Rebel Flag meaning

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:47 AM

the Nazi salute, which a version of was done in my church until recently, calling it a blessing. I would point out to them that the blessing was identical in appearance to the Nazi salute but they went by intention more than obviously what it looked like..but I think they were dead wrong to permit this.

I've seen that once, by the minister at a Church of Scotland funeral. It was for a friend of mine who had been in the Gay Christian movement, and who wouldn't personally have gone for that minister's utterly traditionalist approach, but funerals are for the living, and I presume his family did. It seemed a bit weird to me, but it would never have occurred to me to ban it. The Kirk has presumably been doing it at funerals for more than 400 years, so why should they let the Nazis take it away from them?

It went along a phrase about hope in the resurrection, spoken as the coffin went into the incinerator. If those words and the accompanying ritual offered some comfort to the guy's family, I'm fine with that.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 10:55 AM

I've got a couple of black shirts and a brown shirt as well. I trust no one will get offended when I wear them, or take as some kind of expressioin of allegiance to Fascism or Nazism.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: mg
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 12:48 PM

If something was an unbroken tradition, like being similar to the Nazi salute, then go back to its original lmeaing. In my church it was never seen until recently, so it is just in the last few years, and no reason at all to do it when you could make up your own symbols..even it it was done 500 years ago it is not an unbroken tradition and has been usurped and so I say don't resurrect that ever, but if you have always done it that is different. mg

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 01:04 PM

But sometimes older symbols do get taken over and polluted and are never again usable in their original context. That is what happened to the Swastika — originally the oriental mystic sunwheel — you will find it embossed on the covers of Macmillan's and Methuen's original Kipling editions. But it can never be used in any sort of innocent or innocuous context again, having been hijacked as dreaded symbol of the Nazi party.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 01:52 PM

The swastika may be unusable in most contexts in Europe, but it's doing just fine as a Hindu symbol in India.

The swastika in Kerala

This rather appealing young lady even answers to it: Swastika Mukherjee

(There have been stushies about European Hindus using the symbol. As far as I can tell, those Hindus have nearly always been in the right; they genuinely are just using it the way they always have).

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Stringsinger
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 02:09 PM

You wouldn't want to see a Nazi flag on a grave. Why would anyone want a Confederate Battle Flag there? To commemorate Rebel soldiers seems an exercise in futility and belies this distasteful heritage. The Daughters of the Confederacy seems like an organization to enable the tradition of Southern bigotry. You might as well have a faction of a Nazi woman's organization.

The meaning of the American Civil War was clear. 1. To abolish the Southern custom of slavery and 2. To preserve the Union which we today call the U.S.

Any defense of Southern Confederate "values" is a total whitewash of history.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 02:38 PM

The meaning of the American Civil War was clear. 1. To abolish the Southern custom of slavery and 2. To preserve the Union which we today call the U.S.

Surely it was the other way round.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: mg
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:06 PM

I would not put a Nazi flag on a grave. I would put a German or Austrian flag on the grave and I would honor the person there, not knowing if he or she was an evildoer or someone who was born on the wrong side of the river.

The meaning of the American Civil War is probably crystal clear to those with finely honed filters. To those who don't, it is murky and horrible and brave all mixed in together..bad intentions mixed with good, bad people mixed with good, bad causes mixed with a desire to not have one's neighbors slaughtered. mg

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:15 PM

I have a feeling that if the American Revolution had been defeated, the flags they used might have had a similar subsequent history, and might have been seen as inextricably linked with "the American custom of slavery".

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:01 PM

Good point, McGrath. Here in Mississippi we voted to keep the stars and bars in a corner of the state flag, and with a considerable portion of the Black vote going towards 'keep it'.   It's a historical artifact. We have no more business banishing it from the earth than we do tearing down Beauvoir or the Illinois monument at Vicksburg.

For some people it is a symbol of racism. For many more people it is a symbol of Dixie, of a region they love, and fallen ancestors they honor. And the vote frankly was more a statement of "Don't Tread On Me" than anything else.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:07 PM

Jack: Thank you for the interesting article about the survival of the Swastika symbol and the picture of the beautiful woman who has its name. I found these very encouraging and life-enhancing...

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:48 PM

The Indian swastika turns up as jewellery. I was sitting opposite an Indian girl wearing one round her neck in a London Tube carriage where every other person was black or Asian.   Nobdy was seeing it as an offensive symbol.

Context is everything.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 06:21 PM

We sang "Dixie" as well in school... We also sang "Old Black Joe"... The Confederate flag was used at lots of high school football games...

But then again this was much different time in terms of our history...

I'd like to think that we have come a long way since those days... And most of us have... There are always holdouts who will go to their graves thinking that white people are the superior race... Problem is that these holdouts are still teaching their kids the same prejudges and hatreds... I guess if being a bigot is one's heritage then these folks are half right when they say "Heritage, Not Hate"... Problem is that it is hate... Just as swastika represents hate...

No I think the folks who defend these symbols had eductaed people in their ranks they might be able to present a better case... But that is not the case... The haters are the least educated... And the least employed... And the least motivated to be good citizens...

Very sad commentary on our country to have folks who are so steeped in hatred of others because of their race or choic of religion... Bigotry is bigotry is bigotry is...... No two ways about it...

B~

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 07:32 PM

You don't have educated racists? I wish I believed that was the truth.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: GUEST,biff
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 08:31 PM

Siouxsie of the banshees infamously wore a swasticka and never lived it down. an attempt to show others their own shadow through a wearing of the shadow? keep calling everything racist or a hate crime and you will have continually diminished free speech. watch for use of the word "crazy" to be considered hate speech sometime in the next 8 years. oh yeah, look for words to be off limits in songs and literature too. it might hurt the children. maybe, and I might be crazy in saying this, but maybe people are tired of the mass judgements on everything and just want to say "f- you" by rebelling and the confederate flag is one way of doing this. sensitivity issues carried too far lead to sensitivity legislation which is definitely a mixed blessing. personally I'd rather live in an imperfect world rather then one that is so legislated that all is secure and non hurtful nor demeaning. human attempts to create perfection in society inevitably lead to an overly rigid legal structure. a healthy society may need some tolerance for expression that others object to. let the tree bend in the wind.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 Oct 09 - 01:17 PM

Here in Mississippi we voted to keep the stars and bars in a corner of the state flag, and with a considerable portion of the Black vote going towards 'keep it'.

Interesting, if true.

Is there an official web-site maintained by the state election commission or similar entity or other official source where the actual figures on this vote, broken down by race, can be verefied?

I'd like to take a look.

Also, can you provide any information about what the NAACP, Urban League, Southern Poverty Law Center & such like organizations thought about this issue and the vote?

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Oct 09 - 03:28 PM

This news story from the (English) Independant paper gives some information about that vote in 2001 -
Mississippi votes to keep Confederate flag flying:

...With all precincts reporting, 488,630 voters, or 65 percent, favoured keeping the 1894 flag, while 267,812 voters, or 35 percent, wanted to replace it....

...The Mississippi vote was largely split along racial lines. In DeSoto County, an 86 percent white county in the Memphis suburbs, the old flag won by a 6–1 margin. In Hinds, a majority black county that is home to the state capital, went almost 2–to–1 for the new design.

In a few majority–black counties, the vote was surprisingly close. The predominantly black Delta went for the new flag, but not overwhelmingly. Mississippi, with 2.8 million people, is 61 percent white and 36 percent black.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 31 Oct 09 - 05:22 PM

There is indeed a lot of historical nostalgia involved in some of the State flags: I was most interested to discover that Hawaii maintains the Union Jack in its top-left corner.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 31 Oct 09 - 09:24 PM

Good research, McGrath! It does sound like open-shut black-white voting, doesn't it. However, there were a bunch of white liberals voting down the flag and black conservatives voting it up, hence the 'surprisingly close'.

I was thinking about this whole 'it must stand for hate' assumption. I'm sure there are some Native Americans to whom the American flag symbolizes genocide from 200 years ago. So was everyone who ever fought under that flag a hateful racist out to do evil to the Native American?

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: PHJim
Date: 01 Nov 09 - 02:54 PM

I started this thread by wondering what the flag brings to people's mind when they see it. I stated what images came into my mind when I see it. I'm quite sure that many folks who fly the flag, or wear it on jackets or as front licence plates... don't do it as a racist symbol, but that's what it brings to my mind.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Nov 09 - 05:13 PM

...many folks who fly the flag, or wear it on jackets or as front licence plates... don't do it as a racist symbol...

Those folks need to educate themselves.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Nov 09 - 05:34 PM

If the American Revolution had failed would the banners of those who fought for it be seen that differently from those of the Confederacy?

Here is Boston King, one of the many thousands of escaped slaves who fought on the losing side, writing about the end of that war:

"Peace was restored between America and Great Britain, which diffused universal joy among all parties, except us, who had escaped from slavery, and taken refuge in the English army; for a report prevailed at New-York, that all the slaves, in number 2000, were to be delivered up to their masters, altho' some of them had been three or four years among the English.

This dreadful rumour filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror, especially when we saw our old masters coming from Virginia, North-Carolina, and other parts, and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New-York, or even dragging them out of their beds. Many of the slaves had very cruel masters, so that the thoughts of returning home with them embittered life to us."

(From here.)

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 01 Nov 09 - 06:25 PM

As to how the Union Flag is viewed in Britain - well of course that depends on what part of Britain you are in. The Union Flag itself has less BNP or NF connotations in Scotland. Here some view it, along with the Red Hand Of Ulster and the Irish Tricolour, more as a sectarian symbol. There have been those who have demanded that all these flags are banned at football matches etc. Of course I think that is more of a Scottish and Irish thing. Would anyone wearing a Union Flag to a sporting event in let's say Leeds be mistaken for being anti-Catholic? Of course the idea that everyone displaying a Union Flag in Scotland is sectarian is absurd. The vast majority won't be but it does carry that stigma somewhat. Symbols mean different things in different places. You also see Confederate Flags displayed around here though I don't think I've ever seen them used other than folks wanting to show they like American music etc. I also think the Scots, and the British in general, have a soft spot for the defeated. Hence it would maybe be much more glamorous to be a Jacobite than a Hanovarian; or a Confederate than a Union soldier. Rightly or wrongly I don't think many British who have a Confederate Flag would think on the actual politics or issues themselves. Plus I think some Scots maybe identify with the Confederate Flag simply because it looks like the Scottish Saltire.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Nov 09 - 08:18 AM

With all precincts reporting... 65 percent favoured keeping the 1894 flag, while ... 35 percent, wanted to replace it....

Which makes one wonder what sort of people the 65% of the population really are who thought it a good thing - or even a permissible thing - to deal the other 35% a positive slap in the face each and every time they're regularly confronted by their state flag flying at public buildings, schools, etc..

Insensitive at best, no?

Such is the nature if institutionalized racism.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Nov 09 - 10:53 AM

...the Confederate Flag simply because it looks like the Scottish Saltire.

Except that the design and the colours are completely different, that is.

Looks a bit like the Swedish flag, too.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 09 - 01:55 PM

In black and white they look quite similar. Which wouldn't be true of the Stars and Stripes.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Nov 09 - 04:10 PM

"In black and white they look quite similar"

Indeed they do. The St Andrew's Cross and the Confederate Flag in question are both Saltires so are similarly designed unlike either the Stars and Stripes, or the Swedish Flag which has a completely different cross shape. I don't know the history but I suppose it is even possible that the Confederate Flag is at least a bit inspired by the Scottish Saltire. Maybe someone knows if that is so or not.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: GUEST,Allan Connochie
Date: 02 Nov 09 - 04:11 PM

"Indeed they do"

Sorry that was me again

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Nov 09 - 05:06 PM

" In black and white they do. "

Jaysus.

Yup, and were an elephant purple, one might mistake it for a grape.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Nov 09 - 06:43 PM

I can't put my finger on them right now, but I have a gut feelingb there are a few other significant differences, Greg
.............................
The Saltire:

The Saltire also appears in many other flags, including ... the Confederate battle flag.

All of these Saltires are derived by various historical processes from the Scottish Saltire.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Nov 09 - 07:31 PM

By now there isn't one single person who flies the "rebel flag" that doesn't know that it is offensive to about 100% of black people and about 90% of nonblack people...

That alone should be enough to get these borish racists to stop it but no... These folks are so pissed off (at whom and for what is anyone's guess) that they are going to fly it anyway...

Rude is rude is rude is....

B~

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 08:01 AM

it is offensive to about 100% of black people and about 90% of nonblack people. Within the United States that may be true - but as has been pointed out by a number of people, it doesn't appear to be the case elsewhere. Our racists use different symbols, which would be completely inoffensive in the United States.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 10:35 AM

...but as has been pointed out by a number of people, it doesn't appear to be the case elsewhere.

It is offensive everywhere.

Those to whom it doesn't give offense obviouisly do not know what it is or what it represents. They should educate themselves.

Those who display it not knowing what it is or what it represents are simply irresponsible.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 11:03 AM

The point is that for virtually everyone in the UK, regardless of colour, it doesn't represent the same thing as it does in the USA, and is no more of a symbol for racism than any other American flag.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 11:24 AM

McGrath, you are currently experiencing the essence of the Rule called Righteous Liberal Outrage, or Godly Political Correctness, here in the good ol USA. This rule states that certain questions are not matters of opinion to be discussed from opposing points of view, but are established truths only to be denied by the evil and ignorant. You cannot have a reasonable discussion once the rule has been applied, and certainly can't hope to win an argument once it has been invoked.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 01:33 PM

My impression is that that is an approach which is not confined to the "Liberal" end of the political spectrum in the States. Or indeed elsewhere.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 01:54 PM

McG, what you are experiencing from ol' Lonesome is the tendency of a segment of the population here in the good ol' USA to label something they don't like an exercise in "Political Correctness" and thereby dismiss it, regardless of the facts and/or the merits thereof.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 02:17 PM

Both Leej and McGrath have been around here long enough to know how to take each others' posts, Greg. And they are both gentlemen who will tend not to rise to bait-- a skill I hope to emulate better as I follow their examples.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 03:17 PM

Good for you, Susan, its your Christian Duty to do so.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 05:08 PM

I had this same discussion, if you will, with a fgellow musican who thought it was okay to have a confederate flag on his guitar... When I pointed out to him that people were offended by it it was removed... Some folks just don't have the sensitivity to know that they are offedning others... This isn't a "liberal" or conservative" or a "moderate" viewpoint... It is an observation I have made by living in the South and knowing one heck of a lot of black people... Ya' ever wonder why you don't see the confederate flag on black folks cars??? Political correctness, my butt... It's insensitive, borish and rude...

The exception being Civil (which it wasn't) War battlefields, museums, etc...

But not in front of folk's houses... Not on the back of their cars and trucks... Not on their motorcyle jackets... And not tatooed on their arms...

B~

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 09:03 PM

McGrath, you are right. It is a hallmark of smug sanctity, and that is both a Liberal and Conservative trait, the farther toward the extreme boundaries, the stronger the strain. This particular argument is a manifestation of the Liberal end of the spectrum of sanctimony.
I get Bobert. I grew up in Kentucky and I'll bet we had at least as many Rebel-flag-tattoo-wearin shit-kickers in my hometown as Bob did. I know what he's talking about, and that's why I said I wouldn't fly that flag or condone it. It has been appropriated by a crowd of gutless morons who have rendered it a symbol of hate. I do not believe it was conceived as such, but I respect Greg's opinion that it was. I will NOT say I am right and he is wrong. I will simply state, as a died in the wool Southern Democrat from a proud line of the same, that I am just as entitled to my opinion as he is to his.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: M.Ted
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 12:56 AM

For Mr. McGrath, a few lines from the autobiography of Thomas Jefferson relating slavery:

In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of
the county in which I live, & continued in that until it was closed
by the revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission
of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during
the regal government, nothing liberal could expect success. Our
minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief
that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country in all
matters of government, to direct all our labors in subservience to
her interests, and even to observe a bigoted intolerance for all
religions but hers.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 08:42 AM

I am just as entitled to my opinion as he is to his.

Thanks, EJ - never said you wasn't.

I just feel that historical fact supports my opinion more than it does yours, particularly since the government & society that produced the flag in question was founded upon & supported both economically and socially by a system of race-based chattel slavery, which the Confederacy went to war to maintain.

Best,

Greg

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 12:43 PM

An interesting suggestion of Thomas Jefferson that it was "the regal government" that was primarily responsible for the maintenance of the system of chattel slavery in America, with the implication that American Independance was a step in the direction of abolition.

It didn't actually work out that way though, did it? And I understand that Jeffereson never freed his own slaves during his lifetime.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 02:57 PM

McG, Jefferson was nothing if not contradictory. He was a man who spent his life extolling the virtues of agrarian life and hated and was a failure at farming. He protested the idea of slavery and possessed slaves. He detested the idea of a strong federal government, yet presided over the largest expansion of United States territory in our history. I prefer to think of him as a visionary man of ideals who realized he fell short of them, but others have called him a hypocrite.
Greg F, I appreciate the reasoned restatement of your point of view. You are just saying I'm wrong, not ignorant, irresponsible, or evil, and that's what a good argument is about. ;>)

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Ron Davies
Date: 05 Nov 09 - 12:23 AM

The opponent is "wrong, not ignorant, irresponsible or evil": says Greg F . Well, how about that; the leopard can change his spots after all. It'll be interesting to see how long the "gentler, kinder" Greg F is with us.

My prediction:   not overly long. The Greg F. we know and love will be along presently.




One interesting aspect of the slave trade topic, which we have edged into, is that in both the American colonies and Britain itself, probably the decisive factor is not morality but economics.


According to The Slave Trade p 480, by British historian Hugh Thomas, Massachusetts did in fact try to stop the slave trade and was prevented by the Crown-appointed governor. "There before the war (Revolution) the Assembly had made two attempts to stop the import of slaves...But the idea was thwarted by the governor, General Thomas Gage."

The reason for this move by the Assembly, however, was "the usual ground that to have too many might risk a black rebellion", not the morality of the slave trade.

Similarly, when Britain finally managed to ban the slave trade in 1806, the situation for the pro-slave trade forces had changed drastically from earlier attempts by abolitionists.   By May 1806, "the West Indies were in debt, there was a large sugar surplus, and the 'saturated' old colonies did not want new slaves". (p 553) They also had the example of Haiti, as to what could happen with the huge black-white imbalance.   It appears clear that the reason abolition finally passed was that the pro-slave-trade forces no longer had the economic incentive to push against it, and the fear element was also high.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: M.Ted
Date: 05 Nov 09 - 01:16 AM

The revolution resulted in efforts to abolish of slavery almost immediately.
By 1798, slave importation had been outlawed by all thirteen states. Between 1777 and 1804, eight Northern states abolished slavery altogether: Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. In the South, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina amended their laws to make it easier to free slaves. Largely as a result, between 1790 and 1810, the number of free blacks in the South grew from 32,000 to 108,000.

Though Jefferson only managed to free two of his slaves, Washington freed his, first teaching them marketable skills to assure that they'd be able to support themselves, and providing life long care for those who were unable to work.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Nov 09 - 08:31 AM

Oh great and all-knowing Simple Seeker After Truth, that was EJ's statement, not mine. Check your facts.

Also, re-check the facts on your overly simplistic statement that abolition was grounded in economics. Just displays your ignorance of the history, and complexity, of the entire abolition movement.

By the way: Quoting from a single source don't mean squat- preponderance of evidence is the thing.

And do have a nice day!

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Nov 09 - 08:36 AM

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

An intriguing look at Thomas Jefferson's complex -one might say scizophrenic - ideas about Black people and slavery is provided by Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello New York, Norton, 2008.

Subject: RE: Rebel Flag meaning
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Nov 09 - 09:44 AM

"one might say scizophrenic"   

But one would be much better not to.

The Guardian style guide entry on the use and misuse of this term surely gets it right: "use only in a medical context, never to mean "in two minds", contradictory, or erratic, which is wrong, as well as offensive to people diagnosed with this illness; schizophrenic should never be used as a noun. It is a medical term for a terrible condition."