Confederate Flag Removed From South Carolina Capitol Building

[SacredWarrior]

After everything's that happened in Charleston with that Children of the Corn looking asshole, the Confederate Flag has been taken down from the capitol building in SC. Not surprising. This has obviously caused controversy and I'm not surprised. Personally I could care less about the flag and I will never represent it because I've had experiences with jackass maggots who do. Thank God for my fists and feet.

The way I see it, removing the flag won't erase racism. Racism exists within a person's heart. But with that being said, I do indeed view the flag as a racist symbol. After all, it was raised in the 1960s to protest the Civil Rights Movement and the KKK uses it quite frequently. But like I said before, removing the flag and Confederate symbols changes nothing. People are still gonna be racist regardless and people who are racist shouldn't even breathe the same air as REAL people.

What are you sexy people's thoughts on this entire thing?

 

[Brovo]

Same as before, but I'll summarize.

• It should be up to the people of the state to vote to remove the flag, since it's representing them specifically.
• Removing a flag is not going to magically make racists stop being racist.
• Removing a flag is not going to magically make people stop learning about the confederacy and deciding for themselves whether it's a mark of pride or shame.
• Others who ban confederate merchandise from their stores as a result of this (ex: Amazon/eBay) but who continue to sell Nazi merchandise (ex: Amazon/eBay) will disgust me for the sheer hypocritical cowardice of it.
• Nothing I say or do in this matter, or how I personally feel about it, will mean a thing whatsoever. So ultimately, my feelings are "I hope this stupidity over a piece of fabric will end so we can talk about far more important things."

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

I have no strong opinion, the flag was never something I knew nor cared much about.

But I do agree with the sentiment that simply removing a flag won't stop racism.

 

[GhostJoker]

Lol.

 

[Sole]

Same as before, but I'll summarize.

• It should be up to the people of the state to vote to remove the flag, since it's representing them specifically.
• Removing a flag is not going to magically make racists stop being racist.
• Removing a flag is not going to magically make people stop learning about the confederacy and deciding for themselves whether it's a mark of pride or shame.
• Others who ban confederate merchandise from their stores as a result of this (ex: Amazon/eBay) but who continue to sell Nazi merchandise (ex: Amazon/eBay) will disgust me for the sheer hypocritical cowardice of it.
• Nothing I say or do in this matter, or how I personally feel about it, will mean a thing whatsoever. So ultimately, my feelings are "I hope this stupidity over a piece of fabric will end so we can talk about far more important things."

The flag doesn't represent the people, it represents a rebellious & treasonous faction that lost its uprising. A faction whose very basis was that the white man was more of a person than a black man. It's cool to ban it without open poll.

 

[Brovo]

The flag doesn't represent the people, it represents a rebellious & treasonous faction that lost its uprising. A faction whose very basis was that the white man was more of a person than a black man. It's cool to ban it without open poll.

Says you. Millions disagree.

If it means anything: I agree with you about the flag's meaning. I'd never want to fly that damnable thing, much less have it represent me in international affairs. The Confederate constitution outright added amendments protecting enslavement of "the negro", and the only prohibition to slavery they possessed was about the importation of slaves from foreign territories--that is, they too abided by the end of the international slave trade. Frankly the only reason I think they did is because the British got very, very pissy about the whole affair, and nobody questioned the naval supremacy of the British back then. That, and they wanted to be best pals with Europe to get their cotton sales in--can't exactly do that if you piss off the British.

Frankly, personally, I rank the symbol of the Confederacy alongside the ones that represented Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Roman Empire, and Imperial Japan. However, at the end of the day, it's just a flag. It's just a piece of cloth. You can attribute any meaning to that cloth--the aboriginal peoples of Canada, Australia, & the United States have a very different view of the Maple Leaf or the Star Spangled Banner. One that probably involves a metric fuckton of genocide, enslavement, rape, and so on. Wounds they still live with to this day.

Any state that has existed for a sufficient amount of time likely has a bloody history associated to its flag. Even the Canadian flag can stand for Japanese Internment and second class citizenship. It can represent a school system that raped the aboriginal peoples by kidnapping their children and literally beating their identity out of them--a system whose last school didn't close until 1996. For context: I was four years old when they closed that last one down. I was alive. I wasn't alive during the time of the confederacy. My parents weren't alive during the time of the confederacy. My grandparents weren't alive during the time of the confederacy. I'm fairly certain my great grand parents weren't alive then.

The confederate flag has flown at that post for several generations without causing another uprising. The mere presence of the flag--which was as much as historical symbol was it was one of identity for that state--didn't override the state's duty to the US in the wars that followed, or in the laws that it obeys today. It's just a flag. It's just a symbol. It can mean anything you want it to mean, and for millions of people, it means something other than slavery, something that is important to them. That's why I think it should go up to a vote: I don't live there. I don't know these people. Let them decide for themselves if they want a symbol to stand or not.

Regardless of what it means to you or me, as individuals, our own feelings on the matter don't override those of millions of other people. If you want to get pedantic about historical connotations, then we should ban every single piece of Christian and Islamic symbolism while we're at it. Remove "In God We Trust" on those bills, because the Bible not only is a historical cassus belli to mass genocide several times over, but the book outright encourages you to murder people who don't step in line with the ideology. As does the Koran.

I don't imagine you asking for the banning of Christian iconography from the American government, though. So...

EDIT

@Jorick made a point to me just now about not wasting taxpayer time & money with a referendum. I'll concede on the point that the elected representatives of the people made the decision ultimately--plus, it's going to a museum, so, historical importance remains intact. This satisfies me. I'd still prefer a referendum, but preference can get chucked for efficiency in this case.

 

[Jorick]

I didn't really care one way or the other about the flag in the last thread that happened about it. It's viewed by many as a symbol of hate so sure, don't fly it over your state capitol, keep it to museum and historical contexts just like the flag of Nazi Germany. Whatever, not a big deal, chuck the flag so you can get back to the actually important business of running a state.

However, I think overall this is a negative thing. People are going to see the news of the flag being removed and they're going to think/say shit like "Yeah, we did it! The flag is removed, this is another victory for love and peace and equality! America, fuck yeah!" They're going to see this as a huge victory thanks to media (both social and traditional) hype about this symbol on a piece of cloth. Instead of getting people engaged in a real discussion about any of the important issues involved in the Charleston church shooting, like racism and mental illness and the disgustingly high levels of gun violence in our country, people are going to feel satisfied that they made a "real" change for the better. The Confederate battle flag that flew over the South Caroline capitol building was a scapegoat, another successful distraction away from the actual issues. I can't wait to see what stupid shit people focus on after the next mass shooting, because it sure as fuck won't be the issues that matter.

 

[Cpt Toellner]

I still find it convenient that the Govenor brought up this topic imedietly after the shooting. This debate was a pretty crafty way to deflect common media attention away from real issues.

Do I think the flag should be flying above state capitols? No.

Do I think common knowledge about the confederacy is severely lacking? Yes.

Does this solve anything? I don't think so.

 

[Asmodeus]

You guys are all stupid. The flag gives a +4 Morale Bonus to KKK attack rolls. They can't beat a Level 2 Black Man's AC if he's channelling Positive Action.

 

[Midian]

I think @Jorick and @Brovo bring up good points. The flag being taken down isn't bringing monumental change; racism hasn't ended overnight, although there are some that will point to the flag being removed as evidence of such. And there are definitely things going on that have more impact than the flag being taken down from a government building. I know this creates a rallying point for the "muh heritage" people.

And yes, it is absolutely astounding that the Nazi flag is being sold when the Confederate flag is taken down. Both should be removed.

But taking the flag from the government buildings removes tacit government support of it. No longer can the racists point to the capitol building and say that the state flies their flag. Retiring it to a museum is beautifully symbolic- it takes its place in the past, where it belongs. Not in the present. It's a step, not a solution. But I think it's an important first step, and solutions have to start somewhere. Something as pervasive and wormy as racism doesn't get solved all at once; it's the culmination of big and small steps. No step is too small or ill-timed. There will always be issues bigger than any small one that crops up, but that doesn't make the small victories any less important. Bigger victories come on the backs of smaller ones. Removing the flag won't magically cure the racists, but it takes away a little approval, and it allows those of us who despised it to point to the buildings and show concrete proof that there are those who don't endorse it. The people that (presumably) represent the majority of their electors. I think that's a powerful message.

And those who claim "Heritage, not hate" don't seem to understand that it is a heritage of hate. Slavery, racism, utter dehumanization of an entire people, why is that heritage anyone wants to claim? I say this as someone who that is my historical heritage, but not my personal one. I have to respectfully disagree with Brovo that the confederate flag can mean anything, or that all symbols are equal in the hate they represent. The confederate flag doesn't have as many other associations as national flags, religious texts, or things of that ilk; those are used and co-opted by millions or billions and often have lengthy, varied, and rich histories. The CF has a relatively brief and one-note history; the others stand, in comparison, as symphonies. When a symbol has such a varied history, you can use it for something positive; the CF, like the swastika, has a history whose balance is tipped too far in the negative for positive use of it to be genuine or effective.