What It's Like To Be Black And Live Under A White Neighbor's Confederate Flag

[struggle4progress]

Dave Jamieson
Posted: 06/19/2015 6:58 pm EDT
Updated: 06/20/2015 1:59 pm EDT

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. -- Annie Caddell proudly flies the Confederate flag in her front yard here in the Charleston suburbs. She maintains a cache of spare flags on her front porch, replacing the one on her white flagpole every few months, after it gets tattered. A visitor to her home -- if the "no trespassing" sign doesn't turn him back -- is greeted near the door by a green, imitation street sign that reads "Confederate Circle" ...

Caddell, who is white, lives in a historically black neighborhood called Brownsville, surrounded by African-American neighbors. She became a source of controversy after she moved here several years ago and made her full-staff statement. As the Charleston Post and Courier reported in a series of stories at the time, outraged residents mounted an emotional campaign aimed at forcing her to remove the flag. They marched. They petitioned. They enlisted the NAACP ...

"Blown over? Nothing's blown over," said Rollins Edwards, 93, who lives two doors from Caddell and served as the first African-American member of the Dorchester County council. "We don't want nothing to remind us of slavery in the morning. To look over there at that flag, I don't like it" ...

"You can call it heritage all you want it. It's a symbol of hate," said Edwards' wife, Juanita ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/19/charleston-confederate-flag_n_7624760.html

[JustAnotherGen]

1. There's a house

6 down from me - they have two in their windows. Considering this is a revolutionary town - its kind of insulting. Try have three year lease and as I understand it (from the owners mouths) - their lease won't be renewed in November.

[struggle4progress]

3. I hardly ever see the rag where I live now, but I've lived places where it's popular

A number of the devotees strike me as "the lights are on but nobody's home." I used to meet people who wore it because they thought it meant they were "rebels" against authority. When Mississippi woke up one day and said "Oh, shizz! We haven't had a state flag since 1906!" they decided they needed it on their flag: it's hard to fathom what they were thinking, because the Recent-Unpleasantness-Between-The-States had ended 140 years earlier

[Warpy]

10. It's an asshole indicator here in NM

where the main places we see it is on license plate holders from out of state. We see that thing, we know the owner is an asshole.

Back in Mass, it was about the same, an asshole indicator favored by bike gangs and no one else. It was an early warning to avoid its owner because who needs more assholes in their lives?

[struggle4progress]

12. That probably holds across the whole country

[brer cat]

4. Good luck with that, JAG.

We have one next door. My sister talked with the teenager who put it out and he took it down for a while, but it is back up. Another neighbor tried to get him to remove it, but he just gave a lot of blather about respecting his "heritage."

[JustAnotherGen]

5. We're friends with the owners

They bought another house in town and in the leases for those (federalist made into a duplex) - they have a clause about that.

They are kind people - and they don't want to rent to these people anymore.

They bring shame on us.

[brer cat]

7. They do bring shame on us. nt

[brer cat]

2. Wallpaper.

I have read so much following the Charleston massacre that I no longer remember who said this, but s/he referred to the wallpaper surrounding AAs: the flag; the monuments to Civil War "heroes"; the streets, schools, government buildings named for confederate officers. To force our black friends and neighbors to live within this wallpaper day after day is deplorable and shows utter contempt. Those who believe that they are displaying a symbol of a heritage that deserves honor are delusional: it represents hate and it represents belief in superiority of whites over blacks. The flag needs to go into the dustbin of history along with the monuments and confederate names on public buildings.

[secondwind]

6. talk about race baiting! I'm glad I don't live near her.. I'd probably get into trouble

[zentrum]

8. Isn't it illegal

…..to post a swastika on a house in Germany?

America refuses to deal with its "heritage"——and not just in the South. Systemic racism is everywhere. More invisible when buried in a bank lending policy or police arrest statistics—but these are all ways of refusing to take down the Confederate flag.

At least this "neighbor" makes it easy to spot her ugly nature.

[Stuckinthebush]

9. Isn't this surprising...

"Caddell, who describes herself as a Republican with Tea Party leanings..."

I live in the Deep South. You don't fly that flag unless you are a flaming bigot. Everyone knows that. It's no surprise that she says she has Tea Party leanings. That's the party of bigots.

[OldRedneck]

11. The REAL Confederate flag

I think I'll order a bumper sticker from CafePress

[TheOther95Percent]

13. It's Especially Appalling Given that A Huge Block of Southerners Were Never "Confederates."

By some estimates, 75K to 100K white southern men fought for the union. That's on top of the 250K men who lived in the border slave states that stayed part of the United States. Outside of South Carolina, every other secessionist state besides had pockets of Southern Unionists. South Carolina had roughly a 100K more African Americans than whites at the start of the Civil War. Put another way, more of the population was enslaved than free.

http://www.csuchico.edu/inside/current-issue/bigpicture-1.shtml

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/6-unionist-strongholds-in-the-south-during-the-civil-war