Lighten up, gabe. He's trying to have a discussion.
This isn't the same thing, though.Right, and an even greater number of people think it's patently offensive.
Which is also likely why I've never tattoo'd multiple swastikas all over my body, even though I've had dreams where an old man with a white beard and long flowing white garments came to me and told me it was my duty to reclaim it as a positive symbol.
This isn't the same thing, though.
That so many people get off on being offended is one of the worst things about our culture.
Are you intentionally being obtuse?You're right: the swastika, unlike the Confederate flag, has actual legitimate historical uses that have positive meanings.
You mean a discussion in which you aren't even participating?
Do you always have to be so abrasive when it comes to a normal discussion?
You mean a discussion in which you aren't even participating?
It was a general observation.
Thanks for confirming.
Are you intentionally being obtuse?
Enlighten me on how a guy from Toronto is more qualified than a guy from Texas to discuss how the Confederate flag is viewed in the south. You are awfully dismissive of Impy's post when it would seem that someone from the south would have a much better grasp on symbolism than you. We're not talking foreign policy where anyone from anywhere is on equal footing if they are well read. This is a more subjective topic. You are not treating it as such.No, are you? Or maybe you can enlighten me on what legitimately positive historical connotation the Confederate flag has, much less in a discussion remotely related to race relations?
I didn't attack anyone here. I spoke vociferously in denouncement of revisionist ideas. Phanan's involvement was nothing more than an over generalized attack of my character which was neither called for, nor did it add anything relevant to the discussion, as he himself notes.
Enlighten me on how a guy from Toronto is more qualified than a guy from Texas to discuss how the Confederate flag is viewed in the south. You are awfully dismissive of Impy's post when it would seem that someone from the south would have a much better grasp on symbolism than you.
(source: http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20101226/ARCHIVES/312269943)Now that the Sons of Confederate Veterans have held their Sesquicentennial Ball, which may remain as Charleston's most widely reported commemorative event (The Washington Post's story drew more than 400 reader comments), perhaps the time has come to remember how 116 South Carolina historians have assessed the causes of secession. They researched and issued their statement near the peak of our state's great debate a decade ago over removal of the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse dome.
The chief author was Charles Joyner of Coastal Carolina University. He is among three signers elected as president of the Southern Historical Association. They and the 113 other signatories speak with authority about this central issue.
Here's what the historians concluded a decade ago:
"The crux of the present controversy is not in the flag itself but in conflicting interpretations of the meaning of the Civil War. Some South Carolinians deny that the Civil War was fought over slavery, maintaining that it was fought over the rights of the states to control their own destinies. Slavery, they believe, was incidental.
"But when South Carolina delegates walked out of the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston as a prelude to secession, their spokesman William Preston minced no words in declaring that 'Slavery is our King; slavery is our Truth; slavery is our Divine Right.' And a few months later when the signers of the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession issued their Declaration of the Causes of Secession, they specifically referred to the 'domestic institution' of slavery. They objected that the free states have 'denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery.' They charged that the free states had 'encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain have been incited by emissaries, books, and pictures, to hostile insurrection.'
"Moreover, in 1861, as President and Vice President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens each candidly acknowledged that their new nation was created for the specific purpose of perpetuating slavery. In an address to the Confederate Congress in April of 1861, Davis declared that 'a persistent and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern States' had culminated in a political party dedicated to 'annihilating in effect property worth thousands of millions of dollars.' Since 'the labor of African slaves was and is indispensable' to the South's production of cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, Davis said, 'the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced.'
"In a speech in Savannah, Stephens made it even clearer that the establishment of the Confederacy had 'put to rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions -- African slavery as it exists among us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.' He added, that the Confederacy was 'founded upon' what he called 'the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.'
"Running successfully for governor of South Carolina in the critical election of 1860, Francis W. Pickens left little doubt of his support for disunion and even war to perpetuate slavery. His sentiments were echoed by his old friend Edward Bryan, who declared in the campaign, 'Give us slavery or give us death!' Pickens committed his state -- and ours -- to a ruinous course. 'I would be willing to appeal to the god of battles,' he defiantly declared, 'if need be, cover the state with ruin, conflagration and blood rather than submit.' These are not interpretations by historians; they are statements made at the time by Confederate leaders explaining what they were doing and why.
"After the war had been lost, and the Lost Cause was in need of justification, Davis and Stephens backed away from their original statements, casting the cause of the war in the context of 'states rights.' Their revisionist interpretation, in which slavery became not the cause but merely the 'question' resolved on the field of battle, still misleads many South Carolinians. The historical record, however, clearly shows that the cause for which the South seceded and fought a devastating war was slavery."
Insufferable, as usual.
There's a really interesting conversation about perceptions of icons from one culture to another to be had here, but to dismiss my firsthand knowledge as "revisionist bullshit" is willfully obtuse. Also notice I didn't make any blanket statements in my post, liberally peppering in "for me" and "I think."
You're obviously entitled to your opinion, and it's worth taking into account for the discussion at large, but don't start with telling me I'm wrong when you have no clue what it's like down here. If you truly think people hold onto that flag as a symbol of wanting to own black people, I can't help you. I understand the perception of it from the outside and how the connotation is still heavy on the slavery, so try and understand when I tell you what it's like on the other side.
You honestly don't think you come across in a negative way on this board at times?
Exactly. Which is way different than some white dude tattooing a Swastika to his arm.Honestly, I'm surprised you feel so strongly against Kanye using the symbol. Considering all the connotations and controversy surrounding it, it seems pretty clear to me that it's a hearty FUCK YOU to the stereotypical Confederate good-ol'-boy flag-fliers. I'm sure he knows damned well what statement he's making.
Honestly, I'm surprised you feel so strongly against Kanye using the symbol.
Considering all the connotations and controversy surrounding it, it seems pretty clear to me that it's a hearty FUCK YOU to the stereotypical Confederate good-ol'-boy flag-fliers. I'm sure he knows damned well what statement he's making.