Is the Confederate Flag Racist? Options

[onenonly101]

Many people have different views on this. Some say no because the flag is their heritage and many say yes because of what it represents now i nthe present. So the question is If the Confederate Flag Racist.

This was started on another forum and this is what i had to say (keep in mind some people were replying back so, sorry if i repeated my self in any sentences, also it was also starting to talk about the war)

My opinion on the confederate flag is all over the place actually. i think that it the ways it is used can be racist. it started off as a symbol of pride and finished off as a symbol of haterd. many people have twisted the flag and its view to make it as a symbol of haterd not only against blacks, but jews, hispanics, catholics, and anyone who was not like them. Personally i do not think that there should have been a confederate flag in the first place because as the so called United States we shouldn't have ever divided ourselves.

Ok when i say it has turned out to now be a symbol of racism i mean that when the flag first came about it was all about southern pride and heritage and what not. but after the civil war when the KKK was created they used the flag as a symbol of haterd of minorities and when in the 50s when all the hate groups were becoming even more fired up against blacks they waved around that flag at all their meetings when they were saying i hate blacks, jews, and everybody who isn't me. some people now still see it as only a symbol of heritage, but you have to put yourself in a minorties body and see what we see when every time you see the flag it is always associated with somethingd bad as racism, what more can you think.

I don't think anyone said the war was just about slavery. It was about states rights and slavery because the question of states rights arose because of slavery. The thing is now the flag is associated with all the hate groups. They don't have the right to use it but it doesn't change the fact that they do use it. When everything is all done and said with all people will remember is that neo-nazi, kkk, and other hate groups used that flag.
I say i don't like to see the flag because all i see is hate.

I haven't been taught to only see hate. I actually used to believe that is wasn't racist, when everyone said it was. The thing is that when i started researching things like the Civil war and other things I realized the intentions of it weren't meant to be racist but it is now and there is nothing to change that.

Ya'll keep saying it wasn't over slavery. The reason the states succeeded to union wqas because of slavery. The issue of states right to govern and allow to have slaves is what caused the split. If there wasn't the issue of slavery i can bet there wouldn't have been a civil war.
How can a flag hold your heritage. There is no more Confederacy so you there shouldn't be the Confederate flag. How can you love a flag that represents separation?.
Like i said before you have to look from the other point of view. I've been on both sides and everytime i see that flag it is behind someone saying they agree with separation. take how you wanna, but in my eyes it is racist,

I never said the north was dead set against slavery or that northern states didn't have slaves so i don't know how that got into the agrument. Also they returned the slaves bcak because there was rewards, everybody is money hungry AND laws. Also those states that had slave in the north went with the succession with the south so then they were apart of the confederacy.
Poor people did have slaves. Most of the southerners yeah weren't rich enough to buy many slaves, but that doesn't mean that they didn't have slaves. Almost one-third of all Southern families owned slaves. In Mississippi and South Carolina it approached one half. Also the states who were near the north weren't considered nothern states they were ocnsidered borderline states. And they did not suceede to the Confederacy.
I shouldn't have said if i did, slavery was the only reason. The slavery issue however was the largest issue and the one of most concern. Other factors like politcally stemmed from slavery because before they made the 3/4 compromise, people in the North said if they are just property then they shouldn't be counted toward the voting rep in Congress, but the Southerns disagreed because the more people the more reps you could have. That was one of the issues that started the Civil War.The South also suceeded because they though Lincolin was going to free slaves even though he never advocated abolishing slavery.
But back to the flag

I meant to ask ya'll before what Confederate do you love or whatever. Because for example Georgia's flag up until 2001 was not the original Confederate flag it was a Confederate flag put up to protest the Supreme court's decision on Brown vs. Board of Education.
The flag is a representation of slavery because there wasn't a confederate flag until the succession. What i don't understand is how you say you have an alliegence to a flag of a nonexistent place. There is no more Union or Confederacy it is simply the United States of America. Yeah the Confederacy consisted of southern states but doesn't mean that it should represent the states or what not.

finished sorry it was alot

[ComradeRed]

That's true, but out of the 228 years the South was part of the United States, people choose to display a flag representing 4 years of rebellion?

Why do we display the old 13-star Ross flag, even though it represented 2 years of rebellion in our 400 year history? No one celebrates conformity. It's like in the stock market. Every day, BILLIONS of dollars change hands WITHOUT INCIDENT. Do we focus on that? No. We focus on the rare scandals like Enron. As I said, conformity is all around us. We don't have to celebrate it.

it's impossible for me to be racist against Japanese, because I am Japanese.  But besides that, the American flag wasn't designed during the internment of the Japanese, and the American flag didn't represent their quest to keep one race under the control of another.

You can be a self-loathing Japanese.

America's flag was designed during a Revolution, that was fought IN PART to protect slavery. England abolished slavery in the early 1830s, we waited for 30 more years. While slavery was not a major issue during the Revolution, it WAS an issue. It helped to actually convince teh Southern Colonies to defend New England (taxation without representation didn't hurt the Carolinas as much as it hurt Massachusetts, which was dependent on trade and such).

True, the war was not all about slavery.  But when you say they fought for their homeland, you must realize that their homeland was the United States of America, and that their fight was not in defense, but was one forcibly rebelling against their own country.

Their homeland was the land they were living on. To say that the Southerners homeland was the United States is like saying Kurds are Iraqis or Palestinians are Israelis, or that American Colonials were British. While technically true, it is STILL a defensive rebellion if all you seek is independence. We were technically British in 1770s and 1780s. The American Revolution was against our own leaders. That was the point. If it was against foreigners, it would be a war, not a revolution.

To sum: To say that Southerners were Americans in 1860 is like saying Palestinians are Israelis. It's technically true, but just semantically incorrect.

First, this isn't a question of REBELLION.  It's a question of RACISM.  Tell me how and when the American flag was a symbol of rebelling in order to keep blacks slaves with no meaning of life.  The Americans rebelled from the British to be independant and free from ridiculous Brittish taxes.  True, the South's arguement was not ALL about slavery, but slavery was PART of the reason of erecting the flag, and the factor that sparked the differences between the two sides.

As I mentioned before, slavery WAS an issue. Southern Planation owners supported the new country even though they were not being hit by taxes, which were mainly mercantile taxes. Why? Because they would have more control over the new government to secure slavery. Moreover, if you read the Constitution, it basically acknowledged (or used to, before the Thirteenth Amendment) the legitimacy of slavery: In one area, it prohibits the importation of slaves after the year 1808 but protects the status of slaveowners beyond that.

The highest law of the land supported slavery until 1865. It was ONE issue, not THE issue. Likewise in the Civil War slavery was ONE issue, not THE issue. I posted a link to a copy of the Confederate Constitution earlier... Reading the Confederate Constitution shows that, ASIDE FROM SLAVERY, the South was developing a system far freer and far more democratic than the North's system. That's why the South was in the moral "right" prior to 1863.

And the flag is a symbol of the South's quest for independence- because the North WAS trying to abolish slavery, many people in the North were.  The South got angered because new states were being developed, and there was always a battle between whether or not the state would be a slave state or a free state.  The South feared that if there were more free states than slave states, congress would vote to abolish slavery.  This was one of the main reasons why South Carolina basically began the war by seceeding from the Union.  This is why slavery was a major contributing factor in this war.

Abolition was a MINORITY MOVEMENT. Lincoln NEVER, EVER advocated abolishing slavery. In fact, Lincoln would most likely have vetoed any abolition bill, because he was most interested in protecting the Union. Lincoln proposed a policy of containment of slavery. The South was afraid of the slippery slope. When South Carolina's legislature voted to secede, there was STILL a sectional balance. New Mexico and Arizona were BOTH probably going to enter as slave states, to build a Southern transcontinental railroad. To say that, in lieu of civil war, slavery would have been abolished, is pure historical revisionism.

Now I will say again, "Racism" is thinking a race is inferior to their own.  This thread is about racism.  Now who will argue against the fact that by enslaving a particular race and making them work for no pay, and treating them like animals is racism?  Who disagrees?  Displaying a flag that stands for the South's rebellion is displaying a flag that stands for many things, but most of all, racism.

Displaying the Southern flag can also be displaying something that stands for Low Tariffs. Or an Independent Post Office. Or under-control Government Spending.

Slavery was only ONE of MANY issues at stake. The South feared a slippery slope that would lead to bigger government once containment was in place. The CSA Constitution reflects this year. The Southern Constitution contains EVERY RIGHT in the Bill of RIghts, and then some other rights that are SORELY NEEDED TODAY. The Southern Constitution restrained government to a much more effective level. With the Southern Constitution, we would NOT have a multi-trillion dollar deficit, huge entitlement programs, and civil liberties restrictions like PATRIOT.

Slavery was ECONOMICALLY DOOMED TO FAILURE. While the Southern Constitution has one racist clause in it protecting the rights of the holders of "enslaved negro persons", it was otherwise in my opinion a much more democratic Constitution than our own.

There were 15 major changes between the USA and CSA Constitution. Of those, only 5 had to do with slavery. Of those 5, 3 protected slavery, while 2 actually WEAKENED slavery by prohibiting further importation of slaves. The other changes set restrictions on government spending, required legislative supermajority on key issues, created an independent post office (which we FINALLY did 100 years after the Civil War), abolished legislative "riders" (this would effectively had killed the US PATRIOT Act) and set a one-term limit for President. THESE ARE THINGS THAT WE NEED TO DO TODAY AS IS PATENTLY CLEAR TO ANYONE PAYING ATTENTION TO THE KIND OF STUFF THAT OUR CURRENT GOVERNMENT IS PULLING.

Here's the link to the CSA Constitution, with a summary of the major changes: http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/books/co...n-csa-xtra.html