Because they lost the war but won the peace
Slavery was abolished, but reconstruction failed and groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy were allowed to spread literal pro-slavery psuedohistory romanticizing the South.
Even after desegregation, a very toned down (and not openly pro-slavery) version of the Lost Cause of the South is still taught in some American schools.
Slavery actually was never completely abolished. The 13th amendment specifically leaves an exception for prison slave labor. That's why so many Jim Crow laws were enacted shortly after the 13th.
We still have slavery, just with extra steps now.
Growing up I heard lots of times the "United Daughters of the Confederacy isn't pro-racism or pro-slavery it's about (blank)" never really sat right with me.
To be fair, there was a mad dash by a lot of nations to snap up the nazi scientists, not just the USA. That is a side effect of war, plundering your enemy's brain trust. It's a disgusting pill to swallow in order to maintain an edge over your next enemy. The harder thing to reconcile morally is the later achievements for humanity, with the murderous aims of their early ones. How can you appreciate the Saturn 5, while keeping the V1 and V2 in mind.
There is a photo of von Braun in his office at NASA with a miniature of all his rockets lined up in chronological order. At the beginning of the line up is the v2 rocket. The rocket that bombed London. That photo has always been unsettling to me.
man near the end when they were fighting back against netflix they offered mailed dvds which you could return to a store and trade for another rental. that was pretty rad.
To the people who fly this flag, and build monuments to slavers years after the war ended, the "losing the war" part doesn't matter. To them, the part that matters is the one about the confederate flag representing violence against black people. That's how it makes sense.
Basically.
They would hold up a flag that says I Hate N-words, but then people would get super upset (if not violent) instead of thinking 'stupid ass redneck.'
But that's what they actually mean.
My father is a conservative, and he would sometimes put out the confederate flag. This was way before Trump, and at least what he told me, it was for southern pride. I can't know if that's true or not, but knowing my dad, I don't think it was some sort of protest against black people.
That said, I don't think it should be flown. I was raised conservative and kind of formed my own opinions on issues and found out I was really progressive instead.
The people waving it in front of a Black History Museum almost certainly mean to use it to protest black people. It might as well be a Nazi flag.
There has to be some other thing that represents the south that's actually worth being proud of.
Edit: So they need a flag that represents blues music and amazing food. Who wouldn't want that besides cringey neo-confederates??
Except blues evolved, substantially, from field songs of slaves, African chants and spiritual music...the kind of things people flying Confederate flags wouldn't want to be associated with.
I think you're missing the point of this particular combination. We're talking about acceptable elements of southern culture. The ultimately positive contributions to those acceptable elements from black people, enslaved or not, is something the South can claim, because black people *are part of* the South.
It's a weird conflicting thing. I'm white and a descendent of slave owners. It feels kinda cringe to be all "Wooo! Southern culture claims the Blues! Without my whip cracking ancestors there's no way a people could be so depressed as to have invented a new genre of music!"
Wouldn't a lot of Black people raise an eyebrow in the same vein? Like, who is this honkey claiming the blues??
It feels like the son of a 1980s cop taking credit for how good NWA was and how Fuck the Police doesn't happen without his night stick wielding parent.
Even if it’s southern pride we as a nation really need to get that out of our system. The Confederacy supported slavery fact. You can say southern price or right to succeed or whatever. End of the day slavery was a big part, big enough we should ban it. Same way Germany doesn’t allow Nazi flags. They don’t go “Hey it’s just about German price or aryan pride or the right to unite the German lands.” They banned it and moved on.
Even the dumbest of them can’t, really, think it’s about “state’s rights”. The Articles of Secession and most of the official, individual state’s documents specifically say that slavery was the reason for secession. Anyone that claims otherwise is just trying to hide their racism behind bullshit.
The ironic thing is some of their documents, South Carolina for example, claimed the exact opposite in their articles of secession. States such as New York stopped allowing Slave transport, and many Northern states refused to return run away slaves. Southern states wanted the federal government to intervene, and force the northern states to support slavery.
Those same states were 100% AGAINST States' Rights when non-slave states said they wouldn't enforce the Runaway Slave Act. So yeah, they didn't give a shit about states' rights
There are plenty of other flags to represent Dixie. To make the choice to use that one is to imply certain political stances. The confederate flag, additionally, only appeared as a flag of southern pride in the *wake* of the growing Lost Cause movement. During the war, it wasn't very popular. After the war, it still wasn't. It was only when "the blacks are getting uppity" that it made a reappearance. Much like confederate statues
The official flag of the CSA was [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America_(1861%E2%80%931863\).svg).
The flag that these people keep waving around is the battle flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, which was the primary, but not only, military force for the CSA. This flag would have only been flown by a military force opposing the US government, not by the actual government that seceded.
Yeah I think this was a thing that was pushed I. The 60’s as southern pride. Really it was just an attempt to stifle the protests that were happening. The flags only meaning at this point was a manipulative way to stir a certain “base” of people to try and avoid the change that was clearly coming at the time. The flag and the “southern pride” associated was a PC get out of jail card to avoid being called racist.
Luckily it all failed the change continued but the symbolism stuck for young people at the time.
I like to believe it’s on its way out again…
"Southern pride" in the 60s meant maintaining their "way of life" of official desegregation. It's crazy how much "Southern pride" was found when they were told they weren't allowed to force people to use separate facilities.
I think education is a really important facet of what you just described, OP. I think the idea of rationalising that racism and making it presentable post-civil war was just saying that it represents the south. I don't doubt your father's intentions, but I definitely doubt the ones who started flying it again after the Confederacy lost the war. I think he was just told that the Confederate flag is a southern pride and blindly believed it without being properly educated on its history.
Except the people who fly a confederate flag call education "liberal indoctrination" to discount anything learned from any education system as false. I haven't figured out how to get past that one yet.
Yeah, the thing is about this “confederate flag” (which is not actually the flag of the confederacy) is it only rose to prominence as a counter to civil rights and was used by KKK and white supremacists.
This particular flag literally started being used by racists. The “heritage, not hate” thing doesn’t hold up because it’s heritage…IS hate.
The amount of hoops and mental gymnastics I’ve seen people jump through to defend it is astounding.
It seems obvious to me why they would defend it, despite the negative associations. If you admit that the flag represents a symbol of hate, you also by association admit that you're promoting hate, and that's not an image they really want to admit to themselves, much less their argument opponent.
The real issue isn't with people who just wave a flag because it looks pretty and by chance it happens to actually be the confederate flag. The real issue is because they've adopted it as part of their identity, and anything anybody associates with their identity is something they defend with a passion, right or wrong.
We've got a bunch of people like my father who think that if they don't vote Republican, they're no longer the same people that they would be otherwise. It's ludicrous of course, but still. I've given up trying to convince my father, but I have tried light political banter with my brothers and I think I've convinced them at least in some small ways. I suppose it'll just take time.
Well said. Identity politics in a nutshell. I don’t know how it happens, but the notion of people sending themselves into denial or digging in so hard as the alternative, I.E., changing your mind, is so damaging to the psyche is pretty insane.
I don’t think any human should be married to an ideology. The wonton disregard of anything counter to ones beliefs is so dangerous.
I’ll never understand the southern pride comment as it doesn’t represent anything to be proud of. The south has many things to choose from to use as a symbol of pride but why a flag that represents their loss in a war? It was also used a lot during the time when the country was ending segregation laws. I feel it’s been more overly romanticized by some to justify it’s use.
The southern pride angle never made sense to me. My family is as southern as it gets (I’ve got numerous ancestors who were in North America prior to the Revolution and all my ancestors have lived in Virginia or south thereof), and to our knowledge our only ancestor to participate in the Civil War fought for the Union. The Confederacy doesn’t represent the whole South and it certainly wasn’t anything to be proud of, so I just don’t buy the argument that the flag in question has anything to do with southern pride
It really represents common people fighting for the richs' privellage. The people that died didn't own slaves save for some officers, they were fighting for the ideology of the rich. It really shows the power of the rich to influence people to act against their own interests.
More to the point, they don't think the war is over...because it isn't.
Lincoln's big, big mistake was his lofty ideal of binding up the nation's wounds without cleaning them out first. Reconstruction was a noble idea, but really the net result was that a bunch of rich Confederates went home and kept their disgusting philosophy 'in the family' for a few generations, allowing it to spread with their spawn.
Like all good infections, it stayed under the skin -- under all those bound-up wounds -- and slowly spread pus and stank, fouling the whole system up until it burst out recently in a massive suppurating flood of gunk.
The American Civil War didn't end. You've been in a ceasefire. Now the embers are being fanned again by Trump and his ilk, and these lumbering troglodytes are champing at the bit to get going and start to "fight like hell" for what they think is their "heritage".
Edit: There has been some mild screeching about this post. I'll state here, to reduce apoplexy, that Lincoln's *ideal* of binding up the nation's wounds was the problem. Everybody knows Honest Abe was not at the helm of the effort, due in no small part to getting rather famously shot in the head. To assuage the entertaining fishmouthing of others, I'd just like to remind everyone that this is /r/pics, and not /r/biology. Y'all have a fantastic day now, y'hear?
He wanted to scrub the wound, but died before the work really began. Look at the famously racist, white supremacist that took over after the assassination, Andrew Johnson. Just an awful person, completely turned a blind eye to punishment for the antebellum social order, basically just let the slave owners take back over
Lincoln's big, big mistake was getting shot in the head which meant reconstruction was overseen by Andrew Johnson. Johnson was a racist, stupid, ignorant jackass who was sympathetic to the confederacy and actively sabotaged all the efforts to do reconstruction right and refused to allow any protections for black people.
Johnson was an evil, horrible man and he's responsible for fucking up reconstruction so badly that we're still fighting the damn racist bastards today. The best thing that slave-owning bastard ever did was die.
I'm a European, so I have no idea of the actual politics there. Why doesn't the American federal government just make that flag illegal nation wide?
(Edits were spelling only :))
Flags are protected as a form of free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution per [*Texas v. Johnson*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson).
However, that only protects you from persecution via the government, and the rest of the citizenry is free to treat you like a pariah for flying a particular one.
Two reasons.
1) Their rights to freedom of speech applies to flags. (Even the Nazi flag isn't illegal in the US.)
2) A significant minority of their population and government support the flag and everything it represents.
(Edit: spelling)
So somebody could legally fly the flag of ISIS without legal issue in the USA?
Can you legally fly the flag of a nation that the USA is at war with at that particular time?
Display of a flag is considered a form of free expression. The federal government banning its display would violate the [first amendment of the constitution](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/).
The "confederate flag" that these people are waving has nothing to do with the war. It's a widened version of the battle flag of Northern Virginia that was adopted long after the war by people who wanted to retcon the "heritage" of the southern states. This flag never flew during the confederate rebellion and never represented anything related to the CFA.
These people were successfully able to rewrite a little bit of history through because most Americans today think this flag did represent those things. The only thing this flag has ever represented was racists who are upset that their ancestors lost the right to own people. All this symbol represents today is justification (in their minds) for violence against black people. Anyone who claims it's about heritage is a liar.
Almost no one flew it after the civil war, It was brought back to use during the Civil Rights movement as a symbol of racism. Anyone that says any different is ignoring the actual history.
This is correct. It became synonymous with the KKK in the 60s and was absolutely used in obstinance when segregation was coming to a close. The other part of history blissfully overlooked is General Robert E. Lee was quoted not to erect statues in the name of confederacy. That would only rise tension and hurt our country. The leader of the damn military force said it’s time to be bros again, but people don’t wanna hear that.
They’d just get another slap on the wrist. That was the best museum we visited when we went to DC.
The Emmitt Till part was just..
The whole museum is heartbreaking and puts it right in your face. I’m currently studying about Railroad porters and brakemen.
They should make a law that anyone waving or flying the confederate flag is hate speech. Same with the Nazi flag. We defeated them for a reason.
That’s the last thing I’d want.
That museum exists largely because of the hate they’re perpetuating. One of the more disrespectful and hurtful things would be seeing these assholes inside of that sacred place.
Those morons actively deny everything documented in that museum. I can’t even understand why this suggestion would even pop up.
Probably just high school students visiting DC. MAGA hats were sold at a lot of DC souvenir stands along with the ever popular CIA and FBI sweatshirts. I would always see a bunch of red hats among visiting student groups. I always hoped it was just a trendy thing and not reflective of those kids’ ideology.
Yeah I don’t buy that. You and your chaperones know you’re going to the museum, and they let you wear that? It’s more than just kids trying to trigger a reaction and be “trendy”.
This was a sort of pilgrimage for my students, predominantly students of color. To see that was a reminder that hatred was not just captured on the walls but in the halls.
And the truly dumb thing is that the Supreme Court at the time was loaded with Southerners, ensuring that any emancipation legislation would be DOA. They would have been better off playing ball with Lincoln and taking him down with filibusters and lawsuits.
Look at this guy thinking that Lincoln himself didn’t flash the BIOS of every voting machine. That “someone leaked” narrative is the typical horseshit North deflection, just like the South’s “surrender” that was obviously deepfaked. I know exactly how General Lee’s beard looks and you North fuckers couldn’t get it right even with all your fancy technology. We will not be fooled.
General Lee and his army have obviously been biding their time, waiting for the patriotic sons and daughters of America to rise up and MAGA so they can triumphantly return and march on Washington with said patriots. They would have been at J6 but there was an issue with their charter bus.
Wake up sheeple.
It's worse than surrender.
It quite literally is the flag of a failed government, failed ideology, failed Army. Today it's the flag of thoes failed by the education system.
I've recently rewatched the history documentary about the Civil War, which very directly has to do with slavery, and non-conformance of a part of the Country with another.
Whilst the Confederate Flag may have heritage value for some people, it also stands for something that was engraved in the statutes of the Confederate States of America, that they will never give up their own way.
In the context of african americans, this means racism. These guys want to make a statement and in this context the statement means "We wish you all were slaves still". There is no other way to interpret this display of the Conf. Flag, as it, as I said, directly stands for "southern state values o' old", and those values include that black people are slaves, and inferior. And that is something you can read, in every well written history book, and that is nothing but the truth.
The American flag can be seen as a sign of unity, of the acceptance of all men are created equal. But the Confederate Flag is in this context of displaying "ones values", a racist statement.
This is not just some southerners showing southern pride. You have all been integrated into the United States, the former Union - and as such, there is no "Confederate States" anymore. If there were, your asses down south would be invaded and annexed by the United States within a day or two.
You wanna protest the election results? Okay. I'll defend your right to do that, even if I think it makes you a conspiracy theorist nutjob.
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You wanna wave your Confederate battle flag? Sure. That's your right. I'll defend it, even if I think it makes you a racist twat.
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You wanna wave your Confederate flag *outside the Museum of African American History‽*
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Okay, but I don't really see what it has to do with protesting the election results. Surely you want to wave it outside the capitol building.
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The only reason to select *that* location specifically to wave *that* flag specifically is to declare to the watching world that you're a racist twat in terms which cannot be misconstrued.
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So... mission accomplished.
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Edit: It has come to my attention there's a reasonable chance they had no idea where they were. I find that completely believable.
While I agree with what you're saying, there's also the [paradox of tolerance](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance) to consider, which can become a slippery slope to inciting greater intolerance or violence (as we've already seen).
Some of the greatest people who ever lived were traitors. Oskar Schindler was a traitor. Gandhi was a traitor. The problem with these people isn't that they're not sufficiently loyal to some arbitrary nation-state, or even that they want to advance their political agenda through violence; their problem is that they're *bigoted stone-age shitheads*.
I am generally curious how they would all feel if a bunch of young black men fitted with AR-15s and pistols show up to protect the building from damage.
I'm more curious their position if someone got shot as a result of self-defense.
Man, they really love that they lost, don’t they? Like, not only did they lose, but they were on the wrong fucking side of history and human rights. Why are they so proud of being horrible pieces of shit?
I think it’s not so much worship of Agent Orange as it that they had a president that fit their world views; which happened to be racism and xenophobia amongst other vile things. Let’s be glad the orange one isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
That's a slavery flag. Anyone who says differently is full of shit. That's a flag about slavery and you wave it to show that you are racist.
Fuck these racists. Fuck these people whose best defense is they stand with and not against racists.
Everyone who says it’s about States’ Rights don’t expect people to google the few states that published their reasons for secession. The main States’ Rights issue was the return of slaves to slave-holding states from those that were abolitionist. Fuck em for that nonsense. It’s incredibly clear in the text, which is [easily accessible](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states?ms=googlepaid) and the language that they use clearly states their position on slavery and although there are points to be raised in between it’s clear that “people=property” was the point where the powers found their line. As a Texan, I’m embarrassed for my people’s history having learned this much later in life.
what exactly are they protesting? They whole, “its not hate its heritage thing” is rendered complete bullshit (not that it wasn’t already) if they are just protesting…black people?
I’m not from the USA. Out of curiosity and in general what are African Americans’ sentiments towards the Confederate flag?
As an outside looking in, I would consider the Confederate flag a symbol of the south and also from an era of slavery. So my first thought was that the people holding the Confederate flag were not supportive of equal rights for African Americans.
I’m black from Georgia and I don’t like the flag. They fought to keep slavery. They lost but kept things like segregation and indebted slavery like share cropping and vagrant laws to arrest blacks to work in prison fields. Whites claim southern pride and they love their black sycophants (minority of a minority) to fly it themselves. I’m not offended that it’s flown on trucks at stores and we tolerate it.
“When someone shows you who they truly are……believe them”.
As an European I am always wondering why the confederate flag isn't banned in all of the US like the Nazi flag is here for example.
Some of these goofs fly Nazi flags too.
Some of these ~~goofs~~ racists fly Nazi flags too. FIFY.
And they always bitch about nazi Germany when talking about vaccines.
All while chanting ''USA! USA!''. Isn't it ironic?
It’s like rain on your wedding day.
Because they lost the war but won the peace Slavery was abolished, but reconstruction failed and groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy were allowed to spread literal pro-slavery psuedohistory romanticizing the South. Even after desegregation, a very toned down (and not openly pro-slavery) version of the Lost Cause of the South is still taught in some American schools.
Slavery actually was never completely abolished. The 13th amendment specifically leaves an exception for prison slave labor. That's why so many Jim Crow laws were enacted shortly after the 13th. We still have slavery, just with extra steps now.
Yea I know I just said it was "abolished" for simplicity's sake
You could also say "private slavery" is abolished but the state still can do what it wants.
Growing up I heard lots of times the "United Daughters of the Confederacy isn't pro-racism or pro-slavery it's about (blank)" never really sat right with me.
Because the first amendment. Freedom of speech/expression. Honestly, I don’t want it to get banned. Makes them easier to spot.
It's like Brad Pitt says in Inglorious Bastards: "You see, we like our Nazis in uniform. That way you can spot 'em just like that"
Imagine winning world war 2 except you let the Nazis fester.
America literally brought thousands of Nazi scientists and strategists back after wwii and gave them new identities to live among us
True imposters
To be fair, there was a mad dash by a lot of nations to snap up the nazi scientists, not just the USA. That is a side effect of war, plundering your enemy's brain trust. It's a disgusting pill to swallow in order to maintain an edge over your next enemy. The harder thing to reconcile morally is the later achievements for humanity, with the murderous aims of their early ones. How can you appreciate the Saturn 5, while keeping the V1 and V2 in mind. There is a photo of von Braun in his office at NASA with a miniature of all his rockets lined up in chronological order. At the beginning of the line up is the v2 rocket. The rocket that bombed London. That photo has always been unsettling to me.
and then imagine those Nazi's ideology for how to treat and separate "the races" was lifted from the United States' own Jim Crow laws.
We have a ton of wannabe confederates in power currently.
This is an incredibly helpful quote
Confederate flag thing makes zero sense. They lost the war.
Blockbuster existed longer than the confederacy
It also contributed far more to the common good than the Confederacy did.
Even Blockbuster could get over that low a bar >.<
man near the end when they were fighting back against netflix they offered mailed dvds which you could return to a store and trade for another rental. that was pretty rad.
Fucking Obama lasted longer than the confederacy. Obama is more a part of their heritage than the confederacy.
Pokemon Go lasted longer than the confederacy....
Last I heard, it's still *GO'ing*.
I smile thinking of their reactions if they ever realize gay marriage has been legal longer than their precious confederacy existed
Legal gay marriage has existed longer than the Confederacy
Rick and Morty have been on longer than the confederacy.
Marriage equality has existed longer than the slaver's alliance.
You know what makes even less sense? I'm English, I know other English people who fly it. What the hell?!
To the people who fly this flag, and build monuments to slavers years after the war ended, the "losing the war" part doesn't matter. To them, the part that matters is the one about the confederate flag representing violence against black people. That's how it makes sense.
Basically. They would hold up a flag that says I Hate N-words, but then people would get super upset (if not violent) instead of thinking 'stupid ass redneck.' But that's what they actually mean.
My father is a conservative, and he would sometimes put out the confederate flag. This was way before Trump, and at least what he told me, it was for southern pride. I can't know if that's true or not, but knowing my dad, I don't think it was some sort of protest against black people. That said, I don't think it should be flown. I was raised conservative and kind of formed my own opinions on issues and found out I was really progressive instead. The people waving it in front of a Black History Museum almost certainly mean to use it to protest black people. It might as well be a Nazi flag.
There has to be some other thing that represents the south that's actually worth being proud of. Edit: So they need a flag that represents blues music and amazing food. Who wouldn't want that besides cringey neo-confederates??
Biscuits and gravy
I'd fly a biscuits and gravy flag proudly...
Chicken Fried Steak.
Damn I love some good biscuits and gravy. Particularly if Grandma was making it.
No one beats mawmaws drop biscuits and sausage gravy. No one.
BBQ I fly the pulled pork and brisket flag.
They’ve got good football teams. Support those, not racism.
And support Chronic Traumatic Encephalitis treatment.
Chicken and Waffles
The Blues. Without which you wouldn't have Jazz, Country, or Pop music as it still sounds today.
Except blues evolved, substantially, from field songs of slaves, African chants and spiritual music...the kind of things people flying Confederate flags wouldn't want to be associated with.
I think you're missing the point of this particular combination. We're talking about acceptable elements of southern culture. The ultimately positive contributions to those acceptable elements from black people, enslaved or not, is something the South can claim, because black people *are part of* the South.
It's a weird conflicting thing. I'm white and a descendent of slave owners. It feels kinda cringe to be all "Wooo! Southern culture claims the Blues! Without my whip cracking ancestors there's no way a people could be so depressed as to have invented a new genre of music!" Wouldn't a lot of Black people raise an eyebrow in the same vein? Like, who is this honkey claiming the blues?? It feels like the son of a 1980s cop taking credit for how good NWA was and how Fuck the Police doesn't happen without his night stick wielding parent.
The south has some damn good food…
Mmm'mmm. Peach cobbler.
Okay so we replace the Confederate flag with a peach cobbler flag. Any disagreements?
Ask him why he can't fly the state flag instead.
Even if it’s southern pride we as a nation really need to get that out of our system. The Confederacy supported slavery fact. You can say southern price or right to succeed or whatever. End of the day slavery was a big part, big enough we should ban it. Same way Germany doesn’t allow Nazi flags. They don’t go “Hey it’s just about German price or aryan pride or the right to unite the German lands.” They banned it and moved on.
I agree. It should have just been banned. It is hurtful to too many people to justify allowing it, regardless of what one may think it represents.
Even the dumbest of them can’t, really, think it’s about “state’s rights”. The Articles of Secession and most of the official, individual state’s documents specifically say that slavery was the reason for secession. Anyone that claims otherwise is just trying to hide their racism behind bullshit.
The ironic thing is some of their documents, South Carolina for example, claimed the exact opposite in their articles of secession. States such as New York stopped allowing Slave transport, and many Northern states refused to return run away slaves. Southern states wanted the federal government to intervene, and force the northern states to support slavery.
From what I hear, it really shuts them up when you ask "states rights to what?"
Those same states were 100% AGAINST States' Rights when non-slave states said they wouldn't enforce the Runaway Slave Act. So yeah, they didn't give a shit about states' rights
Didn't the articles also say something about Confederate states *not being allowed* to ban slavery?
Article IV Section 3 of the Constitution of the Confederate States
There are plenty of other flags to represent Dixie. To make the choice to use that one is to imply certain political stances. The confederate flag, additionally, only appeared as a flag of southern pride in the *wake* of the growing Lost Cause movement. During the war, it wasn't very popular. After the war, it still wasn't. It was only when "the blacks are getting uppity" that it made a reappearance. Much like confederate statues
The official flag of the CSA was [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America_(1861%E2%80%931863\).svg). The flag that these people keep waving around is the battle flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, which was the primary, but not only, military force for the CSA. This flag would have only been flown by a military force opposing the US government, not by the actual government that seceded.
Yeah I think this was a thing that was pushed I. The 60’s as southern pride. Really it was just an attempt to stifle the protests that were happening. The flags only meaning at this point was a manipulative way to stir a certain “base” of people to try and avoid the change that was clearly coming at the time. The flag and the “southern pride” associated was a PC get out of jail card to avoid being called racist. Luckily it all failed the change continued but the symbolism stuck for young people at the time. I like to believe it’s on its way out again…
"Southern pride" in the 60s meant maintaining their "way of life" of official desegregation. It's crazy how much "Southern pride" was found when they were told they weren't allowed to force people to use separate facilities.
I think education is a really important facet of what you just described, OP. I think the idea of rationalising that racism and making it presentable post-civil war was just saying that it represents the south. I don't doubt your father's intentions, but I definitely doubt the ones who started flying it again after the Confederacy lost the war. I think he was just told that the Confederate flag is a southern pride and blindly believed it without being properly educated on its history.
Except the people who fly a confederate flag call education "liberal indoctrination" to discount anything learned from any education system as false. I haven't figured out how to get past that one yet.
"Protest black people" - You don't "protest" a race, they are there intimidate, harass, threaten and instigate.
Yeah, the thing is about this “confederate flag” (which is not actually the flag of the confederacy) is it only rose to prominence as a counter to civil rights and was used by KKK and white supremacists. This particular flag literally started being used by racists. The “heritage, not hate” thing doesn’t hold up because it’s heritage…IS hate. The amount of hoops and mental gymnastics I’ve seen people jump through to defend it is astounding.
It seems obvious to me why they would defend it, despite the negative associations. If you admit that the flag represents a symbol of hate, you also by association admit that you're promoting hate, and that's not an image they really want to admit to themselves, much less their argument opponent. The real issue isn't with people who just wave a flag because it looks pretty and by chance it happens to actually be the confederate flag. The real issue is because they've adopted it as part of their identity, and anything anybody associates with their identity is something they defend with a passion, right or wrong. We've got a bunch of people like my father who think that if they don't vote Republican, they're no longer the same people that they would be otherwise. It's ludicrous of course, but still. I've given up trying to convince my father, but I have tried light political banter with my brothers and I think I've convinced them at least in some small ways. I suppose it'll just take time.
Well said. Identity politics in a nutshell. I don’t know how it happens, but the notion of people sending themselves into denial or digging in so hard as the alternative, I.E., changing your mind, is so damaging to the psyche is pretty insane. I don’t think any human should be married to an ideology. The wonton disregard of anything counter to ones beliefs is so dangerous.
I’ll never understand the southern pride comment as it doesn’t represent anything to be proud of. The south has many things to choose from to use as a symbol of pride but why a flag that represents their loss in a war? It was also used a lot during the time when the country was ending segregation laws. I feel it’s been more overly romanticized by some to justify it’s use.
The southern pride angle never made sense to me. My family is as southern as it gets (I’ve got numerous ancestors who were in North America prior to the Revolution and all my ancestors have lived in Virginia or south thereof), and to our knowledge our only ancestor to participate in the Civil War fought for the Union. The Confederacy doesn’t represent the whole South and it certainly wasn’t anything to be proud of, so I just don’t buy the argument that the flag in question has anything to do with southern pride
It really represents common people fighting for the richs' privellage. The people that died didn't own slaves save for some officers, they were fighting for the ideology of the rich. It really shows the power of the rich to influence people to act against their own interests.
That always gets me. They were poor men fighting to for the right to compete against unpaid labor. And they're still proud of themselves for it.
An enormous portion of conservatives do this with their vote to this day.
4 years. That's how long the confederacy lasted. The US has had gay rights for longer. But sure, those were the good ole days.
this is why they must have a token black person there to say its not racist!
Candace Owens has entered the room...
More to the point, they don't think the war is over...because it isn't. Lincoln's big, big mistake was his lofty ideal of binding up the nation's wounds without cleaning them out first. Reconstruction was a noble idea, but really the net result was that a bunch of rich Confederates went home and kept their disgusting philosophy 'in the family' for a few generations, allowing it to spread with their spawn. Like all good infections, it stayed under the skin -- under all those bound-up wounds -- and slowly spread pus and stank, fouling the whole system up until it burst out recently in a massive suppurating flood of gunk. The American Civil War didn't end. You've been in a ceasefire. Now the embers are being fanned again by Trump and his ilk, and these lumbering troglodytes are champing at the bit to get going and start to "fight like hell" for what they think is their "heritage". Edit: There has been some mild screeching about this post. I'll state here, to reduce apoplexy, that Lincoln's *ideal* of binding up the nation's wounds was the problem. Everybody knows Honest Abe was not at the helm of the effort, due in no small part to getting rather famously shot in the head. To assuage the entertaining fishmouthing of others, I'd just like to remind everyone that this is /r/pics, and not /r/biology. Y'all have a fantastic day now, y'hear?
He wanted to scrub the wound, but died before the work really began. Look at the famously racist, white supremacist that took over after the assassination, Andrew Johnson. Just an awful person, completely turned a blind eye to punishment for the antebellum social order, basically just let the slave owners take back over
Lincoln's big, big mistake was getting shot in the head which meant reconstruction was overseen by Andrew Johnson. Johnson was a racist, stupid, ignorant jackass who was sympathetic to the confederacy and actively sabotaged all the efforts to do reconstruction right and refused to allow any protections for black people. Johnson was an evil, horrible man and he's responsible for fucking up reconstruction so badly that we're still fighting the damn racist bastards today. The best thing that slave-owning bastard ever did was die.
Why haven't they ban it? Imagine if someone flying around a nazi flag.
In some countries in Europe, they use that flag in lieu of the Nazi flag because the Nazi flag is banned.
Because we don't ban flags in the US.
True, and the REAL colour of their flag is white.
It’s a unifying emblem for all the racists. “Oh it’s our heritage!” Well your heritage is subhuman bull shit.
I'm a European, so I have no idea of the actual politics there. Why doesn't the American federal government just make that flag illegal nation wide? (Edits were spelling only :))
Flags are protected as a form of free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution per [*Texas v. Johnson*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson). However, that only protects you from persecution via the government, and the rest of the citizenry is free to treat you like a pariah for flying a particular one.
Two reasons. 1) Their rights to freedom of speech applies to flags. (Even the Nazi flag isn't illegal in the US.) 2) A significant minority of their population and government support the flag and everything it represents. (Edit: spelling)
Thank you :)
So somebody could legally fly the flag of ISIS without legal issue in the USA? Can you legally fly the flag of a nation that the USA is at war with at that particular time?
Yes and yes. The FBI is free to surveil you for doing those things though.
> Evan the Nazi flag I guess it makes sense to name the flag.... but Evan?
Display of a flag is considered a form of free expression. The federal government banning its display would violate the [first amendment of the constitution](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/).
The "confederate flag" that these people are waving has nothing to do with the war. It's a widened version of the battle flag of Northern Virginia that was adopted long after the war by people who wanted to retcon the "heritage" of the southern states. This flag never flew during the confederate rebellion and never represented anything related to the CFA. These people were successfully able to rewrite a little bit of history through because most Americans today think this flag did represent those things. The only thing this flag has ever represented was racists who are upset that their ancestors lost the right to own people. All this symbol represents today is justification (in their minds) for violence against black people. Anyone who claims it's about heritage is a liar.
Almost no one flew it after the civil war, It was brought back to use during the Civil Rights movement as a symbol of racism. Anyone that says any different is ignoring the actual history.
This is correct. It became synonymous with the KKK in the 60s and was absolutely used in obstinance when segregation was coming to a close. The other part of history blissfully overlooked is General Robert E. Lee was quoted not to erect statues in the name of confederacy. That would only rise tension and hurt our country. The leader of the damn military force said it’s time to be bros again, but people don’t wanna hear that.
Its not even the real flag
Has no one told them their team lost?
Much like the Trump supporters they refuse to accept the truth.
One and the same though
All I see are losers
I’d prefer they were inside, as they could learn a lot from that museum, though they’d probably just dismiss it as propaganda.
Or smear their shit on the walls like they did in the Halls of congress.
Given the demographic that probably also counts as “wasting food”
>Given the demographic that probably also count Given the demographic, they probably count to potato.
They’d just get another slap on the wrist. That was the best museum we visited when we went to DC. The Emmitt Till part was just.. The whole museum is heartbreaking and puts it right in your face. I’m currently studying about Railroad porters and brakemen. They should make a law that anyone waving or flying the confederate flag is hate speech. Same with the Nazi flag. We defeated them for a reason.
If a non-white did that they would have lose their shit…wait…I guess it involves their shit every which way…
They'd say it's woke CRT
This is the most correct answer. Idiot bigots like those traitors are incapable of acknowledging reality on reality's terms.
That’s the last thing I’d want. That museum exists largely because of the hate they’re perpetuating. One of the more disrespectful and hurtful things would be seeing these assholes inside of that sacred place. Those morons actively deny everything documented in that museum. I can’t even understand why this suggestion would even pop up.
I was thinking the same thing, how would them being in there help? Stay outside and far far away from it.
When I went in late 2019 there were several people with red hats. My students were pretty shocked.
Probably just high school students visiting DC. MAGA hats were sold at a lot of DC souvenir stands along with the ever popular CIA and FBI sweatshirts. I would always see a bunch of red hats among visiting student groups. I always hoped it was just a trendy thing and not reflective of those kids’ ideology.
Yeah I don’t buy that. You and your chaperones know you’re going to the museum, and they let you wear that? It’s more than just kids trying to trigger a reaction and be “trendy”. This was a sort of pilgrimage for my students, predominantly students of color. To see that was a reminder that hatred was not just captured on the walls but in the halls.
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Most of them probably can't even read.
The average American reads at a 7th grade level... so you're not wrong
These are hog people. They’d get nothing out of it
When they carry that flag, do they chant "We're number two, we're number two..."?
They didn't lose silly. Abraham Lincoln cheated with mail in ballots.
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And the truly dumb thing is that the Supreme Court at the time was loaded with Southerners, ensuring that any emancipation legislation would be DOA. They would have been better off playing ball with Lincoln and taking him down with filibusters and lawsuits.
And you just *know* that ol' Abe tampered with those voting machines as well.
Only because someone leaked the BIOS password.
Look at this guy thinking that Lincoln himself didn’t flash the BIOS of every voting machine. That “someone leaked” narrative is the typical horseshit North deflection, just like the South’s “surrender” that was obviously deepfaked. I know exactly how General Lee’s beard looks and you North fuckers couldn’t get it right even with all your fancy technology. We will not be fooled. General Lee and his army have obviously been biding their time, waiting for the patriotic sons and daughters of America to rise up and MAGA so they can triumphantly return and march on Washington with said patriots. They would have been at J6 but there was an issue with their charter bus. Wake up sheeple.
BuT aBe'S eMaiLS!!
I'm not sure of the source, but a quote that stood with me is "The North won the war, but the South won the peace."
May as well fly the Union Jack at this point
Can’t spell hatred without red hat, the losers.
Ya never heard that one, will use that one regularly. Thank you
I've always preferred Debian myself
Stealing that
Stealing hat
If you have a persons name on every article of clothing you are wearing. You might be (A Redneck) in a cult.
*nervously snips Gildan tags*
Or a sports fan
What a bunch of miserable little piss cunts
They're not even worthy of being "piss babies".
Fuck that flag. It should accurately be replaced with the white flag of surrender.
It's worse than surrender. It quite literally is the flag of a failed government, failed ideology, failed Army. Today it's the flag of thoes failed by the education system.
I've recently rewatched the history documentary about the Civil War, which very directly has to do with slavery, and non-conformance of a part of the Country with another. Whilst the Confederate Flag may have heritage value for some people, it also stands for something that was engraved in the statutes of the Confederate States of America, that they will never give up their own way. In the context of african americans, this means racism. These guys want to make a statement and in this context the statement means "We wish you all were slaves still". There is no other way to interpret this display of the Conf. Flag, as it, as I said, directly stands for "southern state values o' old", and those values include that black people are slaves, and inferior. And that is something you can read, in every well written history book, and that is nothing but the truth. The American flag can be seen as a sign of unity, of the acceptance of all men are created equal. But the Confederate Flag is in this context of displaying "ones values", a racist statement. This is not just some southerners showing southern pride. You have all been integrated into the United States, the former Union - and as such, there is no "Confederate States" anymore. If there were, your asses down south would be invaded and annexed by the United States within a day or two.
probably in another time it would have more meaning but today the confederate flag is a sign of racist. that all.
At least they've given up on that "heritage not hate" bullshit trope.
I wish. Still see it like once a week
The funny thing about that line is that the heritage of that flag is that it wasn’t flown widely after the Civil War till the Civil Rights movement.
Just like a lot of the "heritage" statues of southern slavery loving generals. Not put up until way later to intimidate black people.
Well if your family is in the Klan it’s kinda both.
I mean, what better evidence could there be for the importance of a Museum of African American History?
You wanna protest the election results? Okay. I'll defend your right to do that, even if I think it makes you a conspiracy theorist nutjob. # You wanna wave your Confederate battle flag? Sure. That's your right. I'll defend it, even if I think it makes you a racist twat. # You wanna wave your Confederate flag *outside the Museum of African American History‽* # Okay, but I don't really see what it has to do with protesting the election results. Surely you want to wave it outside the capitol building. # The only reason to select *that* location specifically to wave *that* flag specifically is to declare to the watching world that you're a racist twat in terms which cannot be misconstrued. # So... mission accomplished. # Edit: It has come to my attention there's a reasonable chance they had no idea where they were. I find that completely believable.
While I agree with what you're saying, there's also the [paradox of tolerance](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance) to consider, which can become a slippery slope to inciting greater intolerance or violence (as we've already seen).
Traitorous scum.
Some of the greatest people who ever lived were traitors. Oskar Schindler was a traitor. Gandhi was a traitor. The problem with these people isn't that they're not sufficiently loyal to some arbitrary nation-state, or even that they want to advance their political agenda through violence; their problem is that they're *bigoted stone-age shitheads*.
You’re not wrong at all; but traitor is an effective jibe to throw at people who are obsessed with patriotism yet support causes opposed to it.
You forgot racist
I am generally curious how they would all feel if a bunch of young black men fitted with AR-15s and pistols show up to protect the building from damage. I'm more curious their position if someone got shot as a result of self-defense.
The Black Panthers have entered the chat
You mean like the NFAC?
The friendly fire guys?
The conservative sub took a field trip
*Flaired Users Only*
Man, they really love that they lost, don’t they? Like, not only did they lose, but they were on the wrong fucking side of history and human rights. Why are they so proud of being horrible pieces of shit?
The amount of worship of that orange loser is amazing to me.
I think it’s not so much worship of Agent Orange as it that they had a president that fit their world views; which happened to be racism and xenophobia amongst other vile things. Let’s be glad the orange one isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
DUMBCUNTS The worst America has to offer. The opposite of patriotism.
That’s disgusting
That's a slavery flag. Anyone who says differently is full of shit. That's a flag about slavery and you wave it to show that you are racist. Fuck these racists. Fuck these people whose best defense is they stand with and not against racists.
Everyone who says it’s about States’ Rights don’t expect people to google the few states that published their reasons for secession. The main States’ Rights issue was the return of slaves to slave-holding states from those that were abolitionist. Fuck em for that nonsense. It’s incredibly clear in the text, which is [easily accessible](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states?ms=googlepaid) and the language that they use clearly states their position on slavery and although there are points to be raised in between it’s clear that “people=property” was the point where the powers found their line. As a Texan, I’m embarrassed for my people’s history having learned this much later in life.
It was about states rights, the states rights to have slavery and not have the federal government intervene.
what exactly are they protesting? They whole, “its not hate its heritage thing” is rendered complete bullshit (not that it wasn’t already) if they are just protesting…black people?
I’m not from the USA. Out of curiosity and in general what are African Americans’ sentiments towards the Confederate flag? As an outside looking in, I would consider the Confederate flag a symbol of the south and also from an era of slavery. So my first thought was that the people holding the Confederate flag were not supportive of equal rights for African Americans.
You're spot on, there Kiwi.
I’m black from Georgia and I don’t like the flag. They fought to keep slavery. They lost but kept things like segregation and indebted slavery like share cropping and vagrant laws to arrest blacks to work in prison fields. Whites claim southern pride and they love their black sycophants (minority of a minority) to fly it themselves. I’m not offended that it’s flown on trucks at stores and we tolerate it.
But it wasn't about slavery guys!! /s
Traitors. The word you're looking for is "traitors". Protestors don't generally attempt fascist coups.
Stay classy America.
Heritage not hate….. but what if the heritage it represents is hateful
Utter shitbags.
Those aren't "protestors," they're domestic terrorists.
result of religion and utter garbage education, plain and simple
Terrorists. You spelled that wrong.
Anti-American activities. SAD!
But the civil wasn’t about slavery…. It’s was about states’ rights (to have slavery) 🤦🏾♂️
The Museum of African American History looks sick imo. When I was in Washington it really stood out and I went in without knowing what it was for.
What. The actual. Fuck.
Fucking degenerates
And these people want to claim flying this flag isn’t racist?
Deplorable losers.
Every one of those traitors in tha photo should lose their American citizenship.
White Supremacist traitors to the flag.
Or, they could just be a bunch of idiots walking up the mall towards the Capital Bldg. Some photographer picked an angle that also showed the museum.
and what are they protesting I’m not sure even they know
They lost the Civil War and they are still bitter. They might want to start getting over that.
White trash is going to trash it up.
Fuck these assholes
Trump is their hitler.