Sarge wrote:I get really nervous when we get start getting into how people "feel". There are lots of things that I'm offended by, but folks don't bend over backwards to cater to my whims. Make a fact-based case (which they certainly can!), but feelings are driving so much irrationality in this country that it's mind-boggling.
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For the record, I grew up in the great state of Mississippi. Still live here, still work here. I see people working hand-in-hand, whites and blacks, but all people seem to think about Mississippi to this day is that it was racist and that it's still racist. It's a stigma I don't think will ever pass. Not while people can benefit from it.
I grew up in Tennessee. I was in a rather pink area of the state, not quite as red as the rest. I didn't see a ton of overt racism, but there was lots of unspoken discrimination, and there was clearly racial divide and tension. And it wasn't until I moved to Ohio that I started to see more than a rare few black folks who weren't dramatically marginalized by society, structurally speaking. Even my politically pink part of TN was still very racially divided, and it colored a lot of my own view of the world. I prided myself in not being judgmental on the basis of skin color, yet my utter societal segregation left me so ill-exposed to people of color that I was unconsciously judgmental. I'm convinced leaving the state is the only thing that saved me from being a hypocrite (along that particular axis, anyway).
To address the first bit I quoted... The flag of the Army of Northern Virginia issue isn't one of feelings alone. It is one of actual oppression. It is true that the American south fought a largely defensive war, and the general citizenry should not be blamed for defending their homes and land. At the same time, the flag (and, frankly, most of the flags used by the Confederacy) was not a product of the citizenry. It was created by a political leader, and at the time of attempted secession it was the political leaders who made the call to do so to preserve their economic structure, founded as it was primarily on the back of human slavery. At the highest political and economic levels, the creation of the Confederacy was, primarily, to preserve the institution of slavery. As such, symbols of the Confederacy cannot fail to ultimately call up ideas of oppression in the minds of those descended from the oppressed.
I realize that it is polarizing and potentially offensive for me to say so, but I do really think that the closest handy analogue to the "Confederate flag" issue here is the Nazi flag issue in Germany. I agree that Germany went overboard in censoring Nazi symbology. Still, despite that there were many well-meaning men and women who marched, fought, worked, and lived under the symbol of the Nazi political party, the symbol stands largely for the purging of German society of undesirable and weak elements. It stands for strength through purity. The Confederate flag is very much the Nazi symbology of US history, regardless of any one individual's intent when displaying it. For that reason, I think it is inappropriate for government offices to fly the flag. And I think individuals who display it, for whatever reason, must make their own peace with the role of the flag in the larger historical narrative of the US.
Simply put, when a statehouse flies the Confederate flag, they are effectively telling the black segment of their population that they still honor the state's heritage of slavery and oppression. That's why this isn't just a touchy-feely issue. It's not that the flag annoys black people or makes them feel bad. It's that the flag symbolizes to them that they are still perceived as lesser people, still seen by even their state government as "they who were once property instead of people."
: Lost one of my USPS Carrier door magnets on the road today. Sucks we have to buy those privately and a set of 2 door magnets and 2 bumper magnets runs around $50 
. Would be nice if the USPS provided these or at least had a supplier that we could get them off of at a better price, but logic seems to elude management.
