A performance “artist” plans to lynch the Confederate flag in protest of the Republican convention! What, praytell, does that flag have to do with Republicans? It was Democrats who flew and fought under it.
The lynching ceremony, titled, “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag,” will kick off an exhibition called “Recoloration Proclamation: The Gettysburg Redress” by artist John Sims. It also will feature Confederate flags that Sims has rendered in alternate colors, including African liberation colors and two “drag flags” done in pink and lavender and trimmed with spangles.But it is the elaborate lynching ceremony — an act of symbolically “killing” the Confederate flag — that will bring him and numbers of Southern heritage defenders to Gettysburg, according to Edgerton.
What an inane idea.
Does this fall under the definition of “hate speech”, or are “hateful” thoughts toward Southerners fair game?
Addendum: FYI, I think Southerners or whoever have the right to display the Confederate flag in support of their heritage or just because they like the way it looks hanging outside their houses.
{ 48 comments }
In my research lately on ugly political campaigning in the 19th century (ok, I’m a history buff), I found that a popular Republican slogan (and it worked for a long time) was: “Every bullet that killed a Union soldier was fired by a Democrat.” It was pretty much true, though there were Democrats fighting on the Union side as well - one can guarantee there were no Republicans on the Confederate side.
They used that slogan for at least 20 years after the war, and, interestingly, in Republican primaries, guys who hadn’t fought in the Civil War were denigrated. I think it took til 1884 for a non-Civil War vet to be nominated by the Republican party.
In any case, there’s a reason there was the “solid South” for the Dems up until the late 60s. They remembered the Civil War was a war that the Republicans waged against the South, and then the Repubs took their franchise, and blacks and carpetbaggers, all Republicans, were the governmental officials during Reconstruction. When the dirty deal was made to end Reconstruction, these guys were out of office, and we had almost 100 years of just Dems in the South.
How quickly people forget. It wasn’t that long ago, you know.
Btw, Southerners have always been acceptable butts of jokes. Which is fine, because we make fun of Yankees in return (though many times they don’t realize it, the poor slow dopes).
Lashawn,
You say: What, praytell, does that flag have to do with Republicans? It was Democrats who flew and fought under it.
Now why would you want to confuse black people with the truth? That is so cruel.
We all know that Abe Lincoln was a sweet & lovely democrat that freed us from slavery…….ANNND, that Alabama Governor George Wallace was a racist pighead republican that, if he had his way, would have denied us an education.
Right? I think. Time out…….Can I get a clarification from Julian Bond?!!! One moment please, Lashawn.
This just in……I’m right. Couldn’t get Meesta Bond, but Frizzell Gray, err Kweasy, did straighten me out. Who knew? Democrats freed the slaves.
It would fail into the catagory of “I Got Nothing Else Cause ‘Bush = Hitler” Is Already Being Used”…..
I think it falls into the “stupid” category.
You forgot to mention that the 14th amendment is about to expire, and Bush has already promised his campaign donors he will not renew it if he is reelected.
I hesitate slightly to come in on this one (being British, and a horrid socialist to boot), but…
The important question about this flag is not “whose was it?” but “whose is it?” After all, it wasn’t the official flag of the Confederacy, but merely a a battlefield flag. It may be historically accurate to make the Democrat=southern / Republican=northern approximation, but neither the Democratic nor the Republican Parties as they were at the time of the Civil War. They stand for different things now than they did then. So who is it flies this flag with the most enthusiasm *now*? I’d be prepared to hazard a guess that those most likely to cover themselves with the Southern Cross are more Republican than they are Democrat.
Absent from the WorldNet piece was the college’s explanation of the artist’s intention (though I’ve long since given up any expectation of any sort of balance from that organisation): “By co-opting the image of the Confederate flag and changing the well-known color scheme to one antithetical to the flag’s historical and cultural function, Sims is able to interrogate and re-direct the symbol’s power, perhaps altering the viewer’s sense of place and belonging,” said Dr. Molly S. Hutton, who directs Gettysburg College’s Schmucker Art Gallery.”
That, it seems to me, is not unreasonable. I’m sure you wouldn’t deny that this flag has been used in recent years as a symbol of racism La Shawn, or that it is widely perceived by black people as a racist symbol.
Personally I think “inane” sums it up nicely.
Given that it’s Republicans who continue to uphold the Confederate flag like it’s Jesus, I’d say it has something to do with the GOP. Especially since most of the Democrats who started this flag worship in the first place later switched to the GOP.
Why many so Republicans still value this un-American symbol as much or more than the U.S. flag is simply disgraceful. The Confederates are a vanquished entity just like the Nazis and Saddam Hussein’s regime. All opposed freedom! The Confederate flag doesn’t represent “Southern” pride - after all, most blacks are also Southerner - but rather racist Southern pride for the “good ol’ days when blacks were “put in our place.”
While this particular artist’s activity is over the top to me, in a rare agreement with liberals I’d say it’s time for the flag to go.
Richard,
In answer to your question of whose is it, I would have to say that it certainly is not any symbol of the Republican party. More to the point though, flags are symbols of heritage. The heritage of the Confederate Battle flag belongs in whole to the Democrat party.
If one only takes into account it’s use as a symbol of oppression against Blacks by such groups as the Ku Klux Klan, it still follows the Democrats for the next hundred years after the end of the Civil War until the advent of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.
While the Confederate battle flag has been used as a symbol of some who were dedicated to “keeping the Black man in his place”, for many Southerners it was/is simply a symbol of their Southern roots, without any intent to send a racist message through its use or display.
The problem is that it is so symbolic of the racist past of this country that it can no longer be used to symbolize anything else. At least not if you are “politically correct”. Your comment as to “Whose IS it vs. whose WAS it” would seem to indicate that you buy into the liberal line that Republican = racist. Not true in the past, and not true today, no matter what the Democrats would like you to believe.
Molotov,
Exactly where on the Republican party platform does one find the part about continuing to uphold and display the Confederate battle flag?
If you are not Southerner how can you make a judgement about what a Southerner considers to be part of their heritage?
I do have to agree that since the Democrats continued to use that flag when engaged in suppressing the rights of Southern Blacks in the hundred or so years following the Civil War, that it has come to symbolize just that in the minds of most Americans, and hence should be relegated to the past like the flag of Nazi Germany (also a continually misused icon by those of the same ilk as misuse the Confederate flag).
The people who fly that flag are probably yellow dog Democrats. It was a democrat who raised that flag over the South Carolina court house.
Hmm… after looking on the internet for a few minutes, I find it is the anarchists who are adopting the Confederate flag. To them, it is a sign of rebellion against the gov’t. Go figure.
>>”Your comment as to “Whose IS it vs. whose WAS it” would seem to indicate that you buy into the liberal line that Republican = racist”
Far from it Montie, and I apologise if I gave that impression. But La Shawn was suggesting it inappropriate to link the Southern Cross with Republicans *today* - I was merely suggesting that it is more likely to be Republicans who use it as a symbol than Democrats. So it is entirely appropriate for an artist to explore the meaning of the symbol with the Republican Party convention as a backdrop.
Montie,
I grew up mostly in the South, my family’s heritage on both sides is from there and most of my relatives remain there, so you shouldn’t erroneously charge that I have no knowledge of Southern life.
I never said the flag was part of the official Republican Party platform. However, the flag is much used in GOP politics. Far too many local and sometimes even national Republican politicians use the flag to play the race card to appease white Southern voters. too many value this un-American flag more so than the U.S. flag itself.
Again, the flag merely represents racist Southern pride, not Southern pride itself. The only flag that should get props is the U.S. flag, not one from a totalitarian entity which sought to uphold slavery and later Jim Crow.
I must submit a “ditto” to the comments by Molotov.
Racist Democrats started, racist Republicans now continue it, and that’s the way it is.
In the modern day (since 1950 or so) very few have raised the Confederate Traitor Flag without racist overtones. Those who deny this are deluding themselves.
That said, the protester should have been at the Dem convention too. Think about it; this is just another Bush basher in action.
If this flag is going to be flown at the RNC, I’d like to hear about it. I hardly think anyone other than a few southern weirdos (not to say anything against the south itself, just a few weirdos) are flying this flag.
I really think it is a symbol of heritage anyway; I’d like to see your proof that anyone is flying it with racist intentions. Names and dates, please?
Shayne
Use of the Confederate flag is a complicated issue for me (a white, southern Republican). It can have different meanings depending on the context. Under some circumstances it can mean, “the war ain’t over for us.” When I see it in front of a house, or on a 30 foot flagpole at the beach, that’s what I think it means. But it is also a part of our heritage. Lots of people fought and died under that flag, people who thought they were doing the right thing even though we now know otherwise. That included a lot of black people, BTW…
I think people should be allowed to use it, but others have the right to think badly of them if it seems inappropriate. First Amendment… Having it fly over your state capitol is another matter. If a majority of the state’s voters don’t want it, I say put it up for a vote and let them decide. I do think it’s wrong to try and have old monuments taken down, etc. It’s history. It’s up to us to decide what that history means, not to expunge it.
Also… I’ve been involved in Republican politics for years, and the subject never came up. It’s just not that big a deal. And I have seen the Confederate flag flown in a provocative manner by Democrats. BTW, the one everyone argues over is actually the BATTLE flag. There were a number of other flags used by the Confederacy that you probably wouldn’t even recognize. I’ve seen those used by heritage groups.
Every white person I know who flies that flag, including, sadly, my own relatives, would die before they would vote Republican. I don’t know where the Confederate = Republican thing comes from.
I’d like to see the flag just go away, for many reasons. I guess if someone feels that they have to display it on their property then they should be able to do that, but apart from that and Civil War memorials, it has no place in America today.
Every white person I know who flies that flag, including, sadly, my own relatives, would die before they would vote Republican. I don’t know where the Confederate = Republican thing comes from.
Thanks, Laura. I was waiting for someone to bring that up.
Laura - Why would white people you know who fly the Confederate flag choose death over voting Republican?
Molotov,
A challenge:
Name 3 or more (and provide proof of) republicans that use the confederate flag as part of their platform/advertising/image.
Here are the requirements:
At least one must be a local, one a state, one a national figure. By national I mean a pol either in or running for an office in that resides in DC.
Using the state flag of the state they are running in or to represent does not count.
For anyone else, feel free to do the same for any other parties.
Oh, and Beau, I’ve cancled that check from CRACWHIP inc. No fair trying to consort with the Never Allow Any Conservative People (NAACP) while under our benevolent pimpage.
Dear Mr. SCSI Wuzzy,
As my honorable & much worshipped President of CRACWHIP, Inc., and man of impeccable taste in clothing and women that you are - of whom there are simply not many…….is there any way on God’s green earth that I can brown-nose my way into gaining reinstatement? With full reimbursement/back-pay, I might add? Please?
Or what if I proclaim loudly “THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN”!!?? On 2nd thought, that’s just as bad as the Never Allow Any Conservative People (NAACP). Please disregard that last foot-in-mouth comment.
How about a lifetime contract to shine your shoes? Do your laundry & drycleaning, maybe? Please, Honorable Mr. Wuzzy - not to be confused with Fuzzy Wuzzy??
Thank you for your time, Sir, and may the Lord bless you with between 87 large YARD trash bags filled to the brim with $20 dollar bills.
And thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Kweasy’s FORMER Loser-Boy Puppet and
Dirty Work Doer,
-
Ah Beau,
Get up off your knees (you’re not an intern). I already have someone to shine my shoes (he follows me around nad calls me Dr. Jones, no matter how much I tell him to stop).
As for the South Rising again, I don’t think even BobDole has that much viagra to pull that one off. Still, we don’t want to deprive Kweezy et all to lose their boogerman… and I have to be nice to him, since, after all, the mayor of philly (where I earn the money aside from pimpage) has proclaimed to Bond and Frizzell and anyone who listens that they run this city.
See, even us pimps have our massahs in this day and age. It’s like the yin and yang disc.
Sing it with me… Ebony, and Ivory, oppress each other in useless symmetry…
Velly well, Senor Wuzzy. I’ll take that as a reinstatement “yes. Pimp me from now to Kingdom Come…….can I put the P-word & Heaven in the same sentence? Whatever; if so, I’ll save that one for my next confession.
And since my check will no longer bounce, I’m off the to cash that baby………..then head out to mall to purchase some mo bling-bling.
Oh, one question regard spending my new-found and flowing cash. Do you think some 20″, 5 or 6 spoke black rims would work on a Silver 2001 Pontiac Grand Prix 2-door Coupe? Yo, I got some polished silver & chrome 19s on now with the lowered suspension. I am so fly, but I want me some Kwenties, Dawg.
I will be ghetto fabulous before long, much thanks to your generosity & my ability to kiss butt with the best of ‘em, not necessarily in that order.
And thank you for your support.
Hey you guys, keep it on topic.
Beau,
Only if you paint your hooptee like the General Lee. Which, sadly enough, brings us back to the controversy at hand…
When, if ever, is that durn flag ever acceptable?
I wonder if any of Molotov’s republican canidates would drive around in the GL?
I know I would, esp if I could jump over hay bales with Roscoe P Coletrain in hot pursuit. And Flash. Since basset hounds are cool.
I agree with molotov.
I’m a white(ghostly) male who has never flown the Confederate flag, battle or otherwise. Being around white folk for the majority of my life, I am astounded that most do not know the full meaning of this flag to other people—the right of one person to own another, for or against the proposition.
The dominant meaning for these white guys is REBEL. That’s all—rebel; nothing beyond that and it can be used by anyone of any color. Rebellion is as American as Mom and apple pie (Mom is a human universal and apple pie is Dutch.)
Being an art school grad, I think it’s an attractive flag much like the British Union Jack and the U.S. Stars and Stripes. It’s symmetrical with a balance of primary colors. It can be flown upside down and no one would know. It’s not a busy or fussy flag and is instantly recognizable, which is the most important thing for a battle flag.
I cannot and do not condone the abusive use of the Stars and Bars; BUT IT IS JUST A FLAG! GET OVER IT!
Some of my cousins have bad memories over “JUST A FLAG.”
I find it hilarious!
Some dim-witted performance “artist” seeks to highlight the “racism” of Republicans and Southerners and thereby exposes his own ignorance and prejudice.
I’m not a Republican BTW. (I will vote for GW though)
I have a father who has bad memories over “JUST A FLAG”. I had an uncle who had bad memories over “JUST A FLAG”. I have bad memories over “JUST A FLAG”. But, nevertheless, the Rising Sun, the Swastika, and Ringling Bros. Circus flags are JUST FLAGS. We put meaning to them. We should also be able to put time and place to them as well.
I have a feeling your relatives who had bad memories of ‘just a flag’ were given those memories by yellow dog Democrats.
BTW, Woody, you saw that flag on Crystal Beach?
Honorable Wuzzy,
Yeah that’s right, General Lee was what was called a “Gray Boy”, right? Thank God my car’s silver…..but aint that shiney gray?
MY 2 CENTS: The rebel flag is acceptable wherever I see it, keeping in mind that I’ve yet to have a real problem with the N-word. IT IS A TERM OF ENDEARMENT IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY!!
That is so conveniently left out, then all of a sudden most blacks wanna hold whites to a HIGHER STANDARD- than we hold ourselves. (Sound familiar in hiring & college admissions??)
Well, not me. And damn the context or by whom it is said. As blacks we must lead by example, and forget about “You white folks do as we say, not as we do!! It works great while raising black kids according to Bill Cosby.” Yeah, right, “my negro”. I digress, needless to say.
Key point to remember with the Rebel Flag:
They lost the war!!
Got their heads kicked in!!!
Thousands of whites died to free blacks - the blood reparations that Alan Keyes flip-flopped on!!! (Pandering Idiot!)
So let the punks fly their stupid flag. I mean, can we get your black minds to rise above this petty little garbage? N-word, Rebel Flag……wah, wah, wah!!
Did we really survive slavery? I don’t see how, as weak-minded as many of us are.
*Ouch*
“What, praytell, does that flag have to do with Republicans?”
I thought dems had turned their backs on it, but republicans had embraced it.
RepJ, it was on the beach at Port Aransas, TX, and quite a few years ago. They were set up where everyone could see the flag, which was huge. To me, they were sending out provocative messages, “the war ain’t over,” and “you want to make something of it?” A**holes.
To answer the question of why my relatives who fly that flag would die before they would vote Republican:
Because they are Democrats. DEMOCRATS. D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-S. I don’t talk to them about politics. They start it up, and I leave the room. (Or porch.)
Laura,
Those who did not grow up in the south do not seem to understand the new Republican movement here. It wasn’t until the 90s that Republicans started taking over for good in the south, contrary to popular belief. It started with Reagan ‘democrats’, and the tide has turned.
I think the popular belief is that when LBJ signed civil rights and said “I just handed the Republicans the south”, then the ‘racist’ south suddenly started voting Republican. Not necessarily true. The tide didn’t really start to change until Reagan’s conservative values were acknowledged by those in the south as being viable.
RepJ, that’s about right, though there may even be some holdout old-style Southern Democrats. I lived in an East Texas county for a while in the early-mid ’90s, and it was almost totally run by the Democrats at that point. Not sure if that’s changed. It was also the most racist place I’ve ever been, much different than other parts of Texas I’ve lived in most of my life. West of I-35, people I knew had pretty much switched to Republican by that time. When I was a kid, voting Republican was considered by adults I knew to be almost a kind of treason.
“It wasn’t until the 90s that Republicans started taking over for good in the south, contrary to popular belief. It started with Reagan ‘democrats’, and the tide has turned”
Hell it started with Nixon’s ’southern strategy’ to welcome the racists fleeing the civil rights dems into the GOP.
RepJ - Thanks for the explanation.
Actus, I think it did start with Nixon, and some of the new Republicans may have been former racist Democrats, but I think ideas about defense played a big role also. Southerners tend to be hawks, and very anti-communist, and I think they figured Nixon would be tougher vs. the U.S.S.R. than the Democrats. Ironic that Nixon ended up normalizing relations with China…
Well, I know at least some people who are actually having fun with the Confederate battle flag. I like their style.
PS- roll your cursor over “I like their style” above for the hyperlink to their site.
As another white (though more olive than ghostly) southerner, also with many relatives who’d rather die than vote Republican, there’s an interesting correlation between the vehemence with which they hate GWB and their racist tendencies. Oh, but call them on the carpet for it and they’d deny it wholeheartedly. One of my most liberal aunts recently talked about my cousin going to buy a house in the burbs of Chicago. At the house next door, a black man was sitting on the porch. She made my uncle go over and ask if he lived there or was a relative of the owners to “protect” my cousin from any possible problems. I was shocked speechless when she told me. Maybe that alone should be an indicator of how deeply ingrained rhetoric can become with Democrats; there’s just not a whole lot of thinking going on. They blindly follow their party, they blindly tolerate rascist views while they blindly tout liberal ones. It’s all such a card game, I wonder when the whole farce will implode.
May I remind everyone that Dr. Condoleeza Rice is a Republican because the Democrat Party in Alabama refused to sign up her father because he was black?
Jeannie and Woody, you got it right.
Actus,
Obviously, Nixon’s “southern strategy” didn’t work out too well since it took over 20 years for the governorships to go completely Republican.
Here’s a few facts I’d like to share:
1. The South did not invent slavery. It was in existence for over 1000 years before the United States became a country. Almost every race has been slaves at one time or another, not just blacks.
2. In the old South 7% of whites owned slaves, and 2% of blacks owned slaves. Yes they did own some of their own people! According to the U.S. census reported that approximately 10,000 free blacks owned 60,000 black slaves. Also, among the population of Indians on the Trail of Tears (kicked out of their land by the U.S. waving Old Glory) 25% were black slaves owned by the Cherokee.
3. Back in 1776 all 13 colonies owned slaves when the U.S. seceded from England. Does that mean that the Revolutionary War was fought over slavery? Does that mean that the United States Flag is racist? If so, then I guess that Independence Day is also a racist holiday because every state owned slaves on July 4th 1776.
4. Slaves were brought to America by U.S. slave ships (with American flags!) sailing from the northern states of: New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Delaware. Not one ship sailing under the Confederate flag ever left port to embark in the slave trade, nor did southerners go hunting in the jungle for slaves as the media may lead you to believe.
5. Black Africans sold their own people into slavery. Nigeria was the lead player in the slave trade. Should we prohibit the displaying of their flag?
6. The Emancipation Proclamation (of 1863) did not set the slaves in the United States free. It only declared slaves free in the Confederacy in which Lincoln had no power. In the states that were in his power, those slaves were not free until the 13th amendment was passed in Dec of 1865 (8 months after “The Great Emancipator” was dead). If the North was fighting to end slavery, why didn’t they free their own slaves in 1861 when the war began? The United States Congress was made up of only Northerners at that time so it would have been really easy to do! The American Flag waved over the heads of slaves for 89 years. Including the 8 months after the Confederacy was no more!
7. If only 7% of white Southerners owned slaves, why on earth would the other 93% risk their lives and homes by engaging (for 4 long years) in the bloodiest battle this country had ever seen just to save the institution of slavery?
8. After the “Civil War” blacks were not allowed to move to some northern states because of “black codes”. It’s ironic that the state of Illinois that is the “Land of Lincoln” was one of such states. Lincoln even tried to deport the slaves. He sent many of them by ship to Haiti; it was his “Colonization Plan”. If he thought that blacks were his equal why didn’t he want to live by them?
9. The South seceded from the Union because of the many constitutional violations being heaped upon it from the north. Much like the Revolutionary War in which we fought for our rights to be free from an oppressive government, the South had the moral imperative to posterity to do the same.
10. The Confederate flag is a symbol of those honorable people who fought and died for freedom. They firmly believed in the right of the people to govern themselves. The Confederate States of America was a country for over 4 years. Jefferson Davis’ terms of negotiation to end the war was basically that he would end slavery but remain a separate country. It is about heritage not hate!
(You can find a lot of info in the Library of Congress!)
I only need to tell you all to do your homework!
In the beginning of our country’s partisan development the republican stood for all of the things that the democrat stands for today. Lincoln was a republican!
There is also documentation in letters written by Lincoln that demonstrate the global pressure he was under to end slavery although he thought it appropriate.
Back to the partisan issue! It wasn’t until FDR that the political views of the democrat became what they are today! Big Government and Social Reform. All of you need to look it up! Don’t speak until you know all of the facts.
p.s. question everything! just because someone wrote it doesn’t make it true!
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