Controversy over symbols and racism .

[tonypaladino]

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Also, I don't see how the confederate flag represents slavery. The civil war was about states' rights, not slavery. Slavery was a side issue.

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What the confederate flag represents today has very little to do with what the Civil War was about. Why can't you or wacki understand this?

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The confederate flag symbol, as used in state flags today doesn't represent what the civil war was about, nor does it represent slavery. I don't know the origin of each individual state flag, but I imagine it has to do with the state's history. Isn't the purpose of the flags to represent the hsotry of the state? Why would they ignore a major part of history?

[ThaSaltCracka]

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Also, I don't see how the confederate flag represents slavery. The civil war was about states' rights, not slavery. Slavery was a side issue.

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What the confederate flag represents today has very little to do with what the Civil War was about. Why can't you or wacki understand this?

[/ QUOTE ]who can really say what the flag truely means nowadays? Are you going to base it on some survey conducted throughtout America, or are you going to base it on a story about some dumbfuck hicks in Alabama? I don't mean this as a smart ass answer, but I think it is unfair to assume that most people thinking of racism when they see that flag. [censored], I bet you 90% of kids aged 10-18 don't even know where the flag is from(unless they are southern)

[Evan]

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who can really say what the flag truely means nowadays?

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People that have first hand experience with those that sport it?

[Clarkmeister]

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What the confederate flag represents today has very little to do with what the Civil War was about.

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This is basically correct.

[Sponger15SB]

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Also, I don't see how the confederate flag represents slavery. The civil war was about states' rights, not slavery. Slavery was a side issue.

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Yes, but a lot of the time racists and white supremacists use it to promote their racist/hate views. It has turned into a symbol for slavery even though it wasn't originally intended.

For example, if the stay puff marshmallow was used by white supremacists it would probably end up being offensive even without a giant swastika on its stomach...

[Sponger15SB]

Yup. That is my post. I'm an idiot.

[Eurotrash]

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Yup. That is my post. I'm an idiot.

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I like how on the bottom of the image it has "Stay Puft" yet in your post you wrote what it is commonly mistaken for, "Stay Puff" [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[wacki]

OK guys, just to clarify. PLEASE DROP THE WHOLE MOD THING. Mat isn't going to allow anyone to get banned over a flag.

This is a discussion if symbols like the confederate flag are symbols of racism and anyone that uses it is symbolizing racism. Many are claiming just that. A lot of this debate happened over IRC.

[FoxwoodsFiend]

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Also, I don't see how the confederate flag represents slavery. The civil war was about states' rights, not slavery. Slavery was a side issue.

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If you wouldn't mind explaining which state right, besides the right to slavery, irked the South enough to secede? Funny how there was no push for secession when state's rights were infringed through tariffs (which had not been contentious for almost 30 years when Lincoln was elected).
But somehow once Lincoln, who opposes the further expansion of slavery (and hence the loss of power of slave states in the senate in the future), gets elected they care enough to secede.
I find it highly implausible to claim that state's rights other than slavery, which were not endangered in any way by Lincoln, were sufficient motivation for the South to fight over.

[RedBean]

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If you wouldn't mind explaining which state right, besides the right to slavery, irked the South enough to secede?


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To think that slavery was the reason for the Civil War is uninformed.

The only part it played in the war as a political gesture by the North two years into the war to apply pressure on the wavering confederate states, by the Union decreeing free all slaves in the seceeded territories, but still maintained slavery as allowable in Union territory.

Consider that the Emancipation Proclamation, widely considered as the "freeing of slaves" went into effect in 1863, a full two years after the war began.

How can someone think the Civil War was fought over slavery, when it didn't become a factor until two years after the start, and when the North affirmed slavery in loyal states and only called for the freedom of slaves in those states that seceeded?

That's right, its one little tidbit you don't hear the Union sympathizers talk much about, that the Emancipation Proclamation called for the freedom of slaves in the Confederate States only, and did not apply to those states who were still loyal to the Union.

Slavery was allowed and continued in Northern states throughout and even after the war ended, which is about as proof positive to any educated person that the war was NOT a black and white fight over slavery.

To think the North fought the South to free slaves and abolish slavery is a simplistic and incorrect view.

"We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." - Secretary of State William Steward, 1863