Some people believe that it’s right to keep the confederate flag flying because it’s always been allowed to. The same could be said about slavery and how it went on because people were used to it, even though it was obviously wrong.
Thank you, stugace. Much more clear. And I couldn’t agree more. 
There have been 5 black church arsons this past week.
Knoxville, TN 6/21
Macon, GA 6/23
Charlotte, NC 6/24
Warrenville, SC 6/26
Tallahassee, FL 6/26
In other news, Bree Newsome’s bail was reached before the day came to a close.
What frustrates me more than anything is that children don’t naturally hate each other they learn to hate. As a nation we could fix this in a generation. To bring this around to the topic of college for a moment, weeks like the one we’ve just had remind me of why I think diversity is such a good thing even if it’s, to a degree, artificially arrived at. I believe that kids really are enriched by being daily in an environment with people who aren’t exactly like themselves. I have seen with my own kids that those differences of color, gender and culture become inconsequential quite quickly.
post #702 >-) The mask comes off now and we see that this was really about hate after all (unless church arson is just harkening back to that Southern tradition and all that).
Mmph, yes. Say this again for those in the back.
I saw a video of a young white child who came up to a black man with his two children and called him a racial slur. The black man whipped out his phone and told the child he shouldn’t be saying that to people because it’s mean and warned the child he could get hurt saying such things. The black man’s two children, rather than being angry at the boy, pitted him and wondered why he would be saying that to people. What the boy was saying was definitely a parrot of what he has heard around him considering he didn’t even know what it meant. But just goes to show hatred and the intolerance of others’ differences is taught.
Denis Leary tweeted something recently I thought made a lot of sense: “Racism isn’t born, folks. It’s taught. I have a two year old son. Know what he hates? Naps. End of list.”
Even if people are older they can get over their differences if they see themselves as in the same boat working towards a common goal where the sum is greater than the parts. Forgive me a hokey story here but I think it fits:
Back when DH was coaching Little League baseball he finally got to be a head coach at the majors level. The kids are evaluated and the teams are drafted and out of pure hubris, most dads seem to want their kid ranked as a first round draft pick. Their kid, then, is their automatic first round pick. So in this draft there were a bunch of dads who live in the golf course neighborhood and lots of kids who attended elementary school together there. These dads have a tendency to go with the sons of their golf buddies and kids who they’ve known since kindergarten.
DH was out to win and watched the skills evaluations very carefully. He ended up with a team that others considered to be random and rag-tag made up of the overlooked and left-over kids who didn’t have the right lineage. He drafted 2 kids from the Jewish Day School, a kid who was adopted from China and attended a conservative Christian private school, 2 kids from the Catholic parish school, a Pakistani kid, a home schooled kid, a kid who sat out a year because he had “a disease” (osgood schlatter from growing so fast), a kid with a transgender dad, a kid who was a year younger and went to a different school, a kid who lived with his dad, aunt and uncle and mixed race cousin, another kid who just lived with his dad, and a girl. Not only did they place first in the league but blew everyone out of the water and won the city tournament. It was a thing of beauty. The kids rallied together and were amazingly supportive of one another and always picked each other up.
The south could be like that if people with loud voices and big agendas didn’t work so hard to drive wedges between people. The way for the south to “rise again” is for people to work together for economic prosperity, good health care and strong education.
Welp, it’s been fun guys. I’ve had my share of hypocrisy, racism, discrimination, and double standards these past few weeks due to the recent controversial news. Back to being a carefree black girl. :)>-
With the president absent from the next election cycle there had been an effort to shift the old race based Southern Strategy towards a more faith based (read morality based) strategy. This was supposed to draw African American voters towards the GOP around “traditional marriage”. It has been interesting to watch the national candidates stake out their ground in the flag issue in light of the recent judicial rulings. There will be quite a bit more triangulating, I imagine, before the summer is over.
Saintfan, I could have told them that strategy was doomed to failure. just sayin’…
Excellent post (#707), btw :)>-
Really good article in the Times today about the “Old South” vs. the “New”: http://nyti.ms/1STpIkl
A little post script RE post #707: One of those kids went on to be drafted out of HS by a MLB team and one went on to play for USA Baseball. I won’t say who. ;
Especially considering how relatively benign the “bad” treatment of White southerners who acted treasonously against the United States was in comparison to what happened to losing sides in civil wars throughout history unless the losing side was strong enough to make the civil war a near draw.
Something which wasn’t the case with the American Civil War considering the Union overwhelmed the Confederate South in population size, industrial output, and after some initial hiccups…effectively executed military operations.
In many other civil wars in history, the losing side would often be subjected to far harsher treatment…such as loss of all civil/citizen rights for a lifetime/generations at best, mass confiscation of ALL property, imprisoned for long periods, legally prosecuted periodically, or even killed off en masse*.
- This was certainly the case with the English Civil War in the mid-1600s, the American Revolution to some extent vs loyalists, Civil wars from the Communist Revolution in 1918-1922, the Chinese Civil War in the '30s and '40s, the Korean War, Vietnam Wars, etc. The losers in each of those civil wars would have preferred being treated as "badly" as White southerners right after the Civil War and during Reconstruction compared to the treatment they actually received.
The degree of harshness of Reconstruction days depends on where you lived. Many of the rebels were forgiven rater quickly if they swore an oath to the Union. Woodrow Wilson spent his rough childhood years in Western Virginia under Reconstruction and never forgot it. Some historians say that’s why he was quite comfortable ordering the re-segregation of Washington when he became president. Confiscation or destruction of property did occur, but other than Lee’s Arlington estate and Sherman’s March to the Sea, I wonder if there were any other notable such events. Regarding political conflict between the occupying Union soldiers in the Reconstruction states, a notable example is Louisiana, where white Democrats strenuously fought against the “Radical Republican” legislature’s and Freedmen’s agenda, leading to a few gun battles and outright murder of Republicans.
Getting back to points more germane to this thread…
That woman didn’t do anyone any favors by climbing the flag pole. Seemed like just another “look at me” moment. She should put her energy into voting for people who agree with her point of view. Next thing you know, some Confederate knuckleheads will camp out at the flag pole and start a ruckus for the next group of opponents whom seek to forcibly take it down.
Lol Niqqui, have fun.
Saintfan, great story about your DH. If there were more like him, we wouldn’t need to keep having these conversations.
There was supposed to be a Confederate flag burning rally at a county courthouse square near me yesterday that turned into a semi-ruckus. There are still a lot of thickheaded bigots around.
http://www.rnrfonline.com/confederate-flag-showdown-in-the-streets-of-brooksville-special-report/
@LucieTheLakie - Thanks for the link. Good piece.
@ LakeWashington I agree with you that removing the flag yesterday in which the manner it was removed did not help the cause. Unfortunately , she can’t vote to have it removed because she is a NC resident , not a SC resident . Unfortunately her actions just put die hard supporters of the flag on the defensive and rallied more support I’m afraid.
I guess we will get to see how your representatives feel about the Flag and if they choose to keep the flag on the state capitol grounds what the good people of SC do the next time these representatives are up for election.