it is fear though, they are motivated by public uprising, outcry, litigation etc...
Even now the only reason this is an issue is because one idiot used it as a symbol for their own personal act of hate and it gets panties in a bunch enough to have the zealots try to eradicate it from history.
remove it from the state house grounds, purge it from toys, stop showing re-runs of the Dukes, but the fact is it was/is a part of history and in this case it is just a flag.
again, it's not just one idiot. It's history. Consider the idiot the flashpoint if you will, but it has always been racist and has always been history at the same time....consider it racist, treasonous history, if you will.
Of course you know this isn't the first time the debate has come up. I'm not into erasing it from history, disallowing private use or display--but using this a state symbol is certainly more than bad form.
symbols change all the time because of what some "asshole" later used them for. Do you see the swastika flying prominently anywhere in the US or Europe? I wonder why--it is an ancient symbol of unity and tranquility, after all. Really strange that some people are so offended by it for some reason. Really strange--it's history, after all, and those that see it as such are clearly more important than those who choose to be offended by it...simply because of what some asshole later did with that flag. right?
....as accurate as that comparison is, it isn't entirely perfect, as the confederate flag was never not tied to an acceptance of slavery, racism, jim crow, and white supremacy. Those ideas have always been part of that flag no matter which representation a particular individual chooses to ascribe to it an any particular time.
being southern, I ascribe a certain romance to the idea of rebellion, it was always part of what I knew, in some way. I don't particularly have a problem with the flag, but I also don't have a history of attaching that symbol as a banner for a class of people that once murdered my family simply for who they were.
I fail to understand why it is so hard for people to accept the argument: "You simply can not appreciate what this means to people because you aren't part of that history, and never could be of that class of people."
I'm sorry, but growing up white, I will never know what it means to grow up black. And nor will any other white person. Attempting to walk a few steps in those shoes is not a sign of weakness or "whiny liberal political correctness." It's a sign of maturity.
If you use the argument "it's just a flag," then I wonder why anyone spends so much effort defending it. It's just a flag, right?
What I said is a gross simplification of events leading up to the Civil War but it gives a good gist of what I understand was going on. I was taught this in our public schools, as were many other kids here in the north. We know slavery was an American problem, we were taught that. We were also taught about the Civil War, both pre and post eras, carpetbagging included. Another example of collective American history is our treatment of Native Americans (smallpox blanket anyone?). That is a part of our history that no American can shrug off, that and much, much more. It's part of our heritage as Americans, every one of us. Even those whose ancestors came after the Civil War. You don't get to embrace the good of the country without the bad. You are an American, it is in the history of your nation.
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