Southern Heritage.

[frustrated_lefty]

I grew up in New Orleans. I left New Orleans when Katrina ate my life many years later. I’ve lived in Alabama for a while, California for a decade, in Pennsylvania for 15 years. Maybe it’s presumptuous, but I think I have a little sense of context here.

As a Deep South Southerner, I get both sides of the flag. In this day and age, the confederate flag can NOT fly. I understand the motivation, but also understand why that motivation is wrong.

What bugs me, as a Southerner, is the widespread hypocrisy that is common here.

I've lived in integrated cities, and the Northeast ain't it.

A Southerner in the Deep South works on figuring out how to interact with "MINORITIES." In the Northeast, you just pretend they don't exist ( and they mostly don't in your neighborhood.).

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Mayor Bloomberg was the most harmful Racist in the last 20 yrs, that being said,, Antebellum is a

big part of " Southern Heritage " and that not only has nothing to do with getting along with minorities, it has to do with superiority, no matter how lowly simply for being white, of existing unquestioned with no interference from the Federal government, and the biggest victims were also Blamed for the end of an over romanticized period of history, which ended at the birth of that flag .

[frustrated_lefty]

6. The most segregated states are in the east

It's weird, no?

[tyreesimms]

3. Remove Kid Rock exhibit

For those of you who agree that hate symbols like the confederate flag have no place in a modern society, please sign and share this petition to ask the Detroit Historical Museum and City of Detroit to remove their Kid Rock display for his continued use of the confederate flag in his shows.

https://www.change.org/p/detroit-historical-museum-city-of-detroit-remove-kid-rock-exhibit

Why is this important? "Kid Rock's continued use of the confederate flag is an insult to the African Americans who lived and died under slavery, and who continue to suffer from intense racial oppression to this day. Detroit is a beacon of diversity, and as such its institutions should maintain the highest standards with regards to racial intolerance. Detroit institutions should lead the way in remaking the ethnic fabric of the nation in the rich and diverse model of Detroit. The continued inclusion of Kid Rock in their museum sends the signal that it is ok for a performer to brandish symbols of hate and intolerance. The museum should have zero tolerance for hate, regardless of an artists contributions to their respective fields, which in Kid Rock's case are negligible anyway."

[kentuck]

4. I think there was a time when the flag was disappearing on its own schedule...

...until Strom Thurmond and his ilk decided that one way to fight the civil rights movement was to put the flag back up. It was done with racist intentions and the racism has grown around that flag since that time. I think it was put up in 1961?

Perhaps time had healed some of the wounds but the segregationists opened them back up, in my opinion.

[frustrated_lefty]

7. I agree.

I think you said a true thing:

" time had healed some of the wounds ."

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. My frustration is with the "either/or" "yes/no", "right/wrong" type of thinking that goes on here.

ALL Southerners are stupid and right wingers, etc.
Everything about the Confederacy needs to disappear, etc.
All Southern politicians are racist, etc.

No wonder real progress is so slow, when people buy into false dichotomies so easily.

[frustrated_lefty]

8. Kierkegaard vs Sartre

Your statement touched me: "Everything about the confederacy needs to disappear."

[Warren Stupidity]

10. That fucking flag is a symbol of racist bigotry.

Get over it.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

12. Native Americans would say the same thing about the Stars & Stripes

[gollygee]

16. Agreed. n/t

[frustrated_lefty]

17. One, my post was not a defense of the confederate flag.

If we're aiming for historical accuracy here, it was the American flag that flew during the Tuskegee experiments, and it has been the American flag that has flown over the decimation of the Native American populace. It was the American flag that flew over Japanese internment camps during WWII, and it's been the American flag that has given us the NSA.

I'm a Southerner. I don't defend the confederate flag, but I do take offense at the regional bigotry that is popular on DU. I don't think we should white-wash our history like the Soviets. I do think we should keep touch with our history. Thomas Jefferson is a great example. He was a great thinker, but also owned slaves. There is a guilt in the American conscience and we do a disservice to the people of the time by placing disproportionate guilt on the South.

I find the flag-uproar to be fodder for morons. I've thought about it. I know there is history that some of my confederate ancestors would embrace that is not founded in racism, but I also recognize that the flag is a hurtful symbol. Cut the flag down. I say that as a proud southerner.

I know some other things as a southerner. You should look this up yourself, because I'm obviously just a dumb hick. Map out poverty in the US and it streaks along the east coast. Map out racist tweets and they streak along the east coast. Map out homophobic tweets and they streak along the east coast. Map out police violence or shootings against unarmed minorities and they streak out along the east coast. The east coast is a hotbed for bigotry.

I'm a proud southerner, an aging man looking for a history to bequeath his daughter. My great great great grandmother was leader of the Wind Clan of the Creek tribe. You can bet I am telling that history to my daughter, how my great great grandma married a man in Alabama. I am also teaching her about our racist past, because she is a thoughtful child and understands that shades of grey populate our history.

[gollygee]

11. There's definitely racism in the north too

Northerners (and I'm from Michigan) who think the north is some kind of racial utopia need to read a book called Sundown Towns. http://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-American/dp/0743294483

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Has somebody claimed there was no racism in the north?

[gollygee]

15. Not directly

I sometimes feel like DU southerners downplay the role and scope of slavery in the south, and i sometimes think DU northerners downplay the history and level of racism in the north.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. Not even indirectly. Making this argument

Both a strawman fallacy and a tu quoque fallacy.

[gollygee]

19. Disagree

I'm not talking about recent threads. I've seen a trend, and it's much bigger than just DU.

[treestar]

13. I live in the northeast and it's much more integrated

than it used to be. Where in PA? Not in the cities, I assume.