General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump says Confederate flag proud symbol of U.S. South
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump declined to say the Confederate flag was an offensive symbol in an interview broadcast on Sunday, saying it is a source of pride for people who love the South.
The Republican president was asked on "Fox News Sunday," if the flag, considered a symbol of slavery and oppression by most Americans, was offensive.
"It depends on who you're talking about, when you're talking about," Trump responded. "When people proudly had their Confederate flags they're not talking about racism. They love their flag, it represents the South. They like the South ... I say it's freedom of many things, but it's freedom of speech."
Trump has in the past appeared sympathetic to the flag and symbols of the Confederacy of 1861-65 American Civil War. In 2017, he decried the removal of monuments to the Confederacy, laying blame on "both sides" in Charlottesville, Virginia, after protests against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-confederate-flag-proud-140317104.html
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,862 posts)is more like it.
LisaM
(27,813 posts)Isn't it just the flag of just one unit in Virginia?
Rhiannon12866
(205,517 posts)No big surprise.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)misanthrope
(7,418 posts)it is a heritage of white supremacy, as was explicitly stated by the Confederacy's leaders -- see, Alexander Stephens' "Cornerstone" speech -- and in the formal documents of secession. Someone might want to equivocate about the "hatred" aspect but there is no backing away from its protection of a society founded on race-based philosophies of subjugation and enslavement. They plainly codified it.
Girard442
(6,075 posts)...then it's slso OK to burn the Confederate Flag, right?
Runningdawg
(4,520 posts)but we have to preserve confederate statues and flags because "it's history!" HYPOCRITES
frazzled
(18,402 posts)raging moderate
(4,305 posts)Last edited Sat Jul 25, 2020, 08:00 AM - Edit history (1)
The South represented by free Black people and decent non-Supremacist whites? Or the South represented bywhite supremacists who got rich through enslaving one bunch of people and using the resulting unfair advantage to browbeat and impoverish the others?
napi21
(45,806 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)What we know as the confederate flag may have been used by a unit or two, but it was not the official battle flag.
If you have time, look up Union battle flags that units that fought under the stars and bars carried during the Civil War. There some really elegant Union State Detachment battle flags.
Betty88
(717 posts)dawg day
(7,947 posts)in the south. Not to mention a lot of people who don't think of slavery as "a glorious heritage."
LakeArenal
(28,820 posts)If Democrats called it a Christian Nation then Dump would scream SEPARATION.
He tosses his salad with whatever Democrats reject.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)these regions claim their own special flag. All others seem to be just fine with the flag of all the United States---the "Star-spangled Banner". So, what are we to understand that Trump and his base really mean when they say "the South"?
Obviously, "the South" is synonymous with "the Confederacy" to the knuckle-draggers who revere the "Stars and Bars", aka the "Dixie swastika". All this supposed pride in their "southern heritage" and their desire to "honor their ancestors" is transparently bullshit.
The heritage that flag represents is pure white supremacy form start to finish. They yearn to return to a system that allowed them to own black slaves and beat them, rape them or work them to death as they saw fit.
And, those ancestors of whom they are so proud were murderers and rapists who were, to a man, guilty of treason against the United States of America.
Finally, "the South" got their collective asses kicked. The only appropriate "Confederate flag" is solid white.
Response to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)
Atticus This message was self-deleted by its author.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)regarding Confederacy imagery.
There is nothing cooler to me, as an American, than watching those statues being torn down.
Those statues not only need to be brought down, but destroyed. None of this "Put them in a museum" bullshit.
Now it's time to make the display of that flag a Federal felony.
And I shit on any "1st Amendment" arguments in favor of the Confederate rag.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)posted on some other board that D.U.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)the thrust of your statement contained in my quote. Suppression of speech with which you disagree is still suppression and as such is antithetical to the First Amendment.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)fail to see the point.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)We'll have to agree to disagree.
In the mean time, we here in Chicago have to take apart Trump's jack booted thugs he plans to send here.
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)after the war. Maybe there would be fewer of them now, along with the traitor worship, if we had stopped their display in the 19th century.
kskiska
(27,045 posts)He knows little about history. He's just saying whatever is expedient for his purposes. There's no knowledge behind it.
Imallin4Joe
(758 posts)Fuck that flag and all who rally beneath it.
Stuart G
(38,436 posts)...Trump is full of shit..
..That number was equal to 1 in 30 people in the U.S.A.at that time
And the hate about that continued for decades afterwards...Trump is stupid to talk about that flag..but then he is STUPID, STUPID AND MORE STUPID
....and he proves it more every day.
moondust
(19,993 posts)Just another proud symbol, right? Hey, freedom of speech!
struggle4progress
(118,295 posts)panader0
(25,816 posts)I've got underwear that lasted longer than the Confederacy.
Caliman73
(11,738 posts)While it is true that symbols can take on meanings different from their original or widely accepted meaning, the reality is that you have to be willfully ignorant to take the flag that was the flag of the Confederate Virginia Army of the North, the Confederate Navy Jack, and eventually the symbol of opposition to the Civil Rights movement across the nation, as anything but a symbol of White Supremacy.
Some people will inevitably say, "It's a symbol of independence" or "Defiance", or "States Rights" or any number of other vague concepts but all you have to ask is "from what?", or "of what?", or "to what?" enough times and eventually it will have to land on slavery or White Supremacy but more likely the person who said it will curse at you and walk away because they know.
We can have a discussion on free speech and legislating the flag as hate speech, etc... I personally think that legislating symbols can have unintended consequences. Statues and the flag in public spaces is one thing. I think it is completely appropriate to not have statues glorifying traitors funded by our tax dollars and in our town squares. I also think that the flag should never fly at a function endorsed by any local, county/parish, state, or federal government entity. The simple fact is that that the flag and statues represent traitors to the United States. The Government does not typically fly any other flags of enemy nations at government endorsed functions, this should be no different. As for private citizens and functions, this is where the first amendment really is the crux of the situation. I read the response of another poster who did not accept that argument (more colorfully than I say here). The reality however is that the government cannot in broad terms, stop private people from putting symbols on their homes, carrying symbols at rallies, or saying things (even vile crap). In very specific ways, there are limits to speech and symbols, but when you start picking and choosing symbols (even though we all know what that flag symbolizes) for the government to ban, then eventually the symbol that you support (Rainbow Flag, BLM t-shirt, etc..) can become the target of government bans.
I would have liked the interviewer to have asked about why Trump came out so hot against Colin Kaepernick's use of free speech/expression by taking a knee during the anthem. I am sure he would have some stupid convoluted argument, but the reality is that Trump is just siding with ideas he supports and the legality and ethics of the situation do not matter to him.
maxrandb
(15,334 posts)and they are waving a White Flag.
CRK7376
(2,199 posts)I've been a Southerner for 60 of my 62 years of life. Born in that Border State of Missouri, raised and still call home in North Carolina. Since I first started reading history books about 7 or 8 years old I have hated the Confederate Flag. Generals abandoned the their country to fight for a state against their country. They lost my respect once I learned that information, that the flag represent SLAVERY. Slavery is wrong and there is nothing good about the Stars and Bars. It is evil as are you trumpster.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Fuck him. Yeah, I grew up not realizing what it meant. It was never in my house or the houses of my friends. In fact I never actually remember seeing it much in the 70s or early 80s.
I knew the Kluxers carried it and it was a white trash thing.
Now its a badge of honor for too many trump supporters. Like I said. Racist white trash.
I guess Im proud my family fought in the revolution. And not that they fought for the confederacy. What really, what does that have to do with me? Neither make me a better or worse person. That all on me.
Youve got to be pretty insecure to reach back to long dead ancestors to find meaning in your life.