posts: 36112
Data license: Public Domain
This data as json
| post_id | thread_id | thread_title | post_number | author_username | post_date | post_date_iso | post_body |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36112 | 430 | Some stuff I have been working on. | 84 | DownSouthSlidah | Feb 13, 2012 | 2012-02-13T03:38:17-0500 | Best answer I could find with a short search is below. Frankly I am a transplant to the South from a British colony where whites are the minority and native whites are not welcome in some restaurants, are blocked (not by law but by government intervention) from selling property to other whites without first consideration going to government officials (no, not white), and deal with open hatred on the streets (on the flip side, white tourists are made to feel welcome because without them the average person would not make a living - but believe me, for the majority of the time, they are scorned behind their backs. This after years of white rule and white oppression to the same extent now foisted on the white population. Whichever way it works in pure bullshit. I like the Stars and Bars. It's a pretty flag in a pleasing aesthetic and Austin has made a very pretty board - that isn't an easy task to do that in a resin tint. BTW, I have owned a board with my native island's flag on it - which includes the Union Jack. I am proud of my island and my country and I am grateful to the U.S. for letting me live here too... and I also have a deep affection for the South. Not for racism - but that is hardly exclusive to the Southern States. Southerners have an enormous gentility and anyone who chooses to judge us as a bunch of racist, backward country bumpkins is as ignorant as they claim we are. The Stars and Bars? Like it. Do I fly it? No. But only because so many people mistake it for something it has popularly come to mean (even some of the people who choose to fly it). To me, it means solidarity and pride in a genteel way of life. As far as Austin's board - I'd think about owning it but for the people I'd have to deal with in and out of the water who took it only for it's popular and dumbed-down symbolism. Here's the bit I found on the net... it's quite interesting. I can't attest to all of it being true but maybe it will lend some understanding? >>Many southerners absolutely do not attach those meanings or symbolism (racism and slavery) to the Confederate battle flag. From their perspective, it represents something completely different. The civil was fought over slavery, it's true - but that was only one of many issues that led up to the war. In any war, the victors paint their vanquished enemies as morally corrupt and deserving of defeat... sometimes that actually "is" true; sometimes not; sometimes the truth is somewhere in-between. Economic and social repression of immigrants; violence toward minorities; and what was euphemistically called "indentured servitude" were part of Northern culture before and after the civil war. In both Northern and Southern states - blacks could not attend school, hold professional jobs, vote, own their own business, or have a realistic hope of rising out of their economic and social class. Women of any race did not gain the right to vote until decades after the civil war ended. To people educated in modern schools, especially in the Northern states, the Confederate battle flag stands for all the things you mentioned in your question. The US was originally founded as a Confederation, then re-founded as a loosely-organized Federation of independent States. The concept of a strong central government in Washington, controlling the individual states, was anathema to the framers of the Constitution. This conflict of ideas about how the country should be ran was one of the main causes of the civil war. Slavery was an important issue to be sure; but contrary to modern teaching it wasn't anything like the primary cause of the US civil war (even though history books were quickly re-written to back that claim). After the war's end, the North took steps to ensure that the South would never be able to regain it's former economic strength. The South today is still poorer and generally less-educated, with inferior transportation systems and less well-developed industries - in spite of holding many more natural resources, usable deep-sea ports, and arable farm land. The victor also sent envoys to Russia, France, England, and Spain (all of which were set to normalize diplomatic relations with the South) to make sure they would not recognize the South as a separate nation. The North also used their much-enlarged army to wage a series of genocidal wars against the native American (Indians of the Western continent); conquer the natives of Alaska, Cuba, Florida, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico; and invade both Canada and Mexico. By objective standards, the Northern states were devoted to warlike conquest and a strong central government. To many Southerners, the Confederate battle flag doesn't represent racism or treason - racism existed in the North, and minorities were economically and socially repressed there, as well as being held in "indentured servitude". In an odd way, many Southerners see the Stars-and-Bars as representing adherence to the original principles of limited central government for which their fathers and grandfathers fought against the British. |