/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"
Tweet
Re: A confederate flag??
I almost didn't hit the reply button on this one....I hope I can adequately express my thougts here. First off let me say I think people that fly the Confederate flag here in Indiana are absolute white racist trash. I am white, and my wife is black and I admit to being pretty sensitive to racist comments, which any long timer posters here should remember. Indiana was a northern state as earlier pointed out, so flying the flag here can only tie yourself to the negative connotations that have attached themselves to the Confederate flag.
With that said you have to remeber that the Civl War like Skaut pointed out was not fought that long ago. In relative terms, my grand father is 84 years old making him born in 1921, the Civil war started in 1861 which was 60 years prior to my grand fathers birth which means my great grandfather most likely was alive during the Civil war, that makes me only 3 generations away from it. I know thats basic mathmatics, but when I think about it those terms it seems eerily close.
You have to remember that the South was fighting to protect its way of life, obviously slavery is wrong but at that time it was socially acceptable in the South. I read an interesting article about the South where the authour stated that because during the 1800's the South had no deep water ports, most European transfer of culture occurred in the North because thats were the ships and trading partners conducted business. At that time the southern states mostly made their livings with farming. Most European countries outlawed slavery in the early 1800's so they were almost 60 years in front of us. I always found that to be an interesting hypothesis.
Anyway, once the war got underway the southerners generaly felt that the North was restricting their way of life. But when the war ended you still had quite a bit of bitterness to the North and a sense of pride as to belonging to the Confederacy. These were true believers of their cause, right or wrong, most fought and lost family members to the war, and in that struggle, pride for the South was formed. Most of the north which culturally and econmically was way ahead of their southern countrymen, created an inferiority complex, and when the abolishinist movement was being forcefully fed into federal government, many Southerners felt that they were no longer being represented by the government. And individual representation of the people has always been a sensitive subject for Americans.
Which is where I think most of the pride for the Confederacy comes from, most of the Southern states incorporated the Southern Cross into their State Flag. Hell South Carolina just in the last 10 years quit flying the Confederate flag underneath the American flag at their state capitol! Which leads back to how recent this war really occurred. I believe Mississippi still has not removed the Southern Cross from it's state flag.
Unfortunately the Confederate flag became something more than just a symbol of Southern pride. It became the symbol for racisim. The KKK, adopted it as their flag in the late 60's when the civil rights movement was in full swing. In fact if you look at old pictures of Klan rallies ( a college proffessor of mine pointed this out to me), you rarely see the Confederate flag. Most of us remember watching the Dukes of Hazzard on TV, and although I was pretty young, I never remember hearing any negative rethoric about the flag displayed on the car each week. Feelings of discord came much later in the late 80's and 90's.
In conclusion I think the Confederacy was an important part of our history, unfortunatly the symbol has been twisted into meaning something entirely different. And most likely when you see it being flown today the bearer usually uses "southern pride" as an excuse to cloak their true feelings of racisim.
Also I challenge anyone to defend the statement that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. Those that point out that it was fought over "States-Rights" often forget that the states rights that the south was fighting for was the states right to allow slavery!!
I almost didn't hit the reply button on this one....I hope I can adequately express my thougts here. First off let me say I think people that fly the Confederate flag here in Indiana are absolute white racist trash. I am white, and my wife is black and I admit to being pretty sensitive to racist comments, which any long timer posters here should remember. Indiana was a northern state as earlier pointed out, so flying the flag here can only tie yourself to the negative connotations that have attached themselves to the Confederate flag.
With that said you have to remeber that the Civl War like Skaut pointed out was not fought that long ago. In relative terms, my grand father is 84 years old making him born in 1921, the Civil war started in 1861 which was 60 years prior to my grand fathers birth which means my great grandfather most likely was alive during the Civil war, that makes me only 3 generations away from it. I know thats basic mathmatics, but when I think about it those terms it seems eerily close.
You have to remember that the South was fighting to protect its way of life, obviously slavery is wrong but at that time it was socially acceptable in the South. I read an interesting article about the South where the authour stated that because during the 1800's the South had no deep water ports, most European transfer of culture occurred in the North because thats were the ships and trading partners conducted business. At that time the southern states mostly made their livings with farming. Most European countries outlawed slavery in the early 1800's so they were almost 60 years in front of us. I always found that to be an interesting hypothesis.
Anyway, once the war got underway the southerners generaly felt that the North was restricting their way of life. But when the war ended you still had quite a bit of bitterness to the North and a sense of pride as to belonging to the Confederacy. These were true believers of their cause, right or wrong, most fought and lost family members to the war, and in that struggle, pride for the South was formed. Most of the north which culturally and econmically was way ahead of their southern countrymen, created an inferiority complex, and when the abolishinist movement was being forcefully fed into federal government, many Southerners felt that they were no longer being represented by the government. And individual representation of the people has always been a sensitive subject for Americans.
Which is where I think most of the pride for the Confederacy comes from, most of the Southern states incorporated the Southern Cross into their State Flag. Hell South Carolina just in the last 10 years quit flying the Confederate flag underneath the American flag at their state capitol! Which leads back to how recent this war really occurred. I believe Mississippi still has not removed the Southern Cross from it's state flag.
Unfortunately the Confederate flag became something more than just a symbol of Southern pride. It became the symbol for racisim. The KKK, adopted it as their flag in the late 60's when the civil rights movement was in full swing. In fact if you look at old pictures of Klan rallies ( a college proffessor of mine pointed this out to me), you rarely see the Confederate flag. Most of us remember watching the Dukes of Hazzard on TV, and although I was pretty young, I never remember hearing any negative rethoric about the flag displayed on the car each week. Feelings of discord came much later in the late 80's and 90's.
In conclusion I think the Confederacy was an important part of our history, unfortunatly the symbol has been twisted into meaning something entirely different. And most likely when you see it being flown today the bearer usually uses "southern pride" as an excuse to cloak their true feelings of racisim.
Also I challenge anyone to defend the statement that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. Those that point out that it was fought over "States-Rights" often forget that the states rights that the south was fighting for was the states right to allow slavery!!
Comment