Teen Sues Over Confederate Flag Prom Dress

[kenpo tiger]

Okay you guys. I know you'll correct me if I'm wrong , but since when is the Confederate States of America a viable entity as a nation/state/whatever? And, therefore, why should their flag be allowed to fly?

Just *aksin*, as them good ole boys would say...

 

[PeachMonkey]

Okay you guys. I know you'll correct me if I'm wrong , but since when is the Confederate States of America a viable entity as a nation/state/whatever? And, therefore, why should their flag be allowed to fly?

The CSA were a viable entity until their rebellion was crushed well over a hundred years ago, and haven't been since.

And people fly all kinds of flags -- for corporations and clubs -- that have nothing to do with state or nationhood.

 

[PeachMonkey]

It is funny how Malcolm X *always* comes up in these discussions. One of the few African-Americans who educated himself, rose out of his environment, confronted white America directly with the same hatred and threats of violence he and his people had faced for *centuries*, and suddenly you can justify any number of terrible racist acts...

No matter, of course, as Robert pointed out, that Malcolm X actually grew up and died for it.

 

[kenpo tiger]

The CSA were a viable entity until their rebellion was crushed well over a hundred years ago, and haven't been since.

And people fly all kinds of flags -- for corporations and clubs -- that have nothing to do with state or nationhood.

And those flags don't fly outside government buildings, do they? Or are you just running me up a flagpole...

 

[PeachMonkey]

And those flags don't fly outside government buildings, do they? Or are you just running me up a flagpole...

Me? Do that? Surely you joust, KT.

 

[kenpo tiger]

Me? Do that? Surely you joust, KT.

Nope. I only tilt at windmills.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

This era of growning 'correctness' is become stifling. Some argue racism, some pride. Most people have no real understanding of the buildup, causes, and fallout of the American Civil War. To most, it's that slavery thing, and Lincoln is a hero. All those who fought for the south must be racist traitors. I'm sorry, it's not that cut and dried.

In Germany, all reference to Hitler, and the Nazi party is illegal. Use of any symbology is subject to prosecution.
In Japan, WWII and Japans part in it is mostly hidden away. It is not a topic for discussion.

The US is rapidly trying to rewrite history and hide it's own dirty past.
We never performed genocide on teh indians...they live on those reservations because they want to. The South was not systematically destroyed, and punished for over a decade after the CW....and there was no coersion involved in rewriting all those state constitutions. People like Robert E Lee and James Longstreet were traitors, plain and simple, evil men who got what they deserved.

Bull.

Why do we have 'Black Pride' weeks or months...but no 'white pride' day, because that is racist?
Why do we seem to go out of our way to create celebrations of every color, except white?

I know..."Bad Bob...you racist insensitive bastard! Don't you know you must be punished for what your ancestors did!" I almost always get some moron who pulls that comment out on me when I get into this topic.

To have a "Black Pride" week, and a "Indian Pride" week, etc, without a "White Pride" week IS racist, bigoted and discriminatory. Either do all, or none.

Maybe if we stop all this BS we can stop being white/black/brown/red/yellow/green/whatever...and just be "people".

Flying or wearing the Confederate battle flag is not a statement of racism. Folk from the south ... whites and non-whites ... who have ancestors that fought for the South have every right to be proud of the actions of those ancestors without being shouted down. It doesn't take much research to note that the majority of photographs of racist whites in the KKK are flying the American flag, not the Confederate. For some reason, whites who express pride in their heritage ... whatever it is ... seem to often be labeled as "racist", while people of color are lauded. Those who label others as "racist" seem to me to often harbor more ill-will than those who don't use labels at all.

 

[Tgace]

Strange how people who are champions of the "shades of gray" theory suddenly get all "black and white" on this topic....

 

[rmcrobertson]

Regrettably, Mr. Hubbard, you are completely wrong. Words do not mean whatever we wish them to mean, whatever Humpty Dumpty claimed--words have histories, and present culttural values/associations, and the history and the culture of, "white pride," is unremittingly ugly.

A search using the term, "white pride," turned up a charming little group, "Stormfront," as the FIRST result. Here is the response of someone titling themselves, "Aryan Princess," to some other fool titled, "Luftwaffe," who has raised the issue of removing the Confederate flag and other Dixie symbols:

"How dare those people try to steal my heritage from me?! I'm refusing here and now to let them do that. If I have to I will sign any petition a white southern prints to save our history. The black people they are behind this. They aren't going to get away with it. We didn't surrender to Grant and we sure as heck are not going to surrender to some dread-locked, ghetto black man or woman. This makes my blood boil."

The further discussions are similar. Oh, and incidentally...Lee's Army of Virginia damn sure did surrender to Grant. With Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain formally accepting the surrender and saluting Lee's soldiers, too.

Then there's another little problem (beyond the Stars and Bars being the battle flag of one of the worst Southern racists, beyond the last century-and-a-half of tinhorn creeps like Lester Maddox, beyond its current, ongoing use by groups like the Klan, beyond the fact that ALL of the discussions of that flag's removal immediately elicit terms like, "white pride,")---"white people?" What "white people?"

The idea of there being some separate race of Caucasians--or Aryans, for that matter--is, scientifically, ludicrous. As is the idea of there being some separate, "black," race--unless of course one is that idiot at NYU, with their, "sun people," vs. "ice people," claptrap.

Personally, one also resents political correctness....for example, the pc that says we were right to go to war in Vietnam, just betrayed by pinkos back here at home; the pc that says slavery wasn't so bad; the pc that says Lee and the rest weren't traitors--they took an oath, right? One to, "preserve, protect and defend," right?

By all means, leave the imagery, while teaching people EXACTLY what its history is, what its current meaning is. Certainly I have no objections, for example, to teaching kids that the Civil War was complex, with one side fighting to maintain an out-of-date feudalism that depended economically, culturally and ideologically upon one of the two ugliest ideas this country ever came up with (the other being genocide)--and the other fighting to develop industrial capitalism, with all that that entailed for a) democracy, and b) the exploitation of the mass of people for the benefit of the few.

Yet somehow, one never seems to see proponents of the, "teach both sides of the Civil War," theory arguing that capitalism is destructive...

 

[PeachMonkey]

Strange how people who are champions of the "shades of gray" theory suddenly get all "black and white" on this topic....

Not that actual "black and white" thinking has been exhibited here. That would involve expunging the flag from museums (not advocated here), requiring the girl to not wear it as a dress (not advocated here), and that sort of thing.

 

[Andrew Green]

To have a "Black Pride" week, and a "Indian Pride" week, etc, without a "White Pride" week IS racist, bigoted and discriminatory. Either do all, or none.

I'd say that it would depend entirely on the motivations for such a week...

In these cases it is not about putting other races down, but rebuilding a race that has had their culture stripped from them, posessions "liberated" and been forced into a second class existance for generations.

I agree fully that these things shouldn't be necessary, but they are. Pride has been stripped from those cultures and they are rebuilding it. Eventually we will hopefully all be able to be "just people" but unfortunately the wounds that have been inflicted are very deep.

Yes, this racism and discrimination is ending, but the wounds still need to be healed. It is as if a sword was run through them, then one day pulled out and they got told, there you go. Sword is out now quit your whinning as they stand there bleeding and ready to pass out from loss of blood...

Just because something has "stopped" does not mean that the damage done is errased. The damage done by generations before us is still being mended.

 

[PeachMonkey]

Ack, "White Pride".

Never mind that various white racial groups all have their own traditions and heritage that they celebrate, that dominate and pervade our culture. Everything from the yearlong holiday melange of European pagan and Xian and Jewish festivals to such exciting parties as Oktoberfest through the exciting Italian and Irish traditions and the continuing celebration of the Southern aristocracy via "debutante" parties and on and on and on...

But if you have a "Black History" month while pointing out that skinheads calling for race war are, in fact, racist, then you must be some kind of politically correct fascist.

For those of you familiar with Orwell, this is called "double-speak". There's also another term for it, using the initials "B" and "S".

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I am well aware of the number of 'white supremist groups' there are...one encounters quite a few of them when researching certain issues.

But as I already covered in my articles Revisiting the Past - The Road to War : Causes and Researching the Past - An examination of the concept of Secession, the American Civil War was not simply an issue abour slavery, as many misinformed and a few ignorant individuals continue to believe.

We deal with the idea that reparations are somehow owed to decendents of African slaves..while ignoring the facts that not all slaves were African, than no-one currently alive was ever a slave, and that over 140 years have gone by during which there have been ample opportunity for progress.

But, somehow, I should feel ashamed at what has been a dead institution, and take responsibility for actions that neither I, nor my family participated in.

In the original post here, a girl who has pride in her southern herritage wanted to make a statement. She is condemned for it. But I wonder, would she have been so condemned if it was an American flag, rather than a Confederate Battle Flag? Or if she had covered it with Christian imagery?
She would have of course been soundly chastised if she had covered it with pentacles, or ankhs. The irony here is of course that while she and others in the South fight for their right to fly the Stainless Banner, they are more than happy to censor others rights to differeing opinion, or religion.

The American Civil War happened. Pretending it was simply a race issue, striving to remove from sight the statuary and symbols under which the war was fought, will not remove the truth of that struggle. Not every person who flys the Stainless Banner is a racist, a bigot, or a traitor. Just as not everyone who salutes the Stars and Stripes is white supremist Christian Corporate scum.

I am a white American. I believe it is time for everyone to stop feeling sorry for themselves, to stop expecting a handout, and get off their lasy asses and build something out of hard work and sweat. Why can an asian, arab or hispanic family move here and within 10 years have a business that supports them, while others who have been here for generations can not? The 'government aid' to minorities and women is there. There are grants and loans that simply because of being 'white' and 'male' that I can not get, ever. That doesn't seem very "equal" to me, a resident of a nation where 'all men are equal'.

Some will say "The Ku Klux Klan" uses the Confederate Battle Flag as their symbol. True, they do. However they also use several others as well. If we are going to ban 1, then let us please ban the rest of those most hated symbols. They are of course the United States flag and the Christian Cross. Both symbols known world-wide for hatred, intollerence and violence.
If we are going to blast the images of Lee, Jackson and Longstreet off of Stone Mountain, then let us also blast Washington and Jefferson off Mt. Rushmore as they both participated in that hated institution of slavery...

You can not have it both ways. Either learn from the past, and move forward positively, or follow the path of the Egyptians and erase your own history.

 

[kenpo tiger]

So what does all the debate about being fascist have to do with whether this little girl should have been allowed to wear her dress? I would tend to doubt that she is a fascist, nor that she fully understands the meaning of the epithet.

Are we, or are we not, permitted the right to express ourselves as long as it doesn't interfere with someone else's right to free enjoyment of their liberties also? Much as I would hate to see someone show up at my prom (which I did not attend, by the way -- too establishment for my taste at the time) wearing a politically-charged symbol and thinking she's doing a Scarlett O'Hara turn and the South will rise again, it's her right. Has not a thing to do with who won or lost the Civil War or who was *right*. The Stars and Bars has become a bastardization of the original symbol of the Confederate States, utilized now by haters to spread hate. That is my objection.

 

[MA-Caver]

So what does all the debate about being fascist have to do with whether this little girl should have been allowed to wear her dress? I would tend to doubt that she is a fascist, nor that she fully understands the meaning of the epithet.

Are we, or are we not, permitted the right to express ourselves as long as it doesn't interfere with someone else's right to free enjoyment of their liberties also? Much as I would hate to see someone show up at my prom (which I did not attend, by the way -- too establishment for my taste at the time) wearing a politically-charged symbol and thinking she's doing a Scarlett O'Hara turn and the South will rise again, it's her right. Has not a thing to do with who won or lost the Civil War or who was *right*. The Stars and Bars has become a bastardization of the original symbol of the Confederate States, utilized now by haters to spread hate. That is my objection.

Well yeah... but supposed she decided to use THIS flag for her dress design instead?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

To some, the "Stars and Bars" is a symbol of hatred, to others a symbol of their heritage.
To some, the Cross is a symbol of salvation and hope, to others it is a symbol of oppresion and cruelty.

Symbols mean what you see in them...rarely do they mean otherwise.

Hitler corrupted the swastika, a symbol with a history thousands of years old, appearing on every continent, in a multitude of faiths. Many groups have abandoned it...while others seek to cleanse it and reclaim it.

See http://www.luckymojo.com/swastika.html for some interesting history on it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Well yeah... but supposed she decided to use THIS flag for her dress design instead?

She would have most likely been even more severly censored. If she tried it in Germany, she would have been arrested and most likely imprisoned.

That symbol was used within our lifetime to murder over 20 million individuals...the 2nd worst barbarity of the 20th century. (The Soviet murders, estimated at over 50 million are I believe #1 on the list, with WW1 being #3)

The important point here is, there are people alive today, who saw the cruilty first hand. There is no one currently alive now, who saw the Stainless Banner fly during wartime.

The swastika was a symbol of hope for 3,000+ years. It took 10 for it to be stained. It'll probably take a few generations for it to be clean again...long enough for the pain, and the echos to dull. Yes, it currently is directly associated with evil....but, should we now travel the world and chisel it off ancient temple walls, and burn the scrolls that include it?

Purhaps, we could ask the Taliban for advice on how to destroy what we don't wish to see in this world?

 

[kenpo tiger]

Point taken, both of you.

She still has the right to free speech. If not, then we're no better than the non-democratic governments throughout the world.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Actually....does she?

About the First Amendment : http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/about.aspx?item=about_firstamd

Congress didn't tell her she couldn't wear the dress....her school did. Schools can set dress codes that DO limit the freedom of expression and speech, and do so all the time. One of our earlier threads here involved a homosexuals denial of the right to wear a gay-pride shirt, while allowing anti-homosexual shirts to be worn to school.

Note, I do agree with you. I think she did have the right to wear it, despite the fact that I personally find it to be on the tacky side, just as I would any other political/religious "in your face" statement at such an event.

 

[MA-Caver]

That symbol was used within our lifetime to murder over 20 million individuals...the 2nd worst barbarity of the 20th century. (The Soviet murders, estimated at over 50 million are I believe #1 on the list, with WW1 being #3)

I don't want to detract from the thread here but this site has the counts of deaths in WWII here both military and civilian broken by country. Russia came in first... just... FYI