Rebel flag the ultimate dog whistle

[struggle4progress]

Posted: Friday, July 24, 2015 10:06 pm
Updated: 10:06 pm, Fri Jul 24, 2015
Will Durst

... it is disingenuous to the extreme to suggest that when the rebel flag is worn or brandished in the first state to secede from the Union, that it isn't meant as a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, knowing and shared racist commentary with no need to be verbalized. The ultimate dog whistle in the key of Dixie ...

The recent resurgence of General Lee's Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia gives proof that though the War of Northern Aggression has been over for 150 years, the flame of bigotry remains alive. Why? Because old times there are not forgotten. The South never quit fighting; they just took an intermission ...

And their protestations of innocence might be a tad more believable if the states that insist on flying the flag over state-sponsored Confederate monuments weren't the same ones that defied integration way past the bitter end, using everything at their disposal including police batons, dogs and fire hoses.

"It's about states' rights." Yeah, especially those rights that include owning your labor force. They may call it macaroni, but it's really white supremacy. In Dixieland, I'll take my stand and live and die in Dixie. And Republicans wonder why they can't attract black voters ...

http://www.mywebtimes.com/opinion/columnists/guest-column-rebel-flag-the-ultimate-dog-whistle/article_5fcf9b27-2408-557e-ad62-887157abcbc6.html

[chervilant]

1. Many more younglings here

have mounted said flags (about which they know no or little history) in the beds of their pickups, and they go roaring through town, proudly. They must have glasspacks, too, loud as their trucks roar: "Look at me! Look at me!!!"

I see you, pathetic racists. I see you.

[daybranch]

2. The romanticized image of states rights and racism

were blended in a strategy by former slaveowners and northern industrialists who conspired to perpetuate tenant farming and other slave pay rate enterprises in the south.
Seeing the ignorant who are themselves victims of this self delusion is not the important thing, seeing the rich and their political hacks behind the racism is more important. I realize it is hard to plan ahead when you are up to your as in alligators or racists but to fight the racists you have to strike at the heart of the problem and that is the rich and their owned political hacks who continue the manipulation in order to divide poor whites and poor blacks. And in my opinion, we all should consider ourselves poor and get over this middle class romanticism as well.
So when Bernie points out the rich as the cause of economic inequity, we must understand racism is necessary to divide us and create that separation which allows the rich to prosper as the people suffer more and more to expand that economic inequity. We must speak their name-Bankers, Wall Street, Billionaires and millionaires, if we want to stop them from impoverishing and poisoning us. Our children need us. Go Bernie!