Well, regarding the NCAA, they need to keep with sports, and out of politics. I personally support the NAACP's lawsuit against Wake County Public Schools (Raleigh area) community school plan that threatens to resegregate our schools, de facto. The tourism boycott vs. S.C. over the Battle Flag I don't. I can understand arguments that state governments should not fly it because the Southern states are and have been part of the Union for some time, even Obama's comment that it belongs in a museum. Then again, for years at UNC-Chapel Hill I heard outcries to tear down Silent Sam, the Confederate memorial on the north end of campus, on the grounds that it is racist. They're still ongoing, and Sam still stands.

What Sam and other memorials mean to me is that there is an ultimate price to pay, written in blood, for standing up to a hostile power wanting your destruction and obedience of who remains. The very name Tar Heels, applied to North Carolinians, and also those who go to UNC-CH, refers to those who stood their ground against the North. So it might make a few people feel better if Sam were torn down. But no one should feel good about the bloodiest war Americans ever fought. That's why he stands, for the UNC students and others who fought and died in that war.

But the Civil War did not end racism, and though it ended slavery it wasn't initially about it. The majority of those who display the Battle Flag, I will say, do comment on those coming in from outside wanting to change the way things are done, and occasionally refer to same as "carpetbaggers", regardless of their race. There are still stickers and shirts that read, "We don't care how you did it up North." But those comments are directed more at people who want to overdevelop areas then leave, leaving ghost towns like several in the New England area. It has nothing to do with racism; that's a war that's still ongoing all over this country.

tim

Originally Posted by serandfae

I can also understand that if the symbol worn by the assailant were a "Have a nice day" flag with a happy face the same person would react with hostility to happy faces. While I would sympathize with the individual person, I would not then call for a ban on happy faces

What if tens of thousands of people congregated and decided to wear happy face t-shirts as their way of saying "People with beards are evil" and on a regular basis assaulted bearded men by shaving them, and then slitting their throats with a razor blade a la Sweeney Todd?

While you may not call for a ban on the t-shirts, you would probably stay clear of people wearing them if you had a beard, and you probably wouldn't don a smiley t-shirt before hanging out with your Hassidic Jewish friends.

Originally Posted by Giselle

... not looking for any arguments or to change anybody's ideas or feelings...

You've changed my ideas and feelings. Not about Confederate symbols being racist per se, because they logically are not. But about their detractors all being uneducated or perverse. I see that you have a reasonable point of view, on the facts as you see them.

Originally Posted by NullPointer

I am not personally offended by the confederate flag (which has become the token symbol of this discussion), but I can certainly understand why someone would be. Regardless of whether or not history supports the association of that particular symbol with racism, it has come to represent a period in history where racism was condoned and a faction that was in support of slavery. It definitely isn't the first symbol to come to represent something it was not originally intended to.

The result of this is that while you might not see it as representing racism people are inevitably going to associate it with the Civil War, which is associated with the end of slavery. In my opinion trying to 'take it back' or denounce those who hold it in such regard is an exercise in futility.

I refer you back to this post, in which I made the distinction with associations:

Originally Posted by serandfae

On the other hand, the swastika, though it was also the symbol of Apollo, in recent history was used predominantly by a major power as a symbol of racism. The reference in inextricably entwined between the two. There are few modern uses of it that are not intended as racist. Therein is the noteworthy difference between it and the Battle Flag: in its case, a minority of those who display it today are doing so for racist purposes, and its use under the original power that used it was not racist.

I'd argue further that it's only a handful of people who associate the Battle Flag with racism, in and of itself. What if I were to say that people who make that association, then demand all Confederate references be taken down, are prejudiced themselves? It's clear-cut discrimination; are Southerners OK to be discriminated against? Right here on WT, my heritage has been insulted, and my artwork has been put in the same category with white supremacists. That's OK? Hardly. I find lumping me in with that group highly offensive.

To echo Bill Maher when he said it on Politically Incorrect: Why is it OK to say "white trash" on TV? As I said in the PC thread, it wouldn't bother me personally if someone called me a "corn-pone, inbred, redneck, white trash hillbilly," but it does bother me a bit that those are the only approved epithets that can be said openly in entertainment across the board.

Yet those who can make associations like the above recoil in horror if you call them prejudiced. Prejudice is prejudice, no matter what group a preconceived notion is applied to. I find it offensive that I can fight, and have fought, against prejudice toward other groups, but it's seen as OK against mine.

tim

Originally Posted by serandfae

... are Southerners OK to be discriminated against?...

Some racial hatred is deemed to be Politically Correct.

Doesn't seem like anyone wants to answer those questions. That's pretty typical.

tim

The answer is pie.

I cooked cherry pie today.

I've just eaten a Tesco deep fill mince pie.

That anything like one of Sweeney Todd's meat pies?

tim

This proves my theory that people would rather talk about pie than politics.

Well said. Now answer my question. (Holds pie in hand at the ready)

tim

So, back to the subject: Why should we overlook the obvious prejudice of people equating all things Southern with being backward and racist? Why is that stereotype still acceptable in mainstream media and general discourse? Why let those same prejudiced souls malign the Battle Flag because it's a convenient symbol, simply because a handful of people have misused it? When's the ACLU coming to back me? I'm waiting....

tim

The media likes to back things that tend to inflame the public..
That way they have a story that will last for days..
Hoping that readers will return for more...

Originally Posted by C0ldf1re

I cooked cherry pie today.

Did that fellow really say, "cooked", when he meant, "baked"? Must be a third-world spammer still learning English!

I just thought I'd bring Cherry Pie to share.