Saturday, March 5, 2011

The Confederate Flag and Racism

Norwegianity had some interesting remarks about this one.


In a rare moment of sanity, an Oregon school has suspended a bus driver for displaying the Confederate flag in his pickup.

Nothing says "nigger, nigger, nigger" like the Stars'n'Bars. Germany banned the swastika after WWII but the Confederacy never really surrendered, and has never stopped fighting racial equality in these United States. Look at every civil rights vote ever and then tell me I'm wrong.
What's your opinion? I've long held that there's a strict relationship between conservatives, gun owners and racism. When you throw in that Southern Confederacy nonsense it naturally increases.

What do you think? Like a lot of other things in the gun debate, why is it so difficult for gun owners who are not racists to admit that many of their confreres are? Can they blame people for painting with a broad brush when they deny all? Isn't such denial another way of painting with that same broad brush?

Please leave a comment

14 comments:

  1. The Stars 'n Bars is clearly a racist symbol. With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War upon us, we will see more of this insanity.

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  2. It is an obvious first amendment issue! The School will lose.
    Being proud of where you come from, like the south, is not law breaking.
    I hang my Irish flag outside all the month of March, should I be banned from doing so because someone else MIGHT relate it to the IRA? No.

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  3. No sympathy for the old South? Everyone knows The Night They Drove Dixie Down. It's not hard to remember most of the lyrics. You can probably hear The Band or Joan Baez singing it in your heads. Other artists who have covered it.

    Herbie Mann-1970, Buck Owens-1970, John Denver-1970, Hugo Montenegro-1971, Skeeter Davis-1972, Bob Dylan-1974, Johnny Cash-1974, Charlie Daniels-1980, Tanya Tucker-1982, Jimmy Arnold-1983, Richie Havens-1990, Jerry Garcia Band-1991, Big Country-1996, Swamp Boogie Queen-1998, Countdown Singers-1999, Vikki Carr-2003, Hillside Singers-2004, The Allman Brothers Band-2004, Jerry Garcia-2004, Professor Louis-2005, The Bluegrass Alliance-2006.

    Racists?

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  4. @ Dannytheman - Yes, it is a first ammendment issue. I'm not saying that they don't have the right to be jerks. I'm just pointing out that they are jerks.

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  5. @ the Flying Junior - Are you saying that the old South wasn't a nest of racists because some musicians covered a song?

    Musicians are not necessarily deep thinkers.

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  6. When people deny racism exists, or misogyny or homophobia, they lose credibility. To listen to some of the pro-gun folks around here you'd think gun owners are the most sober, honest and fair-minded bunch you could ever hope to have on your side when the shootin' starts.

    I just don't buy it.

    Anyone's who's lived in the South knows the typical attitudes towards blacks and towards yankees. It's not pretty, and that flag is the symbol of it.

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  7. Having grown up in the deep South (Arkansas), I can say quite certainly that there is a HUGE link between racism and the flying of the confederate flag (trust me, NO black person would do so down there). Guns are very popular down there, and those who display Confederate flags are much more likely to have a gun, in my experience. Hicks. It was because of the blatant racism and love of guns that I moved away from the South.

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  8. Well if all you say is true, the folks would more easily know he is a racist if he has a huge flag on his truck. Better that than the closet bigots, huh?

    In Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, vehicle owners can request a state-issued license plate featuring the Sons of Confederate Veterans logo, which incorporates the square Confederate battle flag.

    And Andy.... It really is not clearly that to everyone!

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  9. @ Danny It's been my experience that the "at least it's better to be an out in the open bigot than a closet bigot" argument implies it's OK to be an open bigot.

    I'm not buying that. Bigotry, wherever it is found, should be called out.

    Sure, many people don't understand the right to be a jerk argument. However, that will not stop me from saying it... and being right.

    I do want to say that even though individauls have the right to be a jerk the State (town, state, federal) does not.

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  10. What could you possibly mean by saying, "Musicians aren't deep thinkers?"

    I don't think that the South needs to disavow their entire heritage. And yes, they have a fairly dismal history of Jim Crow laws, voter disenfranchisement, segregation, lynchings, bombings, institutionalized prejudice, pretty much you name it. But racism is alive and well across our fair land. I personally believe it is liberal reaction to equate the Confederate flag with swasikas or racism.

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  11. Well Baldr, I'm glad you don't have to live around intolerant "hicks" anymore- those who use derogatory terms to demeen whole groups of people.

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  12. "When people deny racism exists, or misogyny or homophobia, they lose credibility."

    So do people who blame a large group of people for a tiny subset of that group who lack honor and moral character. Yes, there are racist, homophobic, and misogynist gun owners. There are also racist, homophobic, and misogynist Chevy owners. Does it matter? Nope.

    However, there is something we can do about the bigoted gun owners. We can't stop them from being bigots, it's a free country. What we can do is change the ratio of gunowners that are bigots so it's an even smaller fraction of gun owners. That's why I highly recommend that all responsible non-bigots especially those people who are of a racial minority or who are lesbian or gay or transexual as well as women all buy guns.

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  13. The Stars and Bars or any other symbol of the CSA offers honor to the memories of the treasonous scum who started the War of Southern Treachery so that they could continue to enjoy owning people.

    Oh, it's certainly not as bad as the Nazi flag, I mean them good'olboys down in Dixie didn't want to kill all the jews.

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  14. I think the Confederate flag is a symbol of treason and racism. The call the first one rebellion and they deny the second. The concessions made afterward in allowing that symbol to continue and even to grow don't change what it originally stood for.

    But, Flying Junior made me think. I grew up in New Jersey, and can attest to the fact that racism was certainly alive and well there in the 50s and 60s.

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