they get as a "liberal conspiracy" and willfully shut out any information that conflicts with the view they genuinely if misguidedly hold - that it was more about tarriffs and an 'ever intrusive federal government into the lives of individuals - not just about slavery - that started the war. And this comes even from many who acknowledge that slavery was part of the issue!!).
If you allow a personal speculation - the South's resentment against the Federal Government, even after Reconstruction, came about due to Northern "Big Business" interests - especially railroads - enacting discriminatory freight rates that kept the South in a kind of semi-colonial status. That the mountain West also suffered similiarly was apparently lost on Southerners (although the populist presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan was equally popular in both regions - again, a factor Southerners apparently forgot over the course of time). This late 19th Century situation, with continued poverty in the South, likely did give rise to an after-the-fact justification as to why the South was right to secede. With the South reeling under the "big business" semi-colonialism, it's not hard to see how this later ahistoric justification came to rise in the public consciousness.
Further add to the fact that - slavery or no slavery, racism or no racism - Southerners do tend to value place, family, and traditional values more than northern states do. This even includes different standards / customs of courtesy, even to the point of thinking that what makes the South better than other parts of the country is that their manners are superior to "Northerners" (a common meme for a Southerner to hear, even to this day). Given all this, it should be not be hard how the present-day "Heritage, Not Hate" about the Confederate flag came about.
If you ask me, the best thing we can do as a nation is to borrow from Germany's education playbook - teach kids about the evils of slavery, treatment of Native Americans, Asians (esp in California) in the same spirit that Germans teach their kids about Hitler and all that happened due to him. Specifically, teach them that humans are very capable of committing great evils against one another, without implying that they personally are at fault for it (althought that would go against the self-flattering image that Americans like to build up for themselves, Southerners or not).
If you ask me, the best thing we can do as a nation is to borrow from Germany's education playbook - teach kids about the evils of slavery, treatment of Native Americans, Asians (esp in California) in the same spirit that Germans teach their kids about Hitler and all that happened due to him. Specifically, teach them that humans are very capable of committing great evils against one another, without implying that they personally are at fault for it (althought that would go against the self-flattering image that Americans like to build up for themselves, Southerners or not).
Great point. Those who don't learn history, real history that is, are doomed to repeat it. Learning a false, biased history that emphasizes the good and covers up the bad is dangerous. For instance, it's a good thing the German people learn about Hitler and the atrocities. If they didn't, it could happen again.
Agreed. The younger generation are not going to accept the old world crap anymore.
Travel is fatal to Prejudice,Bigotry and Narrow Mindedness. Mark Twain.
The internet has sent us all on many travels while at home. A good thing imo
IMO the internet is a double edged sword, yeah it's led many to change their views and become more tolerant ... but it's also given the wackos a place to gather and spew their venom.
That's a great Twain quote. It's personally true for me ... I was like the bigoted wackos on this forum before I started traveling. Traveling and college led me to evolve.
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