Southerner here. The South is a very diverse place with a sizable African-American population.
Perhaps I'm just missing all the African-Americans who proudly fly the Confederate battle flag, but my perception is the flag is used by a small subset of white southerners as an anti-virtue-signaling device.
Are you suggesting that African-Americans identify with the Confederate battle flag flown in service of keeping their ancestors enslaved, or did you mean that the flag had attached to a particular subset of Southern identity? Please expand, I'm curious.
Are you suggesting that African-Americans identify with the Confederate battle flag...?
No, and nothing in my comments suggested that. It makes sense that they wouldn't since their relatives probably didn't after the war. For many people, their relatives did identify with the flag. It probably started as something racist by the survivors of the war, but morphed into what it is today, something that isn't considered racist by most around where I live. Do you really think NASCAR, a big business, would have previously allowed it to be flown if it was universally considered a hate symbol?
I am saying this as gently as possible: the majority of bigots don't walk around thinking or saying "Wow I sure am a bigot!". They mostly just think of themselves as normal people with normal values.
> Do you really think NASCAR, a big business, would have previously allowed it to be flown if it was universally considered a hate symbol?
There is a team in the NFL that is named a literal slur against indigenous Americans. I am not quite sure where one would get the idea that the US sports industry is a bastion of sensitivity.
Could that be because there isn't just one type of "southern heritage?" Do you really want to equate the southern heritage of black people in the south with those who fly the Confederate battle flag?
It was started as something racist and still remains incredibly racist to pretty much everyone else, despite doe-eyed claims from southerners who want people to believe that a 5 year long pro-slavery rebellion represents the history and pride of the South.
I mean, it's not like I'm wholly unsympathetic to failed secessionist states and their symbols/paraphernalia. People still use the flag of Biafra where I'm from, after all. But those that do are self-aware enough to acknowledge/be upfront about the values they hold and the message they pass when they use it (it certainly helps that Biafra attempted to secede in response to ethnic tensions/discrimination, not because it wanted amongst other things the right to keep slaves).
It's just a symbol of identity or culture, like most flags. There's a massive cultural difference between the rural south and the highly populated coastal cities. The flag to many is a symbol of that difference, and has many of the psychological undertones that makes the "don't tread on me" flag popular, mostly a willingness to push back against external influences.
And there are a lot of people outside the South who do show and like the Confederate flag.
So while I agree that it's a symbol of an identity and culture, I don't think it's a geographic regional identity and culture.
I think you're arguing in good faith based on your own experience, but I would gently suggest this is an opportunity to consider a wider variety of data and perspectives.
There's a reason they chose Lee's flag and not a CSA flag associated directly with a rabid slaver like Jefferson Davis. Indeed, the Army of Northern Virginia flag used to be a symbol of progressive racial integration, at a time when poor white southern migrant workers and poor African Americans found common cause against unfair wages and unsafe working conditions.
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/8gvw5g...
https://images-theconversation-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/im...
History is nuanced. Insisting that your view of what a symbol means should control others is toxic and Orwellian. Our society should be better than that.
[1] https://history.army.mil/books/R&H/R&H-FM.htm, Section VI with Ulysses Simpson Grant as part of the unbroken chain of command.
Unilateral succession is illegal. Those flying the confederate flag were not defending themselves, they were committing treason. Our Union is an indestructible one. It was safeguarded then by the U.S. Army who will continue to safeguard it as long as America endures.
It feels me with great sadness to think of the blood that was spilled, but at the end of the day Americans who take up arms against the U.S. Army are criminals and traitors. No American should fly the flag of those who have killed our soldiers.
An actual moral reason not to fly the confederate flag on your home or your video game automobile would be because many black people interpret it as a racist symbol, and they might feel unloved and alienated.
A philosophical reason would be if you disagree with the sectionalist politics of it. That's why many groups opposed the introduction of the symbol into state flags in the past. That sounds more aligned with your reasons, but is a different reason. The act of flying Italian, German, Mexican, or British flags to celebrate one's ethnic heritage seems quite different than that of flying the confederate flag.
Your arguments are transparently shallow, poorly thought out, and profoundly un-American. If my arguments would satisfy an automated grading system, yours would fail immediately upon parsing. I see no value in continuing a conversation with someone who claims there is no moral foundation in opposing the killing of U.S. troops by illegal insurgents. Feel free to have the last word here on this message board; in the real world the last word was the surrender of the Confederacy.
To summarize: 1) South Carolina secedes. 2) South Carolina demands the Union remove its troops from their soil. 3) The Union refuses, garrisons a fortress on foreign soil, and attempts to resupply said garrison. 4) South Carolina offers an ultimatum--remove your soldiers or we will attack. 5) The union refuses to remove their troops from foreign soil. 6) South Carolina's militia attacks Ft. Sumter.
South Carolina's militia fired the first shots, but I'm not sure how you can say that they 'Initiated hostilities'. Occupying foreign soil has always been considered an act of war. History is written by the victors, I suppose.
After seceding those who were illegally occupying the land were the secessionists themselves. You cannot unilaterally seceded from the Union. Hundreds of thousands of my countrymen died in the Civil War to establish this principle; it is the law of the land and to imply otherwise is to dishonor their sacrifice.
No unilateral secession, period. That is what 350,000+ U.S. military personnel died for. If you believe it was legal for those folks to secede I suggest you renounce your U.S. citizenship and leave.
I just saved everyone a ton of time there.
Many times, and I can earnestly say I've never seen that. Nor in rural Pennsylvania for that matter, which I would otherwise characterize as slightly less sophisticated than NY. Are there racists in that region? Certainly. But I can't recall ever seeing somebody in those states flying the confederate flag.
I'm sure it's happened before, I'm sure you can find me local news reporting on instances of it. But it's definitely not a common sight.