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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat is Southern Heritage?
This OP was inspired by CTyankee's question.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026961256
If the Confederate battle flag is not about slavery but about Southern "heritage"
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can anyone tell us what that is? Is it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?
Is there such a thing as "Northern heritage"? Would that be Lincoln, the Adams', Paul Revere, etc?
We hear so much about Southern heritage as if it is something distinct from slavery so is it related but yet not related to slavery?
The short answer is Southern Heritage is about shared suffering.
No region in the nation has experienced trauma to the extent laid upon the South, not just from the Civil War but for at least 70 years after that conflict, as it continuously trailed the rest of the nation from an economic standpoint living with major poverty, while also dealing with the largest percentage in the nation of having more than one race.
To experience what the South went through, only taking into account the deaths attributed to the Civil War
the modern day United States, would have to experience a war whereupon 30% of all males between the ages of 18 and 40 were to die, using the 2010 census and we're talking approximately 30 million men dying as a result. Towns and counties across the South were wiped out for at least a generation.
Now to be sure the North suffered from that conflict as well, they did have 10% of their 20-45 age male population dying as a result, however the vast majority of the battles took place in the South, and for the most part its already mediocre at best infrastructure was devastated as a result.
Another intangible is the psychological difference between "winning a war" and "losing it," we as a nation had some of our most tumultuous, societal divisions and upheavals while losing the relatively minor war in Vietnam.
Also while many in the South felt as an unwanted step-child to the nation from continuous slurs, put downs, innuendos, across the less than 1%'s corporate media's programming even to late night comedians, this only served to further magnify or solidify their common Southern Identity, in more than a few cases this has even crossed racial lines. Not only has this mass programming fed "Southern Heritage" but it also programmed far too many people in other regions of the nation in reinforcing their misconceptions on what the South is. In many ways we've become a nation of Pavlov Dogs.
To many Southerners, U.S. History as written by the victor and (it is) tends to whitewash the sins of the nation by passing it all on to the South's for its' major transgressions and of course they're very real as well. But how many people in school read that U.S. Grant owned a slave for two years, or that (heroic march to the sea) Sherman was pro-slavery and sympathized with the South prior to the Civil War, or even read about Lincoln's racists views? Perhaps things have changed in schools' history as of late but back in my day that was never mentioned.
Most people love to focus on Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg's Address but I couldn't buy a rec here at D.U. by posting Honest Abe's Second Inaugural Address when he surmised that both sides were to blame for that conflict as punishment from an almighty God for tolerating slavery for hundreds of years.
I have no doubt it's because most people like to view their world as black and white, good versus evil with no shades of gray and simple answers to complex problems or questions and it's far easier to remove the mote from someone's eye other than your own.
I'm believe in two things for sure regionalism is racism's sibling and the former can and will aggravate or magnify the latter, to actually judge a person by the "content of their character," means looking past the color of their skin and their flag; to the very heart or motivation for them doing such a thing whether you agree with their motives or not. But to simply cast a person as being ignorant or racist for flying the Confederate Flag doesn't honor the spirit of MLK.
This scares the piss out of the less than 1%
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth115055.html#sr0lV1D5ejIfEIv0.99
And this is their American Utopia
No one is more enslaved than a slave who doesn't think they're enslaved.
Kate Beckinsale
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I know that was the era before the Civil War.
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Wealth, God and the Federal government allies in Slavery, liquid superiority .
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)it was a poor man's fight.
Peace to you.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)But what is the % and are those %s mutable?
I believe they are.
AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)Video & Lyrics
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)being taught it represented all that was wrong with the south, it really was about One mans journey during and following war, through his eyes, the writers were from Canada....
Good version by Baez
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)If you haven't you might enjoy it.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Based on a book by a white man? There have been so many fictionalized bullshit accounts of the south before and during the civil war it's a joke. The civil war was about slavery. Should we watch Gone With the Wind and Song of the South for a good account of southern heritage as well?
There's a great book that's new since about a year ago called The Half Has Never Been Told. I highly recommend it.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I've seen Roots, 12 Years A Slave and Django, does that mean I shouldn't watch a fictional movie about poor white Southerners caught up in the Civil War or I'm might become brainwashed?
Have you seen Cold Mountain?
but only due to the attraction I had at the time for Jude Law. It was a good story. It was also fiction.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)when we're speaking about hundreds of thousand of soldiers fighting, I didn't believe it to be that far a stretch.
It wasn't fantasy in the sense of the Wizard of Oz nor did it glorify war, if anything it was an anti-war movie.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)But it's weird to have a story about the civil war that pretty much ignores the existence of people of color.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Cold Mountain took place in the hill country and there were fewer slaves or free blacks than in the flat lands or deep South.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)That's the state where it's set and 33% of the population was made up of enslaved African Americans.
There are also scenes in Virginia and South Carolina, which were also both large slave-owning states. In fact, I think Virginia might have had more enslaved people than any other state, but I'll have to check that.
Edit: OK, more in total but not highest percentage:
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)this was also true in Eastern Tennessee, and the more mountainous West Virginia part of Virginia.
Furthermore, not every story about the Civil War or any other historical setting has to include every segment of that population to further the story.
The fictional movie; "Cold Mountain" was just a slice of what happened not an overall statement of everything that transpired.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)is that some movies and or tales can become in a persons mind fact.
I've already discovered far too many times far too many people are easily led in such directions that allow themselves to believe a certain narrative not caring nor allowing outside challenges toward their pre conceived notions of what is fact or what is fiction...
In some cases and for certain individuals it's a losing battle to believe them willing and or capable to listen to reason.....
I seriously believe most humans in general lack the ability to see the truth, I believe it to be a disconnect in ones brain, I honestly do, nothing else makes sense....
There is a reason so many realty shows exist and have plenty of devoted and loyal fans believing them to be real life situations ....it's crazy I know but it is what it is, scientists need to find out what area of the brain determines the lack of common sense being displayed when one begins to speak...
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)goldent
(1,582 posts)File it under "war is hell." I imagine the timeless sentiment in that song is expressed thousands of times a day across the world.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)General Stoneman was a patriot and to be admired. Whining about "old Dixie" is to be ridiculed, not applauded.
AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)hatrack
(59,606 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)Was that suffering unjustified? Was the cause of slavery just?
During Reconstruction the white South won back most of what it lost, in relation to the black population. Suffer, indeed.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Whether the suffering was justified or not depends on your personal experience and reality, are you a newly freed slave, a rich slave owner, a poor, illiterate dirt farmer, or a small town person defending your community, family, friends, state and region from a perceived threat, an enlightened abolitionist fighting to free the slaves, a racist Northerner that still fought to preserve the Union, a conscripted Confederate with no choice to fight, a drafted Yankee that couldn't afford the bounty to have someone else fight for him?
The cause of slavery was not just.
The South in general still suffered from economic devastation up until and in some cases past FDR's New Deal including the TVA, much of the South didn't have electricity until the 1930s, Mississippi; the last time I checked was still the poorest state in the Union.
The South only won back white political power after Reconstruction because the North was getting tired of dealing with the ordeal and didn't want to fight another war.
No doubt, the black population suffered the worst from Jim Crow but the South in general, continued to suffer as well.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)As the rampant lynchings show, the whites terrorized the blacks out of newly won rights.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I agree with your second sentence, hatred ruled the land, much of the South was consumed by it, the North wasn't particularly benign either.
Racism filled the ranks of both armies and nothing breeds hatred like war, especially as devastating as the Civil War was.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Approximately 11,863,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, with a death rate during the Middle Passage reducing this number by 10-20 percent. As a result between 9.6 and 10.8 million Africans arrived in the Americas.
And that's just one small part of the death, violence, torture, rape, etc. involved in slavery.
Also, you have to remember that people volunteered to fight for the south. People did not volunteer to be enslaved.
I recommended the book The Half Has Never Been Told in another post. I hope you check it out. It's very well written.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)that failed nation.
Using the "equivalent of 30 million killed" that would be over 100 million in slavery, have I got the math right?
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)then moved on to fear the "Yellow Peril" after the "savages" had been subdued. And while the "Yellow Peril" scare was still in full swing, 7 members of the Supreme Court, most of whom were from the North, voted to uphold segregation in Plessey vs. Ferguson. And two years after that, we freed "our little brown brothers" in the Philippines from their Spanish masters, only to put down their insurrection when they wanted their full independence from their new masters.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)gollygee
(22,336 posts)I recommended a great book to Uncle Joe, but another great book, about post-civil war racism, and largely northern racism, is Sundown Towns. It's worth a look. Living and having grown up in Michigan, I knew there was racism here, but I was shocked by the history.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)gollygee
(22,336 posts)But we need to face up to things as they were, and as they are.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Look up "white man's burden" and get back with me.
Also look up "yellow peril" and the anti-Asian laws that were enacted in the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
For example, "In the USA xenophobic fears against the alleged "Yellow Peril" led to the implementation of the Page Act of 1875, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, expanded ten years later by the Geary Act. The Immigration Act of 1917 then created an "Asian Barred Zone" under nativist influence."
And that's just for starters.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)with no incentive to improve conditions because there was always someone else who could come along and replace a dead or injured worker.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/sfeature/mf_flames.html
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)at all levels.
What I am suggesting is that 30 million Americans killed in a four year war will leave some major emotional scars, there can be no denying this either.
One other point, many Confederate Soldiers were drafted or conscripted, especially late in the war as the South was running out of manpower.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)but they are still not at all equivalent. And you talk about how you as a southerner need to have this sense of heritage, to be understood for your people's suffering, but you want to be "color blind" as far as African Americans go. They also have a history of suffering, and much worse suffering, for a much longer period of time.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)means to many Southerners from a sociological point of view, not that I can totally distance my emotional self from it but I try.
Yes I do want our whole society to be color blind to the point that we can live with our scars, interracial marriage never causes someone to bat an eye or make a derogatory remark, when everyone of every race is fairly represented, when voting rights are protected, when women of all races get equal pay for equal work, when race can cease to be an issue for every race, not just the white race.
I know we have along way to go but my dream seems to me to be in perfect alignment with that of Martin Luther King and I will not give up good words to the Republicans.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)He was not "color blind" and didn't see that as an idea. It's wrong to co-opt him for your argument when it wasn't his. You are taking that quote out of context.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth101472.html#u2lEGthWEcxzZVRP.99
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth110082.html
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth143179.html#wdxH8SPeVxP0OFxb.99
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth107470.html#KmKiX8ZXz8cACLI1.99
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Peace to you.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)It's clear that he did not think "color blindness" was an ideal. Sometimes things are true or false. Not everything is a matter of opinion.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I don't agree with the critics that state King would've opposed affirmative action because his dream was color-blindness, they have misappropriated the word.
I don't believe we should eliminate affirmative action either, not to mention voting rights, or civil rights laws, we're not advanced enough as a society and there is still too much inequity. I believe progressive laws and rights are a path to the dream but I have faith in the people, that at some point the dream will be reached.
My point is this, the dream is still a dream but the ultimate goal for our society is to attain that dream and when that day comes we will be color blind, logic dictates it.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)just that people won't discriminate based on their color. I think the problem is that you're choosing bad wording. No one can be color blind because we're too visual a species. And to ignore the heritage of people of color is to erase their history. "Neutral" means white in our society and to become "color blind" would be to neutralize people of color, their experiences, their histories. I think you mean "anti-racist."
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)people will still notice people of other races just as they notice different hair or eye color, but they won't be judging the character of another person based on that visual image.
I'm not speaking of ignoring our historical scars or anyone's heritage, but rather embracing them as being all too symptomatic of the human condition.
Spazito
(50,629 posts)MLK was NOT espousing 'color blindness', he was saying the opposite, imo. Accept diversity and look to the content of one's character in order to know them, to judge them.
The celebration of diversity instead of pretending it doesn't exist is how progress is made.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Spazito
(50,629 posts)and input your own context for purposes of expediency, you do MLK a grave disservice, imo.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.[b/]
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth101472.html#u2lEGthWEcxzZVRP.99
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth110082.html
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth143179.html#wdxH8SPeVxP0OFxb.99
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth107470.html#KmKiX8ZXz8cACLI1.99
Spazito
(50,629 posts)It might help if you actually read his works rather than use "brainy quote" as your source. I strongly recommend the King Center site archive if you REALLY want to understand the context around the "brainy" quotes.
http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/list?field_term_genre_tid=12616
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I use Brainy quotes to illustrate a larger point, what MLK fought and died for was Civil Rights and an ideal vision, he didn't use the specific word "colorblind" but that's essentially what it is, a color blind society.
I'm not suggesting we're there by any stretch of the imagination but that's the goal.
Spazito
(50,629 posts)It is often a lazy way to find just the 'right' quote to back up an argument without having to consider context. If you have read his works, listened to his speeches then you would not be putting forward this rather bizarre notion his goal was to see a "color blind" populace, imo.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Peace to you.
treestar
(82,383 posts)it's defection. White Southerners today do not need to feel guilty but they are trying to avoid it by deflections that the North was just as bad (it wasn't - it was not having slavery as an institution). The North might have been racist but it did not insist on or go to war to retain an evil institution.
And to this day the states of the south have higher black populations than others. That makes it all the more disgusting there are white Southerners insisting on this symbol and their "heritage." Like the Germans they need to disavow their heritage and move on past it.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)with my OP.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026961256
If the Confederate battle flag is not about slavery but about Southern "heritage"
can anyone tell us what that is? Is it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?
Is there such a thing as "Northern heritage"? Would that be Lincoln, the Adams', Paul Revere, etc?
We hear so much about Southern heritage as if it is something distinct from slavery so is it related but yet not related to slavery?
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)I won't argue about the moral purity of North.... I know better than that, but the Confederacy was a ntsion founded on the principal of white supremacy and the right to own other human beings as property.
Southerners, if they feel any connection to that "heritage," should be ashamed of it. And they should regret the massive amount of death and destruction their "cause" wrought.
FWIW, my paternal ancestors are from the South, though they immigrated after the war.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)approving of the principal actors' policies, in this case whether it be secession or slavery.
Do you love, revere, care about or feel loyalty to the United States or the American People despite it or their many "historical moral impurities?"
FWIW; My family was torn apart and fought on both sides of that conflict.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)He has no connection to the flag issue, and I've yet to to see any intelligent and informed rationale for it's use.
Anyone I've engaged on the subject is uninformed on the causes of the Civil War or the use of the flag after the war.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)The flag is an inanimate object, nothing but a colored piece of cloth, the interpretation of what it means is dependent on the prism from which the viewer sees it, the same as skin color.
Slavery was the definitely the primary issue of the day, and as I stated up thread, the less than 1% dominated both regions, if they hadn't, slavery would've been abolished many years before the Civil War.
Cotton back then was as oil is today, cotton was king and too many people had a stake in making money from it.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)No one is, in relation to race. The concept is offensive
You haven't the understanding of MLK to invoke his name like this.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Unless you're aware of him advocating for black superiority or white superiority.
I'm not aware of any.
If you know of any MLK's quotes or writings that dispute my OP or thread, please present them.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)Claiming to be colorblind in racial relations is a negative thing., not a positive thing. This concept of colorblind allows one to never really to get to know the other at all. It is a potent method of denial.
It also has nothing to do with asserting the superiority of one race over another as it's opposite. I don't where that comes from.
And unless you have a quote from MLK on the Confederate flag, you have no connection.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)only then can racism and bigotry be overcome.
I have no doubt the vast majority of interracial couples would prefer for society at large to not see or notice their differences in skin color.
My published quote from MLK comes closer to addressing the situation and you have nothing.
Flags are symbols and nothing more, a symbol's interpretation is dependent upon the prism from which the individual is viewing the object, the same holds true for skin color, some people are so filled with hate or fear, they prejudge by instinct and learn nothing from the object of their hatred.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)I suggest you visit the African American group and ask what they think of the concept.
Colorblind is to be blind. I am a white man married to a black woman. We see each other's color difference and appreciate that difference.
If you can't see color differences, you might need to see an optometrist. Everyone sees color. MLK saw color everyday.
I am still waiting for the MLK quote on the Confederate flag. Until you have that, you have no connection.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)with your wife and some people stare or perhaps even make derogatory remarks?
If those people were colorblind, that would never happen.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)Everything I've said to you on this concept goes right past you.
I suggest you read up on this... this is not just my idea on the subject of being racially colorblind. Google the subject. Race critical studies.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)is never going to happen, because people have eyes.
Color, or difference, *appreciation*, that works.
For example, I'm of an age that I can remember when TV commercials were lily-white. Every time I see otherwise nowadays, I appreciate it.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)That's what I'm talking about.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)hate. Period. No prism is necessary to understand that. Southern heritage is a prism distorted by skin color and has eyes that are not nor ever will be blind to skin 'color. That is impossible in a society that has built privilege, or not, around the color of ones skin. White people made this mess with enslaving black people in the first place. No ifs, and's or buts. White people made this mess after the civil war with Jim Crow laws and white terrorists killing and destroying the hopes of the newly emancipated blacks and black people all the way up to the Civil Rights Movement led by MLK and many other brave souls in the 50's, 60's and 70's.
The south was not and is not the victim here. A Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Jessie Helms, dylaan roof, Hugo Black, Harry Truman, Lee Atwater and Nixon, Ron Reagan have never been color blind and 200 years from now wouldn't be still. The CCC, KKK, White Citizens Council, Storm Front racist will not ever respond with love to a person of color no matter how much love that POC may show to that enemy. Quit using Dr. Martin Luther King to explain away your inability to see the hypocrisy and inanity of your trying to hold on to a "heritage" that represents hate of the highest degree for POC and that represents a last gasping stab at holding on the the white privilege that many on here deny but know they enjoy daily.
Actually this post represents the highest of insults to the intelligence and patience that black people have and have shown, respectively, in the face of bigotry, racism and white privilege that americans north, South, east and west to this day continue to flaunt in the faces of POC. That racist flag and the southern heritage it allegedly represents flaunts white privilege. Be damned the insult it causes to POC you say, it's "heritage". Read more. Your south is victim meme is not going to wash clean. In fact the blood of slaves still staining the flag of southern heritage will never come clean with no amount of alleged victimhood claiming of southerners still flaunting their racist, bigoted hateful heritage and symbols.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)in good faith but the use of "color blind" is problematic because it could be a view of being blind to the racism & bigotry that occurs. Plus it is illogical to claim blindness for colors because unless you're are literally blind you're not blind so people do see color it exists, I see Al Gore in your avatar, I see he is also white I don't care if he is or not but I do see his 'color'. I was formerly in an interracial marriage and divorce had nothing to do with differences in skin color but her family could 'see' I was white and vice versa. I wish society at large didn't hate if that is what you mean, I noticed a lot of hate I wasn't aware of how common it was because I could see.
Treat people based on fairness & equality with only their qualifications certainly but colorblind or those who infamously say "I don't see color" are often controversial talking points and best should be avoided.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)American psyche than eye or hair color in judging a person's character.
It's a goal but I'm not suggesting by any stretch that we're close to reaching it, there are far too many racial inequities to address to level the playing field, whether it be affirmative action, voting rights or civil rights.
My point is don't run away from a benevolent ideal such as color blind just because some asshole Republicans are trying to hijack the word for their nefarious schemes, we ran away from the word "liberal" for far too long for the same reason.
We fight them on it now as to what it means and not accepting their definition.
Perhaps I'm thinking of a utopian society but I believe that's what Martin Luther King was dreaming of as well, even in his day.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)I probably classify the section of the party that serves business over the people as 'not liberal' but generally what it means like progressive though progressive mostly means more of putting people first to me than left of center so I probably use that a more when making the 'putting people first' but I probably say "populist wing" more.
All I was saying color-blindness & the controversy over the use of the term. To be honest most of criticism over "colorblind" or "I don't see color" or Chris Matthew's infamous "I forgot he was black" appear to come mostly from African-Americans though Tim Wise, a white "anti-racist commentator", used the term in a title of a book which is critical of the use of the term or the "pitfalls" of colorblindness but I imagine probably a whole lot more as well.
Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity (City Lights Open Media)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0872865088?ie=UTF8&isInIframe=1&n=283155&redirect=true&ref_=dp_proddesc_0&s=books&showDetailProductDesc=1#iframe-wrapper
Much more than that is all I can say on the appropriateness of the term or not but fully support the ideals. I simply see no other reason but to treat individuals as individuals as we are truly different and people are people. I certainly support that and believe your goals are the same or pretty much similar in the sense of fairness & respect.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)when "liberal" became a dirty word, beginning with Reagan and the corporate media all but solidified the Republican definition.
This in turn caused many Democrats to run away from the word and its best ideals, if said Democrat wanted a realistic chance of winning the White House, or even a Senate seat, there were some notable exceptions but they were few and far between.
As of late I do believe the word "liberal" has making a turnaround for the better again in large part because of the growing influence of the Internet.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)long disagreed with the strategy of fear from the Democrats. It was really bad in '04 when Democrats were constantly defending themselves of not being "cowards", it was incredibly ridiculous to where criticizing Bush was labeled "unpatriotic" particularly "in a time of war" or especially on "foreign soil" (Dixie Chicks) "freedom fries" "support our troops" this one particularly bugged me) there was a climate of fear I remember very well which is why I think Howard Dean appealed to a lot of people.
Generally when something politics or just anything related current or recent historical events that is brought up I simply inject a fact without making an argument one way or the other and suddenly conservatives (I don't run into liberals often around here where I live) are bothered by it and accuse me of being a "liberal" more to themselves than to me or other insults(don't consider liberal an insult but they used it as one) as I don't get it. I even remember times where saying I was a liberal or could fairly consider me as one was treated as some shocking revelation.
"I get a big kick out of them using the word progressive. My gosh, theyre just straight old dumbass liberals anyway," - Orrin Hatch
What I do think is the reason I'm left is because I think the best solutions to the problem tend to come from that side and simply truth is accused of being liberal I figure that the truth is on our side and we should embrace it, not run away from it.
Though the one term that really rubs me the wrong way with the constant use of "the far left" from Bill O'Reilly my BP would rise just seeing "far left" at DU though haven't seen it in a way. Like the "far left" is in loony land the use of his ridicule when using it simply to describe anyone he considered foolish to oppose the Iraq war. "far left" though I probably am close too was dirtied up by Bill O'Reilly.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)or deserve it, and as African Americans were most in need of redress after ages of being set back due to slavery, Jim Crow and voting rights violations, it became a codeword to give cover or legitimacy in passing or supporting racist policies.
Ronald Reagan did it with a smile.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)I live in Mesa, AZ (the most conservative city of +250,000 people) but also one hit harder than most by the housing crisis (larger city than Atlanta but all it is a sprawling suburb with nothing to do) so everyone around me is on economic hard times and usual places are retail jobs of what is left most of what used to be closed down and check cashing or loan places took their place. Taxi company and telemarketing firms (which are a pretty major employer in this area with Directv & Dish. Outside of that is PCC which telemarkers there solicit donations to the state Republican party. Anyway, a lot people here struggling but notice a lot people look all the way back fondly to the Reagan days. A lot of hate here not just of anyone different but anyone at all it seems. The world just seems a lot more cruel in my neighborhood and hate people who talk about the things we talk about.
What people here or some people here anywhere have an impression based on what they look for online, recently, have a belief that there is a secret government plot with the use of transporting military equipment in underground tunnels and internment camps will be opened up because after they come for the guns, Texas & oddly Utah are considered "hostile states" but the plan includes carving up Arizona and Nevada. All I did was say it doesn't make sense because DynCorp which is under an investment firm that also has an investment on "The Freedom Group" which manufactures civilian weapons such as the AR-15 and I was accused of being a liberal for simply that.
I think another time I said something that wasn't political or argument even about surge it was unrelated about data systems and algorthyms that someone mentioned was correct and noticed that Senturion was used to predict events based on prior events and Bush on a January 17th or close, 2007 speech "correctly predicted an increase in both US & Iraqi casualties" which is what happened during "The Surge" then a guy with him was grilling me over the name of the program I couldn't remember the official name but said it was well known as "The surge" and grilling about this or that was simply saying the guy was right there is a data system for forecasting armed conflicts so I went on way to the mail there I overheard like yelling and the word "reality" so I walk back out the entrance
and say simply he said something that I found to be true and that it was used for planning of "The Surge" and Bush made a correct prediction that there would be an increase on causualties for both sides but the reality was I was in Iraq in 2007 up until June 30th or so. 1 person died total from the unit April 13th from an EFP hitting the passenger side door (he started grilling me what an EFP is and said he "never heard of it" I'm like I gotta go and he calls me a "Jew" (which is a first as any religious accusations tend to be Morman though I'm none) and a Saddam gay lover though with a different word -- this was a few years ago. This was a few weeks ago so it was a surprise to find a Iraq war supporter in 2015 but the hate bothers me more than anything, didn't like what I had to say so they reflex with hate. Some places like here we have a long way to go.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)There are two primary reasons why I have Al Gore as an avatar.
1. He more than any other single political leader magnified the American Peoples freedom of speech power since the First Amendment was put into effect over two hundred year ago when he championed opening up the Internet, his reward for his visionary leadership was to be castigated, slandered and lied about courtesy of the corporate media. They did it of course because they knew the growing influence of instant, mass communication threatened their power, wealth and ability to filter the news unhindered and shape the peoples perception to their own corporate desires. Of course they would go to enable Cheney/Bush to power, lead the nation to a war based on lies and obfuscate or cover up torture. However if it hadn't been for the Internet, Obama would've had a much greater struggle to reach the White House, the Occupy movement wouldn't have made the splash that it did and police brutality wouldn't have gained as much notice by the American People either.
2. The second reason is Gore's long time advocacy in trying to bring the American Peoples attention and awareness to the growing crisis of global warming; in the long run threatening life as we know it.
3. On third thought, Gore coming to the rescue of the victims of Katrina by flying out two planeloads of trapped patients and doctors in a New Orleans Hospital while Bush was playing with his dick, only solidified my admiration of Gore's character.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)in seeing or not seeing color, I wasn't trying to imply he was racist because he was white or anything negative. Just that I could merely 'see' he was white. I didn't get that sense from him personally, I remember in the campaign he often made of point in addressing discrimination, affirmative action, hate crimes, etc. The only problem w/ HCL I have is 10 seems arbitrary but given the level of proof you need to establish a hate crime motive it could be reasonable but there is a bias in application as hate crimes against Muslims have risen to 5 times to level it was after 9/11 (in East Mesa like right after two guys killed a Sikh in a convenient store) that is with a low under-reporting as particular police departments share the same hate. My point was nothing was intended nothing other than to say I could see he was white when it fact respected his efforts.
The Sergeant from Jamaica was a former Marine and if there was one place he loved to talk about it was DC. He enjoyed the city but can't remember the full details of his detail but tells me a story of where he was standing somewhere and Bill Clinton was walking by (unexpected or like the feelings of seeing a celebrity) he saluted and said Clinton said "Hello Marine" with the salute returned. Can't remember all the details except the quote (2006 was when I heard it)
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Peace to you, JonL
And as a former Marine myself, if you speak to that Sergeant from Jamaica tell him I said, Semper Fi.
Speaking of Jamaica, I had a fantastic week long vacation down there in the early 90s, my brother and his wife even got their hair braided. They were selling buds as long as your arm, on the beach...good times.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)but he has an incredibly common last name which I'll assume it is safe to say 'Thomas" but can't remember first name just Sgt. If I can find my BCT friend I can probably find him lost contact when the MySpace died.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)in seeing or not seeing color, I wasn't trying to imply he was racist because he was white or anything negative. Just that I could merely 'see' he was white. I didn't get that sense from him personally, I remember in the campaign he often made of point in addressing discrimination, affirmative action, hate crimes, etc. The only problem w/ HCL I have is 10 seems arbitrary but given the level of proof you need to establish a hate crime motive it could be reasonable but there is a bias in application as hate crimes against Muslims have risen to 5 times to level it was after 9/11 (in East Mesa like right after two guys killed a Sikh in a convenient store) that is with a low under-reporting as particular police departments share the same hate. My point was nothing was intended nothing other than to say I could see he was white when it fact respected his efforts.
The Sergeant from Jamaica was a former Marine and if there was one place he loved to talk about it was DC. He enjoyed the city but can't remember the full details of his detail but tells me a story of where he was standing somewhere and Bill Clinton was walking by (unexpected or like the feelings of seeing a celebrity) he saluted and said Clinton said "Hello Marine" with the salute returned. Can't remember all the details except the quote (2006 was when I heard it)
LostOne4Ever
(9,302 posts)[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]There is no privilege that white americans have that is quite as great as to be color blind.
The black woman, who because of her sex and race gets paid only a fraction of the pay of a white man in the same job, can never be color blind. Society won't let her and will remind her that she is black woman over and over and over again.
To be color blind is to be blinded by privilege.[/font]
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)disparity wouldn't take place.
Make no mistake about it, should our society actually become colorblind that would be the ideal.
LostOne4Ever
(9,302 posts)[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]Because there would still be the issue of institutionalize racism and the fact that white americans profited from racism and that african american's were left impoverished.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Misreading the Dream: Color-Blindness and the Distortion of Martin Luther King Jr. http://www.timwise.org/2003/01/misreading-the-dream-color-blindness-and-the-distortion-of-martin-luther-king-jr/
Colorblindness: The New Racism? http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-36-fall-2009/feature/colorblindness-new-racism
Politicians Have Abused Martin Luther King's Dream: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/23/martin-luther-king-dream-speech-misunderstand
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Just because far right wingers use the term colorblind to oppose affirmative action, voter protection laws, or defend racial profiling we shouldn't let them co-opt the word.
Colorblind in itself is the highest ideal for our society, that doesn't take away from legitimate redress that should be made for a history of slavery and Jim Crow.
My point being don't let your enemies define the description of your highest ideals or you by taking your language away.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)To be "color blind" is to erase people's history and struggle. That is not an ideal.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)make assumptions about you because you're white?
gollygee
(22,336 posts)The history of slavery in this country has created a huge amount of inequity. We can't just erase that because it sounds nice.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)enlightenment, courage, love and forgiveness from all sides.
The good people in the Charleston Church had the right idea, the tragedy was they just didn't have enough time to cut through all the hate.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Unless you've talked to them and they've said they think "color blind" is an ideal.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I believe it's possible, but he was too far gone consumed by his racist hatred.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)it's the idea of a group of people. some odd people might attribute some different meaning to it. But we know what the Confederate battle flag means to most people who look at it.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)a group particularly a large group, interpretations and meaning can be virtually limitless.
In short, the flag is an inanimate object, a colored piece of cloth which each individual then projects onto their own meaning of that object or symbol.
The U.S. Flag flew over slave ships, it flew over the Supreme Court that instilled Jim Crow, it's flown by racists, it's flown by anti-racists, it was raised by the Marines over Iwo Jima, it's on the moon, people have burned the U.S. Flag, some have people have literally died for it.
treestar
(82,383 posts)as representing the confederacy and opposition to civil rights.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)You should delete this offensive nonsense and study up. Cherry picking facile memes and stitching them together is ignorant.
Please stop embarrassing yourself.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Last edited Sun Jul 12, 2015, 05:56 PM - Edit history (1)
What do you think MLK's dream was about?
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)And substituting in a fantasy that is so many generations away as to be currently irrelevant.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I've never stated anywhere on this thread that it was close at hand.
Person 2713
(3,263 posts)I don't
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Also what is with the 1 % verbiage do you think? Slaves were on small owner farms and in cities too
Not just large plantations
Not a 1% issue
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)he did envision was a table of brotherhood.
Slavery and the trade of cotton was most definitely a rich's man game and the war was a poor man's fight
Response to Uncle Joe (Original post)
liberaltrucker This message was self-deleted by its author.
treestar
(82,383 posts)And the fact they lost that fight. Face it, that flag has no good "heritage" about it.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)by the prism from which the viewer sees it, what's their reality and perception.
To some people that fly or support the Confederate Flag; it does represent hate, they're racists and of this there is no doubt, you can also see them flying the U.S. Flag.
For many if not most Confederate Flag supporters, it does represent their heritage and they don't view their ancestors as solely or even at all fighting to preserve slavery, there's a multitude of reasons for any person to go to war and to them it's both personal and shared.
Lincoln didn't even go to war to abolish slavery, it was to preserve the Union, the world is gray, history is complex and humans can rise to greatness despite their frailties just as Lincoln did, to the vast majority of Southerners and I believe all Americans, that trait isn't exclusive to one region of the nation, or one race.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)It is right there in the articles of secession of the different Confederate states that the issue was slavery. Explicitly. The issue.
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)They fought for their own reasons, some of which pertained to keeping slavery and a multitude that didn't but was dependent upon the individual (s) reality and circumstance.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)The South started the war, the troops were raised before the conflict, they attacked Fort Sumter. The only issue was slavery.
You are repeating the myth of northern aggression.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)didn't write the articles of secession.
The Confederate Army was far larger in numbers than either the state governments or the Confederate Government.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)I thought so.
They wouldn't enlist in the cause before the conflict unless it was to defend slavery.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Confederate Armies and compare that to the state or Confederate Government numbers that actually wrote the articles of secession, it's not even close.
Furthermore many joined the fray after the war had started when they were forced to choose a side, the Federal Government or taking up arms against most of their families, friends, towns, counties, cities and state.
There were also quite a number that were forced to fight, drafted or conscripted.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)The idea that legislators were not reflecting widespread sentiments is ridiculous. They could not make their states secede over slavery without massive public support. From that support came the army volunteers.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)do you think controlled and or supported most of these publications?
As I posted up thread, more than a few if not many Southerners were illiterate getting their information from friends or family.
It was a much smaller world for them as they were more closely connected to their family, towns, cities and states vs the Federal Government.
The telegraph in places that had it was the Internet of the day.
Furthermore it didn't take "overwhelming support" to enable a state government to secede, Tennessee for one didn't secede just for secession's sake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee
In February 1861, secessionists in Tennessee's state governmentled by Governor Isham Harrissought voter approval for a convention to sever ties with the United States, but Tennessee voters rejected the referendum by a 5446% margin. The strongest opposition to secession came from East Tennessee (which later tried to form a separate Union-aligned state). Following the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter in April and Lincoln's call for troops from Tennessee and other states in response, Governor Isham Harris began military mobilization, submitted an ordinance of secession to the General Assembly, and made direct overtures to the Confederate government. The Tennessee legislature ratified an agreement to enter a military league with the Confederate States on May 7, 1861. On June 8, 1861, with people in Middle Tennessee having significantly changed their position, voters approved a second referendum calling for secession, becoming the last state to do so.
treestar
(82,383 posts)but they must have known they were fighting to keep things as they were. Protecting the possibility they might get rich and own slaves one day, though it was unlikely. Following the leaders who did own slaves. These were not people who'd understand states rights in the least, so that one won't fly.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)The OP says somewhere in this thread that people were fighting for the 1%, but if you look at the numbers, it's a much higher percentage than 1.
The table linked below says "percentage of families who owned slaves," but I assume that means "percentage of white families who owned slaves." If 30% of a state is enslaved, and those people are counted in the "percentage of families" then the number of families who owned slaves would be crazy high. But enslaved families were intentionally broken up so I don't think they're included.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html
treestar
(82,383 posts)Mississippi 49%. Seems to get higher the deeper into the South. But mostly in the 20s at least for most of the Southern States.
Slaves were the majority of the population in MS and SC and close (in the 40s) in many other places.
And look at the percentage of African Americans in each state:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_African-American_population
highest in the Southern States.
So what do these heritage people say to that? A third of their state was victimized by the heritage.
KitSileya
(4,035 posts)That means that few were illiterate. More than in the Union army, with its 90% literacy rate, but still not shabby. That means we have their letters, their diaries, that means we know why the Confederate soldier volunteered, and let me tell, it was defense of Southern liberty. Southern liberty was expressly the right to keep their property without interference from the North, and the property rights they wanted to keep was the right to own slaves, regardless of whether they owned slaves or not.
You seem very set on not understanding what people are explaining to you, so I doubt you'll accept what I say. I'd almost think you an Average Joe, because of that.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)certainly qualifies as "quite a few."
The Confederate Soldier volunteered for different reasons, most of those that took up arms in the beginning of the war were more apt to be doing so as a way to defend the institution of slavery.
However as the bloodshed and destruction escalated, intensifying the maelstrom of bitter hatred and revenge escalating numbers of men went to war for more personal reasons.
Furthermore as the war slogged on and the Confederacy's manpower was drained increasing numbers never volunteered but were drafted or conscripted.
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)for the poor it was a shred of supremacy, the human inclination to have a scapegoat for insecure feelings .
treestar
(82,383 posts)And drop the symbol of their shared heritage. There are a lot of black people in the South who don't share that heritage. In fact, that's the whole point of the "heritage" - first to enslave black people and then to keep them second class citizens. Remember they put the flag up in the 1960s - they opposed the civil rights laws.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)It is a ridiculous assertion, a-historical, invented to create a myth for the losers long after the war was over. The civil war was about slavery before it started, while it was being fought, and after it was done. The southern heritage you are so proud of was a plantation economy built on the backs of millions of slaves. It is a vile history.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)With apologies to Winston Churchill.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Poverty has also been endemic to the South but that's been changing for the past 35-40 years, the South is modernizing and in many ways its economy is growing.
Treason is a tricky question depending on whether you viewed the 1860 U.S. Constitution as prohibiting a state from leaving the Union if its elected representatives decided to do so.
Bad Thoughts
(2,541 posts)There are plenty of regions that represent the entire population and are not focused on the grievances of one ethnicity. They are advanced laboratories of democracy and economics, as some social scientists have called them, improving the access of people to the state and to the market.
Southern Heritage is only regionalism in a sense that it tries to group together states based upon the system of labor exploitation it lost and the stupid war they fought to defend it. It is not shared by all southerners.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)is home to the "Rebels and Rebelettes, it does have its share of racists and yet..
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/us/a-georgia-county-where-the-rebel-flag-is-still-revered.html
Mr. Heath acknowledged the existence of such sentiments here. But he also noted that this overwhelmingly white place, so committed to the flag, also elected a black man, H. Allen Poole, as the chairman of its Board of Commissioners in 2004, and has re-elected him twice. Last year, voters elected the states first Asian-American Superior Court judge, Meng Lim, a Cambodian refugee who grew up in the Haralson County city of Bremen.
Its complicated, Mr. Heath said.
But not everyone is so comfortable. Angelica Griffin is also an African-American, and also played sports at the high school. She said she was terrified to criticize the flag while she was there.
Ms. Griffin, 28, recently completed law school at DePaul University in Chicago and is studying for the bar exam. After the Charleston shootings, she said, she posted her displeasure with the flag on social media, sparking debate and pushback from white friends back home.
People were so apt to defend it, without even thinking about other people and how that flag makes them feel, she said.
But Ms. Griffin also spoke about the time, in 2008, when her mother lost her job. White Haralson County neighbors showered her mother with money and gift cards so she could afford to drop her off at college.
You know what? It doesnt make sense, Ms. Griffin said. Its the great conundrum of the South.
I never said that the Southern Heritage view was held by all Southerners, I'm just trying to explain why it is.
I have stated that the South is changing.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)That the majority of the Confederates weren't fighting for slavery.
That is simply the modern form of Southern denial of responsibility. There is no factual basis for this.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)that a 92% white county would elect a black man to chairman of its Board of Commissioners, much less reelect him twice.
Weren't you complaining earlier about how African Americans had been disenfranchised by racist Southerners and yet when I show you an example of an opposing trend, you poo poo it.
Be careful, kwassa, hate and fear can eat you up to the point that you can't bring yourself to give credit when credit is do.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)You are peddling a myth of Southern heritage. That is my point. There is no intelligent and informed reason to fly the Confederate flag.
Electing some black officials doesn't change the income differences between blacks and whites, or defacto segregation in schools and housing.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)As for your second sentence, it's a start.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)See above.
romanic
(2,841 posts)I think of iced tea, banjos, and willow trees. :x
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Peace to you.
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)Is the people who fought for their rights.
That's the greatest.
LostOne4Ever
(9,302 posts)[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]The battle flag, or any flag, of the confederacy is a symbol of hate, and racism. It should epitomize southern SHAME not heritage.
But regardless, There are a million other symbols we can be proud of and can use to celebrate the good parts of southern culture. Steamboats, Crawfish and southern cooking, cowboys, Revolutionaries who fought the british, and who can forget the SOUTHERNER who sacrificed everything to end a great evil of segregation?
But call me crazy but I really doubt all the southern pride/heritage people would trade the battle flag for one of MLK...
Our heritage is one of pride and shame. The suffering we received was insignificant to the suffering our ancestors committed against entire races of people and was ultimately self inflicted because our ancestors were too bigoted and too arrogant to admit they were wrong. They started the war, and they could have ended it sooner if they wanted.
And, while yes, Lincoln did have racist views, he did try to change and ultimately did have a direct hand in ending the evils of slavery. By comparison to the average person back then he was way ahead of his time. And the others you mention were racists but they did not commit treason.[/font]
SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)tried to convince me that Lincoln would have kept slavery to save the Union.
Still don't know if he was right, and I don't care.
It was an abomination, and it had to go.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Thank you, Uncle Joe! Your message also helps point us away from alienation and toward the real reconciliation and forgiveness that's needed for lasting peace.
Came across this, which talks about the life of Levon Helm, the late great musician, artist and activist, and his work's cultural significance. I won't ruin it for you:
http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2012/04/the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down.html
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)but I appreciate your post.
Peace to you.
DashOneBravo
(2,679 posts)I'm a white southerner and the part where you said about how bad the south had it after the war. Well guess what? That's what happens when you start a civil war.
There are a whole lot of cemeteries filled with headstones bearing unit names from Mass, Maine, Ohio and many others. I'm pretty sure that every one of them would have rather done anything else than die.
I think people often confuse the racists talking about heritage and southern culture.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Last edited Sat Jul 11, 2015, 12:50 AM - Edit history (1)
Did this 'shared suffering' give the white population the right to cause suffering among the black population for a century or more after the Civil War?
When you are post the quote, 'No one is more enslaved than a slave who doesn't think they're enslaved' do you think wage slavery is equal to chattel slavery?
Because the black population of the South knew the true depths of slavery. Not less income or dependence upon employment, which is the definition of wage slavery.
They were not unemployed, they were often worked to death and not paid a thing for their labor. The slave population shared a suffering that other groups did not undergo, with rape, torture, lynching, terrorism, exclusion and the family breakup that the white population has not.
When the Union conquered the South, they killed the POTUS. Booth was not a lone wolf. And then they continued the slaughter as they were offended by Emancipation. See this, one of many such oppressions:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/07/09/3677437/fourteenth-amendment-anniversary/
Did the Union conduct lynching and tarring and feathering? Did they systematically rape and rob the oppressed in the South as a matter of control and business?
You may have written this off the top of your head, but I think you should edit to take in all of the 'suffering' that went on, not just that of the alleged Confederate victims. I don't care what a thrashing they got and I am from the South. They were ready to do the same things to the North or the slaves. Sorry, but I don't see a moral equivalency there, IMO.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026961256
If the Confederate battle flag is not about slavery but about Southern "heritage"
can anyone tell us what that is? Is it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?
Is there such a thing as "Northern heritage"? Would that be Lincoln, the Adams', Paul Revere, etc?
We hear so much about Southern heritage as if it is something distinct from slavery so is it related but yet not related to slavery?
She posed the question "If the Confederate Battle Flag is not about slavery but about Southern Heritage can anyone tell us what that is.
My OP was aimed specifically at that angle, that would be white Southern supporters or flyers of the Confederate Flag as to their motivation,or emotional attachment to that flag, it takes nothing away from the ongoing atrocity of slavery, nor does it diminish violent crimes committed against them, nor the disenfranchisement of Jim Crow.
The 1% dominated both regions during the Civil War just as they dominate the U.S. today, my OP's final quotes were intended to counsel unity because the direction our nation is headed to should we not unite across all regional and racial lines will more than just "wage slavery."
underthematrix
(5,811 posts)People of European descent who forgot that Europe is on a continent called Europe and the ONLY people native to America are Native Americans who have melanin in their skin.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)FourScore
(9,704 posts)you are trying to convey here on DU, Uncle Joe.
I think non-Southerners have a hard time understanding the significance the Civil War has had on the people of the South and their psyche, even today.
Just tonight, I was listening to a program about the Civil War. It mentioned that the North had 30 million people at the start of the war, while the South had only 9 million, of which 4 million were slaves. A fact I did not know.
It is exceedingly difficult to discuss the war (or as my Mama would pronounce it: the Wowa) from the Southern perspective with those who are not southern. It immediately digresses into a discussion on slavery and seccession. Preconceived notions and stereotypes of Southerners fill the heads of those who do not understand the South, which merely tarnishes the discussion.
No southerner today believes in the "cause" - our forefathers were simply wrong. Tales of the Civil War, however, and the long-term effect it had on the people of the South (both black and white) have trickled down for generations in the South. The North just "moved on". But the South...it had to rebuild and reconstruct. It lasted for generations.
Southern pride is a mixed bag, as is any form of patriotism. it can be a beautiful thing, but must also be kept in check. Still, I gotta say, I am a Southerner, and I am proud of it.
Thanks for the thread, Uncle Joe!
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Peace to you, FourScore.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)For those who don't know or never had children - when toddlers get together, they don't really play much interactively; but rather, they play parallel to one another. They are each absorbed in their own hole they are digging in the sandbox, even though both are playing in the sandbox.
That's exactly what this thread reminds me of. There are 2 separate, but equal (pun intended) arguments going on where really no argument is needed.
Amazing really.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)that I'm not trying to excuse or take away the evils of slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow or the grotesque injustices perpetuated on African Americans throughout our nation's history.
My OP was simply trying to point out that a devastating war such as the Civil War and its aftermath had other victims as well, and I'm not trying argue which was greater but it is what it is.
I'm also not asking them to shed crocodile tears, just to understand that it was real and in many cases the victims were innocent.
As I mentioned one fictional movie up thread, I will mention another one here, "The Outlaw Josey Wales" of course it was fiction and probably written by a white man, but it also held truth in regards to the guerrilla war taking place between Kansas and Missouri, no doubt atrocities happened on both sides which in turn dragged otherwise peaceful people into the maelstrom of that conflict.
The other point I would make is don't run away from a benevolent ideal such as color blind just because some asshole Republicans are trying to hijack the word for their nefarious schemes, we ran away from the word "liberal" for far too long for the same reason.
ann---
(1,933 posts)I appreciate my heritage. The abolitionist movement to end slavery began in 1775
in Philadelphia - even before we won our independence from the Brits. Slavery was long gone from
many northern states before the Civil War and I am proud that the Union defended the right for EVERYONE
to be free - which is really why the Revolutionary war was fought, wasn't it?
How could the leaders in the south want to fracture the union simply because they
wanted to own people to do their labor for them for nothing?
It is a stain on our history and the sooner the south recognizes that - the sooner it
will heal and see itself as part of a union that doesn't honor a legacy of bondage
and war against fellow Americans.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)but I do notice you haven't mentioned opposition to the civil rights acts in the 1960s. To the point where the federal government had to come down and force one state. There are still black people in the South and there's no way they share in this. I do understand where they come from and haven't heard from them that we can't.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)on both races in the South for generations. It was a rather benign comment.
I feel as though I am being scolded by you and I'm not sure why.
treestar
(82,383 posts)I suppose there was an impact on the white people there, but how can we sympathize? The black people would not.
I usually don't respond well to the 'you people are not x, so you cannot understand." People can understand things they are not if explained to them. It's usually a cop out from trying to explain.
I don't have any regional pride so I guess I do have less sympathy. I live in the mid-Atlantic region and it has no identity as such other than mere geography. There is no Mid-Atlantic culture that I can identify.
FourScore
(9,704 posts)About how my family literally lost everything during the Civil Rights movement...
How my father was a figure on national television in my childhood as a Civil Rights worker...
How he worked as an attorney to desegregate the south...
How I have historical lineology books from both sides of my family - and some of the photos are of my ancestors and their slaves, and the wills contain who shall inherit them...Sad...
How we had a "maid" named Mimi and we adored her... How great Mimi could cook!!! Am I to be ashamed that my family needed her help and we hired her?
How my Aunt showed me how to make an antebellum doll out of azaleas when I was a child...
How I am not ashamed of slavery - because I do not inherit the burden of guilt just because of where I was born...Although I do find it abhorrent just like anyone else.
Southern Heritage comes in all shapes and sizes. People who are not from the south have a very stereotypical view of what "Southern Heritage" looks like. It's narrow. They think Southern Heritage is wrapped in the Confederate flag and guns. Yes, there are many idiots on this planet, and some of them are Southern. They are the stereotype. But there is a whole gamut of heritage that Southerners appreciate. We have a bond to the red clay dirt and the fauna and flora and even the ginormous bugs. We understand tradition and Gone with the Wind romanticism. This has nothing to do with slavery. If you were to ask a black person from the south, they would tell you also of their Southern heritage and pride, and it would have a very different meaning for them than it does for me or for Uncle Joe (who started this thread). Each southerner has their own story, but we share an environment unlike any other.
Oh, treestar, I am trying to explain it... but it is so hard. It is not a one-sentence answer. It is an experience. It is a feeling; an essence. It is memory and blood. It is heritage - with all it's Doric columns and warm biscuits and grits and key lime and ceiling fans. It is home of Jimmy Carter and Martin Luther King. And then it has that which most Southerners despise of Jim Crow, KKK and John Birch. It is Ray Charles and Otis Redding. It is hot and heated and sad and torn and beautiful and brutal. It is gentile. It is moonlight through the pines...
I could write a book...I hope this helps.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I'm going to bed, have a good night.
PATRICK
(12,229 posts)who encouraged the agrarian trade machine that needed cheap labor to make cotton exports "competitive" with the other colony, India's impoverished legions. So following Spain's example and being closer to Britain(also culturally as brethren) slaves were introduced and massive land barons whose reach and aristocracy and tyranny got worse as it got further to the coast.
In other words, the same economic suckerdom for the locals that was most easily passed down upon them with same consolation of religion given to slaves and whites alike in place of actual economic democracy even in the modest form that might be wrested from the ruling elites closer to their ultimate nesting places of financial power. As with cotton, oil, military industrial complex, even though losing the Civil War broke a lot of that cycle
if only they had been able(or allowed) to profit from it. Unfortunately the North in some ways was like having Great Britain right next door. They and did impose their authority over this second "Revolution" which was ironically very much like a will to return to the same "good old days" of trade with dominator Britain.
Their current nostalgia smells just as bad today. It needs suckers, aristocracy and slaves and waves the flag of freedom from the first revolutionary lesson lesson unlearned.
Too much tradition of suckerdom to even understand alternatives to the overarching historical formation of the region.
no_hypocrisy
(46,312 posts)It is claiming to have the lock on gentility while maintaining two sets of cemeteries based on race.
JustAnotherGen
(32,043 posts)Who went into the military after finishing up at Tuskeegee. Born in 1941 - he didn't buy the Civil War "impression" thing - honestly I don't either.
I'm going to say the South (white Southerners) needs to collectively "Get over it" - but don't get angry stand by.
I was born in West Germany in 1973. Spent my formative years there. My dad was invited to join a private bar/club for German elite soldiers (He was a Green Beret - Captain). Many old men in that club.
Stop - do the math. They were the type of men who were impressed with "elite soldiers" especially those with dark brown skin.
One man served directly under Rommel - and he's the guy who asked my dad to join them in 1971 - because a street conversation lead to my dad sharing he started as a cavalry then went to Tanks - heavy armor.
Again 1973 to 1978 - do the math.
We came back to the US in 1978.
I never knew that older white people could be evil to a child until I was five years old and in America.
A tale of two defeated countries and how one got over it - but one holds onto heritage. People were on near starvation rations in Germany for three years after WW II. It was NOT an easy recovery. They were condemned by the world as monsters.
No one condemned the Confederate States of America (I was raised an officers daughter and drilled into my head they were a foreign country who attacked a US Fort). As a matter of fact - to bring them into the American Way - we let them win the peace for 90 years.
So - the Southerners holding onto this - cultural scar/impression really need to get over this.
What amazes me are white people living there whose families came to the US AFTER the Civil War. My dads great grandfather was an Irish immigrant who joined the Confed army for meals, a bed, and boots. He lived to be over 100 and loved his black grand children and greats. No one gave a better Irish toast than my dad! His great grandad got over it - he fought in it - everyone can get over it.
On the flip side - Johann Von Bargerstock - an immgrant - lost three Sons out of a PA regiment. His descendants had handed down to them 'tolerance'. One was my mom's dad. A WW II vet who had serious distress about his son in law, daughter, and bi racial grandchildren living in Germany - because he was never that same after a certain concentration camp he visited with Eisenhower. Even visiting us an meeting his former enemy - He found them disgusting.
It's like white Southerners who hold onto this part of the culture fail to realize - they brought the war and subsequent blood shed and loss on themselves. They don't see their own guit and have never been made to eat crow by this country the way we made Germany eat crow. Even trying to seduce the Germans away from the Russians - we made them eat crow.
Spazito
(50,629 posts)"It's like white Southerners who hold onto this part of the culture fail to realize - they brought the war and subsequent blood shed and loss on themselves."
I cannot believe how a racist flag finally being put in a museum where it belongs has brought such defensiveness about "Southern Heritage", a flag used to defend the atrocity of slavery and then brought out to fly again as a middle finger to the civil rights fight by those still under the replacement of slavery, Jim Crow laws.
Your family history is fascinating and makes the point perfectly, imo. It is time for the south to 'get over it'.
treestar
(82,383 posts)It is simply not a positive heritage to hold onto and there is no excuse. It may be tough to do but history has moved on from that heritage.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Lived through countless wars going back to Ancient Rome, the U.S. would be a small child by comparison and the Confederacy; an infant.
We didn't make Germany eat crow with the Berlin Airlift or the Marshall Plan, we helped them rebuild and kept Berlin from starving or falling under Soviet control, nothing that I'm aware of along those lines took place after the Civil War, the South was either under "Reconstruction" or turned back over to the white Southerners and left to fend for itself.
FDR made the first serious attempt in the 1930s to help the South with his New Deal and TVA programs, that would be about 65+ years after the war ended.
My dad was in the Army stationed in Germany, I went to kindergarten in Stuttgart, my first memories are of Germany, I saw my first draft horse there, it was huge and I couldn't figure out humans could ride or control such a thing.
JustAnotherGen
(32,043 posts)As a unified "one" - 1871. Italy - 1861.
And we had one goal with the things we did in those countries - to keep them from turning to Communism.
And under Reconstruction - the South was given a chance. They were given the Gift of the Compromise. They were not left to fend for themselves. They wanted Jim Crow, they wanted the Klan, they wanted the Sharecropping slavery - they wanted to railroad black men for cheap labor (chain gangs and prison systems).
They got exactly the "culture" they wanted - the turning over to white Southerners is critical. Had this country stayed a little longer - we might have avoided the daily indignities and spiritual atrocities against INNOCENT black Americans.
And still - FDR throws them bones and they continued to shit on black people.
They need to let it go.
Black Americans - we are constantly told to "let it go".
My answer?
You first.
With the exception of some Indentured servants (mostly Irish and able to earn their freedom) - the black Americans Imported here - are the only innocent outsiders in America. My ancestors in my dad's family are not the who's who did it. And the one who did it - thought it was shameful.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I agree with you regarding our strategic goal but the Marshall Plan and Berlin Airlift were a major healing force as well, subduing the flames of hatred and resentment which war inevitably produces, had such a thing occurred after WWI, the Nazis may never come to power.
Let me say this first and foremost, slavery was an absolute evil and redress should've been granted when the war ended but Reconstruction was ultimately a failure because the nation was too full of hate; on both sides spawned by the sheer destruction, mass poverty and the staggering human cost from fighting the Civil War.
FDR's "bones" were big to the people of the South still living in mass poverty and in many respects living as they did in the 19th century during the 1930's.
I wouldn't suggest for anyone to forget their heritage but only to expand it, accept the bad with the good and the good with the bad, only then can we as a nation move on.
JustAnotherGen
(32,043 posts)They key reason for that flag going up in SC - to gloat over 9 people killed in 1961.
It came down over 9 people killed.
I think white Southerners need to let it go. Something has been made right this week. If they can't see it - it's on them.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)The South is more prosperous and diversified than it has ever been.
One theme that held the South together for so long on the Confederate Flag issue, which I've tried to make has been the anchor of poverty, "misery loves company."
While I applaud us moving on, I can't help but think of how more challenging but substantive issues affecting race have given way to a symbolic one after the good people in the Charleston Church were massacred.
The powerful NRA combined with the federal government has been waging an ongoing domestic arms, the NRA says "more guns = less crime," as a natural result the government has militarized our civilian police forces to counter the real and perceived threat and this has created a widening gulf or chasm between the police; and the people that they're to protect and serve.
Combine that with the corruptive and immoral "for profit prison industry" and the so called "war on drugs" and I see us in the process of creating a 21st century version of slavery, for the most part prison labor.
There are some glimmers of hope, President Obama has talked of prison reform even becoming the first sitting President to visit one, gun reform and of course the attitude regarding cannabis seems to be evolving for the better, but we're definitely not out of the woods yet.
kentuck
(111,111 posts)Like it or not.
ann---
(1,933 posts)slavery and a war that killed thousands of their fellow Americans
in the Union.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)No it does not. We speak of American history, but among all regions only the South claims to have a special sort of 'heritage'. To be very honest about it, only whites in the South tend to gnaw on the word 'heritage'. Why is that? What is a heritage?
Heritage is a word about birthrights and inheritance. The definition of 'heritage' is in fact 'something which is or which can be inherited'. The exact thing being fought for when the South fought for their very special 'heritage' was about that which is inherited, property and status. The heritage of the slave was slavery. The heritage of a slave owner's son was the slaves. Also the land and the house and the cash, but that sort of heritage is a universal thing, what we are discussing is 'Southern Heritage' which differed from heritage legacies in other places in that it included the ownership of human beings.
To avoid that fact while repeating the word over and over again is glaringly obvious to me. They could speak of Southern History, or Southern Culture, Traditions. But what they speak of is stuff you inherit. Heritage. They seem to say they long for this heritage denied them. The white ones. The African Americans seem very happy to go without that particular heritage.
I guess we can pretend the word means something else to please you, but it means 'that which is or can be inherited' and in a region in which humans were heritage property, it is a word I myself would never, ever select. It is loaded, pointed, aimed verbiage.
When people say 'My Southern Heritage' they should say 'My Southern Inheritance' because that is what the word means. It does not mean 'history' nor 'traditions' it means stuff you get because of your birth status.
It is a creepy word in that context, and one that could easily be replaced with more accurate words.
I_Like_Hammers
(30 posts)I see it every day, seen it every day of my life.
Texasgal
(17,049 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)In my lifetime your proud southerners fought bitterly to continue their system of racial segregation. That same culture has produced the most right wing reactionary bigoted and astoundingly *stupid* political demographic in the nation, the backbone of the republican party, their loyal base, the southern suburban white male voter.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)The U.S. Government was dominated by the North, (more states and a greater population) for well over half a century following the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson would be the first President after the Civil War born in a southern state; Virginia, he was Governor of New Jersey when he was elected President in 1912, that would be 47 years after the Civil War ended.
In 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson is the decision which established Jim Crow as the law of the land, 26 years after the Civil War ended,the decision was 7 to 1 for it, with the only dissenter being John Marshall Harlan, coming from a prominent Kentucky slave owning family.
Many if not most of the the Presidents following Andrew Johnson fought in the Union Army with all them coming from the North, the Supreme Court which passed Plessy vs Ferguson and established Jim Crow were all nominated by those Presidents and confirmed by U.S. Senate dominated by the Northern states.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)who are immigrants, or the sons and daughters of immigrants, or their grandchildren, who really have no relationship with this so-called "heritage," except as outsiders who have adopted it in partsigned on to its collective guilt.
I grew up in the Midwest, where our history studies in grade school were full of log cabins and pioneers and Potawatomi and Miami Indians. And I grew up with this image in my head, and later with a great amount of guilt about the Indian removals, etc. I truly bore that guilt. But then one day, I thought about it and realized, hey shit, my ancestors weren't even here when all this happened. They didn't know from log cabins or Indians. They were in Eastern Europe busy running for their lives from the Cossacks and pogroms. They became part of the new America, people who came here with nothing and then helped build the 20th century.
My husband is a Southerner, born and bred in Charleston, SC. Indeed, he had a job when he was in high school at a clothing store just down the block from the Emanuel AME Church. He eats freaking grits. But he was also a Jew (just one rung above the black folk in his native town), the grandson of immigrants from Eastern Europe and the son of a father who immigrated to the US in the early 1920s. He says he grew up with the realization that he had absolutely no relationship to the antebellum culture of genteel Charleston. He went to a high school in which he was one of only five white kids left in the school. He came North for college and stayed, fully recognizing the racism he saw there.
All of us should consider ourselves part of the "new" America--you know, the one where people of Asian and Hispanic and African and Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish backgrounds coexist and try to make this a more perfect union.
Forget this heritage crap, and get with the program. Start with a clean slate. Know the history, but don't live with it. Start building the America of the 21st century. Clinging to "heritage" only invites exclusionism, false pride, xenophobia. Let's be Americans and let its vast potpourri of cultures define the new era.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)The question is how do we get there from here?
Peace to you.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)by individually recognizing and embracing this diversity and by acknowledging that the stereotyping of cultures is inevitably false and unproductive.
Maybe by starting with that notion of "grace" that allows people to forgive and then move past in order to act. It brought down that flag with one mighty, swift swoop. And other divisions can be overcome as well. I think we start by vowing not to vilify anyone who is otherbe they from another part of the country or another political persuasion even. That we recognize the humanity in everyone, even those with whom we disagree.
I dunno. I guess we just go back to that idea that Obama tried to promulgate when he first spoke at the Democratic convention way back when, and that he repeated at the end of his eulogy speech the other week. That we are the UNITED States of America, and that we can each help to make it a tiny bit better every day.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Here's an idea: Maybe they shouldn't have tried to keep slavery by breaking away from the Union in the first place.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Mint Juleps, Tara, Happy Slaves, and noble warriors in grey fighting for States Rights.
Or,
Poverty stricken rednecks who chew tobacco with their two remaining teeth and marry their sisters while singing Dixie and wearing white sheets.
Or, the home of Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Kate Chopin, Mark Twain, Truman Capote, and Harper Lee, William Faulkner, and many more.
Or, a conglomeration of the above and more.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Peace to you.
mentalsolstice
(4,463 posts)"Mint Juleps, Tara, Happy Slaves, and noble warriors in grey fighting for States Rights." Really?
I like mint juleps, I enjoy the old architecture (although I don't appreciate it in that it was built and maintained on the backs of the enslaved and dirt poor whites). "Happy Slaves," holy shit! Most of my generation eschews that crap!
Otherwise, I'm proud of modern southern culture, which can be enjoyed by black and white equally. Musically, I love bluegrass and jazz (RIP BB!), a genteel hospitality, native oaks with spanish moss, and bourbon. The beauty of the Appalachian mountains and our beaches and the fact it takes less than a day in most cases to get to one or the other. And, OMG, the FOOD! From low country to Texas, you have seafood, fresh veggies, and BBQ. Contrary to popular belief, we don't deep fry everything.
I live in a fairly large southern city. I like living here, it's not perfect, especially when you get out into the rural parts. However, for the most part, black and white folk have found a way to coexist and enjoy each other. In my own neighborhood, black, white, LGBT, we have parties where all are accepted, including blended families. When I'm introduced to a person, my mind doesn't register skin color or sexual orientation.
I often laugh at the "south bashing" here, because many DUers who do so live in areas where there isn't a large minority presence. And they haven't stepped foot in cities in the South where we're coexisting, supporting and blending. In the city I live in we have a lot of northerners coming in because of our main employers are medicine and banks. It's so funny to see how they acclimate. They'll clutch their wallets and purses, and whisper about their black neighbors and coworkers, when they do I'll feign deafness and ask them to speak up. At the same time they'll act superior because they're northerners. Pfft!
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I did single out your first and last sentences.
Whatever one chooses it to be.
Mint Juleps, Tara, Happy Slaves, and noble warriors in grey fighting for States Rights.
Or,
Poverty stricken rednecks who chew tobacco with their two remaining teeth and marry their sisters while singing Dixie and wearing white sheets.
Or, the home of Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Kate Chopin, Mark Twain, Truman Capote, and Harper Lee, William Faulkner, and many more.
Or, a conglomeration of the above and more.
Personally I believe there's much more along a vast spectrum, but I would be disingenuous if I didn't acknowledge that racists exist in the South nor that people believed the South or a state had a legal right to leave the Union based on the 1860 U.S. Constitution if it voted to do so.
TBF
(32,153 posts)but you've got a big hole in your OP. You have given the perspective of the Northern American, the Southern American, Abraham Lincoln, and MLK. That's all good. Now I'd like to hear the perspective of the slave - the African who was brought to America in shackles, sold like property, and forced into oppression. How do you think they feel about their families torn apart and forced into servitude? Seriously, dude.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)There is simply is no excuse for slavery to exist then or now, it dehumanizes both the slave and the master. It's an evil institution and should be banished from the planet.
My OP was an attempt at answering the specific question posed by CTyankee from a sociological standpoint as to why this is.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026961256
If the Confederate battle flag is not about slavery but about Southern "heritage"
can anyone tell us what that is? Is it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?
Is there such a thing as "Northern heritage"? Would that be Lincoln, the Adams', Paul Revere, etc?
We hear so much about Southern heritage as if it is something distinct from slavery so is it related but yet not related to slavery?
TBF
(32,153 posts)If heritage is only about who died in the civil war then how can you NOT talk about slavery? And if heritage is about something other than the civil war than what is it specifically?
I think the problem you'll have with this argument is that you can't separate living in the South from the experience of owning slavery - it's part of it. An embarrassing part maybe, but it's there.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)primarily as to the emotional motivation of primarily white Southerners that support or fly the Confederate Battle Flag, how they interpret it and from their perspective.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026961256
If the Confederate battle flag is not about slavery but about Southern "heritage"
can anyone tell us what that is? Is it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?
Is there such a thing as "Northern heritage"? Would that be Lincoln, the Adams', Paul Revere, etc?
We hear so much about Southern heritage as if it is something distinct from slavery so is it related but yet not related to slavery?
I'm convinced most of its supporters don't view it as being primarily tied to slavery, the Confederate Battle Flag was flown by the Confederate Armies and Navy it was never adopted by the Confederate Government; and by extension its' policies including slavery.
To them it represents sacrifice more than anything else.
"The experience of owning slavery" was experienced by less than 2% of the Southern White population.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)and I don't know why you keep saying that when I've posted a link to the census information a few times.
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html
There is a column in that table for "Percent of Families Owning Slaves" and the percentages are in this kind of area: Alabama 35%, Mississippi 49%, Kentucky 23%, Virginia 26%, Louisiana 29%. Not 2%. Oh wait, Delaware had 3%, and that's close to 2%, but it's not in the south.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)when I posted that figure, my mistake.
http://civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm
In 1860, families owning more than fifty slaves numbered less than 10,000; those owning more than a hundred numbered less than 3,000 in the whole South. The typical Southern slave owner possessed one or two slaves, and the typical white Southern male owned none. He was an artisan, mechanic, or more frequently, a small farmer. This reality is vital in understanding why white Southerners went to war to defend slavery in 1861. Most of them did not have a direct financial investment in the system. Their willingness to fight in its defense was more complicated and subtle than simple fear of monetary loss. They deeply believed in the Southern way of life, of which slavery was an inextricable part. They also were convinced that Northern threats to undermine slavery would unleash the pent-up hostilities of 4 million African American slaves who had been subjugated for centuries.
TBF
(32,153 posts)How do you think an African American feels when they look at that flag?
You have some nerve going on about the "sacrifice" of southerners when they were NOT the ones shackled into ships, sold on the market, and forced via threat of violence/death to labor for others.
Seriously your perspective is warped.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)your time and read it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026961256
If the Confederate battle flag is not about slavery but about Southern "heritage"
can anyone tell us what that is? Is it George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?
Is there such a thing as "Northern heritage"? Would that be Lincoln, the Adams', Paul Revere, etc?
We hear so much about Southern heritage as if it is something distinct from slavery so is it related but yet not related to slavery?
You, I and I imagine virtually everyone knows the African American perspective, the overwhelming majority hate it, the flag causes them to feel hurt, pain, anguish and anger.
The suffering of kidnapped of Africans, their subsequent enslavement being shipped across the ocean stored away as cord-wood with many dying from horrific conditions, disease and malnutrition only to be tossed overboard as garbage can't be alleviated no matter which flag was over them.
The involuntary servitude of millions over hundreds of years, coupled with the abolishment of their identities, endless humiliating degradation, being whipped, raped, lynched and the tearing apart of their families can't be comforted no matter which flag flew over the banks, finance companies, trading blocks and plantations that served to institutionalize slavery.
I've never said that slavery was anything but an evil abomination, whether it be in the 19th century or today and there is no justification for it.
None of the grotesque injustices done to African Americans is taken away or diminished by my OP and subsequent thread's interpretation as to why most "white Southerners" that do support or fly the Confederate Flag feel the way they do.
Having said that, if having a willingness to look at the entire picture of human suffering and pathos in order to better understand our American condition constitutes "having nerve," I'm guilty as charged.
TBF
(32,153 posts)"Better understand our American condition". Let me give you a clue - when you brutalize other people you may be held accountable for your actions (unless your name is George W. Bush).
It is repulsive of you to even suggest that owners "suffered" because they were informed they were no longer going to subjugate others for profit. I don't care how much lipstick you want to put on it - that's the bottom line and yes you are "guilty as charged".
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)I make no excuses for the "owners'" sins in regards to slavery.
You; who criticize George W.Bush would be appalled if future generations lumped the entire U.S. (yourself included) as being for wars based on lies, promoting torture, allowing New Orleans to drown etc. etc. etc. because he, his henchman and those in power were for it.
I'm speaking of the mass of people both then and now, disregard my valid points if you wish but don't preach candor to me.
TBF
(32,153 posts)attempt to minimize slavery. Nor can we minimize what GWB and others did. Accepting and apologizing - and things like reparations can start the healing process. Minimizing does not help.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Nothing in the OP or this thread that I have posted is minimizing slavery in any fashion.
But if you can actually find something please bring it to my attention.
TBF
(32,153 posts)everyone else was caught up in the system. As we saw in Germany during WWII the same argument could be made there. But I feel that you are minimizing when you take that approach. I'd agree that it is 1% or less of the people directing global capitalism in the sense that they are the ones really gung-ho about the whole thing and behind particularly barbaric actions. The same can probably be said about most wars. But the problem with that argument is that it's not just 1% buying in. There are mass marketing campaigns (whether overt or subtle) in which the majority of the populace is ultimately convinced to go along with the nonsense - whether we are talking about Bush, Hitler, the South, or any of the others. We talked about this upthread and you posited whether we were all responsible for Bush. Are we all responsible for the drones that Obama has launched?
Yes, I think as a society we are which is why you'll see me on this site arguing against capitalism. I was one of the lucky ones coming up with the assistance of the Great Society programs - benefiting from things like Pell Grants etc. I could sit back and be happy with myself and ignore all of the strife that I see around me since I am personally fairly comfortable. I don't because I think I have an obligation to say something when I know things are wrong. There are people like me during every conflict who quietly object. There are also stronger people like Sophie Scholl (white rose society - WWII) who fight back seriously and lose their lives. Are people pawns in these games? Yes, many are, but that doesn't absolve them when horrible deeds are committed.
Are some people more responsible than others for atrocities? Yes. Bush should be up for trial in the Hague. Should the republican dupes be up there with him? Only the leaders carrying out his wishes. But the rank and file voters should be thinking about their willingness to support him as opposed to glamorizing his behavior. Perhaps that is asking a lot but that's how I see it.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Are we all responsible for Bush's launching of wars based on lies or the promotion of torture?
Many American soldiers and Marines have given their lives or been horribly injured because they were willing to defend our nation, they identify with the United States, not because they believe in wars based on lies or torture.
Our Constitution establishes the President as being Commander in Chief, if every person in the military had to totally agree with the political policies of the nation or every decision made by the President, we wouldn't have a military.
If our nation were conquered by China or Russia in the future is that all our men and women in arms should be remembered for, wars based on lies, torture and missile drones?
Beginning in 1863-1864 the Confederate Army was actually ahead of the Confederate Government in pushing for slaves to be armed, allowed to fight and earn their freedom, General Cleburne comes to mind. He was born in Ireland, later immigrated to the U.S. he didn't support slavery but he did identify with the South., ultimately he would be killed at the Battle of Franklin. He fought under the Confederate Flag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Cleburne
On the other hand we have Sherman; a great General and a hero to the Union, yet he supported slavery and sympathized with the South up until the beginning of the war and he fought under the Stars and Stripes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman
History and life are complex, people have multitudes of motives for acting as they do, it's not all black and white but runs along an endless stream of grays as does their descendants perception of their heritage.
As for comparing the United States to Germany, the Germans must deal with their demons and we must deal with ours.
I would like to make three distinctions between the Confederacy and Nazi Government of WWII Germany.
1. The Confederacy never invaded innocent nations in an attempt to basically conquer the world.
2. The Confederacy never purposely as a matter of government policy tried to exterminate all African Americans.
3. The Confederacy was never a dictatorship but resembled the elected government of the U.S.
OF COURSE NONE OF THAT MAKES SLAVERY ACCEPTABLE OR EXCUSABLE, whether that vile institution was supported by those who fought for the South or the North.
frustrated_lefty
(2,774 posts)I try to ignore this stuff, but you wrote: "To many Southerners, U.S. History as written by the victor and (it is) tends to whitewash the sins of the nation by passing it all on to the South's for its' major transgressions and of course they're very real as well. But how many people in school read that U.S. Grant owned a slave for two years, or that (heroic march to the sea) Sherman was pro-slavery and sympathized with the South prior to the Civil War, or even read about Lincoln's racists views? Perhaps things have changed in schools' history as of late but back in my day that was never mentioned. "
Our heritage is a complex thing and I commend you for attempting to decipher it.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)was that history is complex.
Humans; are complex animals driven by intellect and emotion, each individual has to answer the call of their day by their own conscious and this is dictated in large part by the mores of their time and life experience and many if not most of the time, they simply don't always mesh into a one size fits all category.
To borrow from Martin Luther King again
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth297521.html#2HjJ51bAUjh6Q72J.99
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)after deployments you see friendships shift as a year you find out who your real friends are and provides an opportunity to get to know a lot more people a lot better. I never had a 'preference' other than honesty, trustworthy and basically didn't 'use' people so my off-duty friends were 2 good friends one from Baton Rouge & Moss Point, MS. They had a point of pride of where they were from "The South" don't remember any "Heritage" stuff or any idea of what sort of connotations that term has. Food, music, and places they were from had a sense of value and returned after discharge. I knew someone who I went to basic and was at the same regular army post was from Marlboro County, South Carolina was really good friends from a SGT from South Carolina though don't know what part (he said he was from Jamaica most of the time to the "where are you from?" questions, had the Jamaica flag on his barracks room wall. Didn't know much at all how they felt, he talked mostly about his girlfriends and kids though did get a sense of liking "Marlboro County" though don't know enough either way just his family, friends, and life is from there. Knew someone who took a real point of pride of being from Hilltop, North Carolina. I never been to "The South" so I can't really comment on many aspects of the area but I'd be careful in shaming fondness for "The South" as that was a big thing from what I remember and not referring to white people here. I saw as something positive from those instances.
Though don't remember anything about Confederate Flags--except in AIT only to wear the US flag not any other flag but the Confederate flag was specifically mentioned. There was also a ban on hate symbols though don't remember the full list of what that was to know the Confederate flag was on the list but I imagine probably controversial in an Armed forces. The only one I know that decorated with other flags was the one with the Jamaican flag -- I liked him a lot, he was very funny and easygoing and no one cared.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Peace to you.
frustrated_lefty
(2,774 posts)What you describe resembles my experience. Being from the South means a few things to Southerners. You have good manners. You appreciate food. A big part of showing good manners is sharing good food. Seafood, most particularly.
Adenoid_Hynkel
(14,093 posts)The south broke away from the U.S. to keep slavery going.
The south kept Jim Crow laws going until the rest of the nation forced them to stop.
Racist views still abound here. Google "Obama and West Virginia primary"
And there's a reason this reason is still susceptible to rightwing culture war bullshit and votes lockstep GOP.
A good chunk of the people, a majority here, are massive bigots. There's no way around it.
And the southern heritage nonsense is rooted in racism. There's no way around it.
Until the south owns up to its racist path, then the southern pride calls are denialism at best.
Take down the Confederate flags, take down the Strom Thurmond, Nathan Beford Forrest and Jefferson Davis statues, and then maybe there's an argument to be heard.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Which region of the nation dominated the federal government for well over half a century after the Civil War?
Which Presidents nominated and which section of the country dominated the Senate that approved of the Justices that made up the Supreme Court that decided Plessy vs Ferguson making Jim Crow the law of the land?
Which region of the nation has the most segregated cities?
Of course Martin Luther King was killed by an assassin in Memphis but which city did MLK state that he most feared for his life?
Racism knows no borders and most people in the South living today know about our racist past.
Having said that white Southerners also know about the tremendous loss of life, massive destruction and rampant poverty endured by this region from at least the Civil War up until the 1960s or 70s when things started to turn around.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth297521.html#vPA76KKXmWCmY1M3.99
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)West Virginia sided with the Union during the Civil War.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Oh, wait a minute, that's Southern Comfort.
Cyrano
(15,076 posts)And it was taught to (many/most?) Southerns (and so many others in so many different places) when they were young. It's is not something that is "inherited" through some kind of "hate genes."
Oscar Hammerstein explained it perfectly in his song from "South Pacific," "You've go to be taught."
And each and every hater on this planet was taught to hate. It was not inborn. It was their "education" after they were born.
XRubicon
(2,213 posts)Let us celebrate Uncle Billy, cheers!
ancianita
(36,238 posts)The music -- from gospel, blues, country, R & B, zydeco, jazz, country rock and hip hop -- from all over the South, are exported and admired worldwide.
Its food is seafood styles, hunting food and southern cuisines from every state, adopted all over America.
Its religious culture is civil rights oriented as much as repressive conservatism; it's as social in its churches' social lives that combines the above food and music with community building fellowship. Religion in the South holds barbaric hate groups at bay even as it harbors people troubled by prejudice.
The Southern gentleman and lady standards are still respected and taught to children.
The South's heritage can and does lie with all these other practices. Southern heritage need not be centered in any way around racial superiority over anyone; nor should it be misrepresented as such in its schools and homes. Southerners can be proud of their heritage, and most really are; they can even make new flags to represent it. But the country need not overlook all the positives of Southern heritage while confronting its worst aspects.
Neither should Southerners privilege wrong slaver ideologies over so much else they have that's admirable. If given a chance, they might well express all that's good about their heritage once this flag mess is put to bed in its museums.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)that will happen.
It's like they say time heals all wounds, the question is how to treat such a wound so that it heals deeper and quicker, salve or salt?
Thanks for your post.
ancianita
(36,238 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)When we continue to pick at our wounds via talk of secession, via the display of the confederate battle flags on our trucks, via a consistent denial of the primary factors of the conflict, I imagine we have ourselves to blame more than any other demographic. The wounds can heal-- it would help the healing if we stopped inflaming it by poking people in the eyes with our battle flags.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)For the most part they are nostalgic for a time when whites could keep blacks "in their place" -- and worse. They think that is the right order of things. It's sickening.
ancianita
(36,238 posts)For those here who only see the negative, I endorse the famous quote by the black doctor in James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man (p 114):
" Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst."
The South has a lot to call its heritage. You may not see all that they celebrate, but I do. It's just that they're not going to use its Dixie Swastika to stand for even the good stuff any more. It's like the black Army Major said in the movie, A Soldier's Story, after Truman integrated the troops: "You'll get used to it!"
kentuck
(111,111 posts)The Black Angels...
ancianita
(36,238 posts)kentuck
(111,111 posts)MatthewStLouis
(904 posts)I know people who grew up, well north of the Mason-Dixon line, who idolize the "chivalrous" notions in this book. They compartmentalize and rationalize away all the horrors of slavery. Such a great lack of empathy on their part. It's sad, so many southerners and southern sympathizers are so deep in denial.
annabanana
(52,791 posts)wanting to break up the USA was a bad idea
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)We're much stronger from all points of view as one united nation versus two weaker ones.
Karma is tricky though, as one united nation, bad weakening karma for one region, especially if its prolonged only serves to weaken progressive, positive karma for the entire nation.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)i don't understand this phrase. it sounds like you are saying living with more than one race is inherently difficult, which as someone who lives in NYC, I literally don't understand.
and yes, the south does suffer from poverty, but how much of this is because they vote for people like brownback or perry or jindal?
your entire essay did not contemplate the Jim Crow laws of the south, which I find pretty stunning for someone who is giving us a defense of southern heritage.
i agree with you that some of the reason people criticize the south is because northerners want to overlook their own part in creating a racist society, but your defense of people flying the confederate flag is all sorts of bullshit.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)throughout the nation has proven this, in the form of music, art, literature, poetry, cuisine, general lifestyle etc. etc. etc.
Having said that, having more than one race or ethnicity does present increased challenges involving interracial relations to politics and all points in between.
The poverty of the South goes all the way back at least to the Civil War's massive destruction both in lives and property with a major turning point being FDR's New Deal, and the TVA bringing electricity to much of the region for the first time in the 1930s.
Poverty greatly limits your choices beginning with education, nutrition, to the politicians that you can choose from to whether you can risk promoting a union at work.
The South has been changing becoming much more prosperous beginning in the 1970s and 1980s but that was well over a century after the end of the Civil War.
Jim Crow owes its promotion to the North as much as the South, beginning with Plessy vs Ferguson when it became the law of the land in 1896, 31 years after the Civil War ended.
Other than Andrew Johnson's less than one term, no President came to power from a Southern State until Woodrow Wilson in 1912, the North dominated the Congress and the White House.
The Supreme Court Justices that decided Plessy vs Ferguson by a 7-1 margin were appointed and confirmed by those politicians.
Ironically the lone dissenting Justice in Plessy vs Ferguson came from Kentucky and was born to a prominent slave holding family in that state. Some people argue that John Marshall Harlan held racist views as well, exhibited in the writings of his dissent but that's the way reality was in those days, racism was abundance in all quarters of the nation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_vs_Ferguson
I see symbols in the same light as art, the interpretation of said object is dependent upon the perspective or prism that a person is viewing it from, all dependent on that person's culture, environment, life experiences and history.
People fought and died in that war for a multitude of different reasons, all with their own personal motivations, experiences and agendas, I listed just two examples up-thread, Generals Cleburne and Sherman.
The former didn't care about slavery and argued that slaves should be armed and allowed to fight for their freedom, he fought under the Confederate Flag, the latter supported slavery and sympathized with the South, he fought under the Stars and Stripes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Cleburne
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman
Make no mistake about it, if Generals on both sides of that conflict can have such contradictory moral positions, the same holds true for the mass of soldiers, some were fighting to preserve or abolish slavery, some were fighting to preserve or leave the Union, some were fighting because family members, long time friends had been killed in the conflict and took up arms for revenge sake, some were fighting simply to protect their towns, villages, states and/or region from what they perceived as a threat, some didn't even volunteer but were drafted or conscripted especially later in the war as the pools of manpower were depleted, some fought simply because they couldn't afford to pay a bounty for someone else to go and fight in their place, in many ways this was a rich man's war and poor man's fight.
The descendants of these soldiers and other people that identify with the South fly or support the Confederate Flag for just as many if not more reasons of their own. I have no doubt racists, fanatics, lunatics and people of ill intention fly the Confederate Flag but the same can be said for Old Glory.
kentuck
(111,111 posts)Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Cold Mountain and The Outlaw Josey Wales.
XRubicon
(2,213 posts)I think if you met him 150 years ago you wouldn't be happy... and there wouldn't be any debate.
[img][/img]
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)some of my family did, although I don't believe I would've agreed with General's Sherman's support of slavery and sympathizing with the South up until the Civil War started, that's just me though.
As a qualifier it must be stated that I can't be certain what I would be like had I lived in an entirely different time under different mores especially 150 years ago or 500 years ago.
All I know for certain is how I feel now in the reality of this day and age.
XRubicon
(2,213 posts)Which is what your post is about and veiled racism, that's just you though...
You are tipping your hand with the quick reference to Sherman's "support of slavery"
He would have turned you over to the bummers.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)as to how things would turn out if they did, but he did support the institution of slavery and sympathized with the South up until they left
I's sorry if that piece of history pains you but that was reality approximately 150 years ago, perhaps you would like to sweep it under the rug so that his heroic status isn't stained in your mind, but that would be disingenuous to history and your own perception.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman
Although his brother John was well known as an antislavery congressman, Sherman did not oppose slavery and was sympathetic to Southerners' defense of the institution. He opposed, however, any attempt at dissolving the Union.[29] On hearing of South Carolina's secession from the United States, Sherman observed to a close friend, Professor David F. Boyd of Virginia, an enthusiastic secessionist:
You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it... Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earthright at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.[30]
almost perfectly describing the four years of war to come.[31]
I'm not a racist, that's just your bitterness speaking, don't let your blind hatred consume you, XRubicon.
I have no idea what "being turned over to the bummers" mean?
XRubicon
(2,213 posts)Look up Sherman's bummers then think about if you said what is in your post to Sherman's face in late 1864.
This is America, the Southern treason was put down. Get over it.
Edit to add, I like how you typed my user name in your reply. Is that you Major Garrett?
Edit^2: you wrote this: "But to simply cast a person as being ignorant or racist for flying the Confederate Flag doesn't honor the spirit of MLK."
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)of Sherman's support for slavery because his "bummers" might come after them?
You all but called me a racist in the previous post and then make excuses for a historical racist in the very next post, I will admit Sherman was a most effective General but that doesn't make him holy.
I do wish the war had never happened and that slavery could've been abolished in a peaceful manner but you have totally misread my position, I'm happy the South lost.
As I posted up-thread I believe we're much stronger as one united nation versus two weak ones, I've also condemned slavery, racism and Jim Crow, apparently you never read the thread.
Martin Luther King; among many of his fine qualities two of them stand out to me.
1. King was a man of substance he focused on changing real life policies, civil rights, voting rights, the war in Vietnam etc. etc. he said that we should judge a person by the content of their character and not by superficial means ie: color of their skin. Symbols are superficial and can't be trusted as an accurate gauge of a person's character, life would be simple and easy if that were the case, but anyone good or bad can fly a flag for whatever reason the choose.
2. King was a man of vision and in his utopian dream, all Americans would be united regardless of race, region or historical heritage. The sooner we as nation can get over the superficial bullshit, the sooner King's vision will come to pass.
XRubicon
(2,213 posts)honor the spirit of MLK."
No sale. Run along now.
JEB
(4,748 posts)Important stuff to discuss.
Uncle Joe
(58,562 posts)Peace to you.