Amazing graphic, @greenwitch .
I hope you’re being facetious…
@DonnaL - good article. As a former Southern Baptist, I was really surprised by this. They’re not known for their progressive viewpoints. But good job, SBC:
(I’m now a Quaker, in part because I’m in love with their history of abolition activism, underground railroad, all that. 
)
Well, you (we) really know more than “a single African American,” even if not personally.
I highly doubt that the loud cheers from the crowd represent people who disagree with what Farrakhan said. And no sounds of disapproval are heard, so that is a lot of approving minds.
Therefore, it is not a stretch to believe that at least a million people agree with what he said in that video, e.g., he got at least a million to march 20 years ago, and that was mainly only the men. And if they did not agree with his flag statement, they darn sure have not come out to say otherwise. Agreement in silence is just as “borg-like,” as those who march etc. The reason is it poisons the mind and makes discussion more difficult when it is needed the most. He may be a singular nut, but he has a lot of nutty followers, and it would be errant to dismiss the damage he is doing, even if that damage cannot be overtly seen and qualified.
Farrakhan is not on the news and sought out by the main steam media because the media thinks he does not represent a large segment of the African American community - it is the opposite. I completely disagree with what he says and does, but his influence should be understood and respected. And trying to present him as the voice of “a single African American” is a day late and a dollar short after he has already spoken, as many people follow and believe and spread his message. Once he speaks, it is not longer the thoughts and beliefs of “a single African American.”
Not even close to a million men showed up for that march 20 years ago, awcntdb, but if it makes you happy to think they did, have at it. And not everyone who did show up agrees with all that Farrakhan espouses. I’ve talked with plenty of black people about Louis Farrakhan (a few of them Muslim), usually following instances in which he’s been prominently featured in the news, and most of them have said they don’t agree with even half of what he preaches. Concerning the Million Man March, which was promoted as a call for African American men (ergo, why only men participated) to take responsibility for their families and communities (in other words, “Man up”), well, I’d like to know which part of that imperative you, as a conservative American disagree with, given the propensity of outlets like Fox News to play a one note piano to that tune with gusto and no small amount of condescension. We as black people sometimes talk amongst ourselves about problems endemic to the inner cities, expressing frustration and dismay over the difficulties inherent in solving those problems. I’ve heard people say that, while they are not believers in Islam, and certainly not the radical elements of Islam as represented by men like Louis Farrakhan, they acknowledged that a lot of the hard work of addressing issues within inner city neighborhoods (such as despair and learned helplessness, gang violence, and absentee fatherhood), is being done by members of The Nation of Islam. That’s why the Million Man March, as an event meant to confront these very issues, resonated even with many of those who don’t subscribe to all his views.
Now, concerning the latest bit of incendiary rhetoric from this man, until agenda-driven elements began posting that video, I dare say most blacks weren’t even aware that he’d made that speech, because most black people seldom even think of him, much less pay attention to what he has to say. You can believe that or not. It makes not one bit of difference to me whether you do or don’t.
As far as “agreement in silence” goes, do you really want to go there? Are you actually suggesting that black people take to the streets in refudiation every time someone like Louis Farrakhan says something offensive, just to convince people like you that we don’t “agree in silence”? I hate to break it to you, but that’s not even close to being a priority for us, especially since sound bite footage of many, many racist and/or offensive opinions delivered by white speakers, goes unrefudiated by most of white America ALL. THE. TIME. Most of us actually understand that these people don’t represent the views of all, or even most white Americans. You see, most of us don’t subscribe to the idea that whites are tapped into some kind of hive mind the way some whites obviously believe blacks are.
“I am also interested in what other countries that had civil wars do about the “losers” - do they ignore them, do they mock them, or are very few actually “wars of secession”?”
I grew up thinking we were all one big happy country, not Northerners or Southerners. And that the Civil War was as irrelevant to our relationships today as the Revilutionary War is to our relationship with Great Britain. That if course that was all buried in the past. it’s the Southerners who have decided to think of themselves as some special mythical thing with a past that should be revered. They’re the ones who have tried to recast the Civil War as being over “states’ rights, not slavery” and calling it the “war of northern aggression” and other such nonsense suddenly deciding that if their ancestors did something, why, it should be honored. For those of us who grew up in areas and times where duh, blacks ride on buses and drank from water fountains and ate in restaurants alongside whites, the images from the civil rights movement, the concept that there were areas of the country where this wasn’t the norm, burn really deeply.
Here’s a concept. Stop acting that the “losers of a war” whose pride is all hurt, and start acting like Anericans. Take pride in your food, your music, your generous hospitality. Not your heritage in the 1860s or the 1960s.
And stop using “I need to veneratw my ancestors” as an excuse. No, you really don’t. Normal people can look at their ancestors and say - they lived in different times and adhered to things that today I find unacceptable.
As a liberal, I for one don’t give a darn what Farrakhan (or Jesse Jackson) have to say about anything.
Yes, poetsheart, you misunderstood. I was merely providing a real-life example of what can happen if only the viewer’s interpretation of a flag’s meaning is considered. Thanks for the apology.
Thanks for the clarification, Bay. It’s much appreciated. 
Can’ someone please explain this logic to me?
You live in the part of the country that lags the rest on most measures (health care, education, etc.). You resent the rest of the country over a war that ended 160 years ago (while you’re a net taker of their money). You know that the rest of the country kind of looks down on you for being uneducated and ignorant. So then you persist on doing something that the rest of the country perceives as uneducated and ignorant. How does that work? Normally, when you want to improve your reputation, you don’t do things that others perceive as uneducated and ignorant.
Farrakhan is a hate monger just trying to get in the limelight. Ignorant statements don’t deserve a minute of media attention.
Pizzagirl,
I don’t think they care what you think. Why should they?
For comparison, I saw plenty of beater cars when in California recently. Maybe they don’t care what you think about Californians and the and their car care.
Those beater cars exist because they don’t rust out like cars in the rest of the country.
“I don’t think they care what you think. Why should they?”
I think they care very much what we think. Why else fly a Confederate flag if it isn’t to make a statement to OTHER people? Don’t you think there’s a clearly a “middle finger” component to flying the Conf flag? “Maybe you beat us 160 years ago, which we can’t stop thinking about and our pride is hurt, but just try and make me stop flying it?”
It’s clearly sore feelings because they feel the South gets disrespected IN THE EYES OF THE NORTH and they don’t like that - because they care what we think.
@LasMa Did you read the opinion piece I linked? I think the black college prof who wrote it was being serious. She thinks Aunt Jemima is a racist trademark.
I don’t think people fly the American flag because they want other countries to think about them a certain way. They do it to display pride in their identity, to show solidarity, to show appreciation for their country, and a whole host of reasons that are not intended to communicate anything to non-Americans. I don’t think we can assume that Southerners fly the flag to speak to Northerners at all. But that’s just my idea.
I think many African Americans think of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben like Asian Americans think of Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu.
From the wiki . . .
Rutt reportedly saw a minstrel show featuring the “Old Aunt Jemima” song in the fall of 1889, presented by blackface performers identified by Marquette as “Baker & Farrell”.[3] However, Doris Witt was unable to confirm Marquette’s account. Witt suggests that Rutt might have witnessed a performance by the vaudeville performer Pete F. Baker, who played a character described in newspapers of that era as “Aunt Jemima”. If this is correct, the original inspiration for the Aunt Jemima character was a white male in blackface, whom some have described as a German immigrant.[4]
@Pizzagirl, I understand the point you’re trying to make here, but it would be really NICE if you would stop referring to “Southerners” as if they’re some great monolith. I believe I am about the same age as you and grew up in the same general area (suburban Philadelphia), and I distinctly recall a lot of racism here. Was it less overt than in the South? No doubt, but it was plenty ugly nonetheless and plenty of it remains today.
Regarding “Southerners,” they include African-Americans and Jews and a not-insignificant number of white progressives who have struggled mightily to remain Southern while fighting racism in all its forms.
Maybe it’s time for the nation to read “To Kill A Mockingbird” again. Perhaps that will happen with Harper Lee’s new release. To quote Atticus Finch: “This time we aren’t fighting the Yankees, we’re fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they’re still our friends and this is still our home.”
Harper Lee wrote that in 1960, and I’m guessing part of the reason she agreed to release her older, originally-rejected manuscript as a “new” book is because she feels the conversation her TKAM started “bears repeating” in 2015.
I can only speak from my experience, so YMMV. Having said that: in the South some decades ago, blacks who were -from the point of view of white people - friendly, sufficiently deferential, compliant, and particularly middle aged or older, were referred to as aunts and uncles by the white people. So in referring to such a black man, you might say “that old uncle over on the bench”, and so on. Hence you get Aunt Jemima, Uncle Remus, Uncle Ben, etc. I never heard a young black man or woman ever referred to by those titles.
The Aunt Jemima ads I saw as a kid used this tradition, and visualized it by showing Aunt Jemima as a house slave/worker, complete with head scarf from cooking in the white man’s kitchen.
I assume the dislike of the Aunt Jemima name for food comes from this history. Once the perception and the use of aunt and uncle dies out, there won’t be a visceral reaction to it anymore. People who don’t connect to the history don’t see anything wrong with it. I also notice that the Kentucky colonel from KFC is coming back now that there aren’t any real Kentucky Colonels anymore.