"Its not racism its history" yeah, a history of racism.
"It was about states rights!" Yeah, the state's rights to own slaves.
"It's a part of our past" yeah, part of our past of being absolute monsters.
"I am still proud of my heritage" I guess you need to have your ass beat into the ground AGAIN, then.
30 people are sore loosers 🤣
It wasn't even used as the actual flag of the Confederacy. This version of the flag is the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, which has sort of just come to represent the whole Confederacy now. The actual flag that was used by the Confederacy actually had quite a bit more white on it, which in the eyes of some at the time understood it to represent the "White race" (from Wikipedia):
On April 23, 1863, the Savannah Morning News editor William Tappan Thompson, with assistance from William Ross Postell, a Confederate blockade runner, published an editorial championing a design featuring the battle flag on a white background he referred to later as "The White Man's Flag," a name which never caught on. In explaining the white background of his design, Thompson wrote, "As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause."
Their flag actually went through three versions between 1861–1865 (each with multiple variations), so they really didn't have their shit together over the course of those 4 years even.
Shout-out to Vexillologycirclejerk@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz as this post would be quite suited for their flag shit posting.
I see something I wanna use to wipe my ass.
My ancestors died fighting for the Union, but I have to admit a tiny bit of me has a soft spot for that flag only because I liked the Dukes of Hazzard when I was little.
Meh, The union, Confederates, they are the same utter shit in my non American eyes.
The Union is no saint, specially when it comes to racist shit.
Fuck the US, all my homies hate the US.
I always find it interesting how different the interpretations are of this flag between people who fly it and people who live outside the south.
If you ask your average redditor or lemmite, it's a symbol of the utmost hatred and racism. It's a symbol that supports slavery and white nationalism. After all, that's what the confederacy was fighting for, right?
If you ask the average person who flies the flag, it actually has nothing to do with those things. It's about freedom from tyranny. It's about independence, and not allowing the guy with the big stick to tell you what to do.
The average redditor/lemmite will say, "Yeah, but the whole reason they fought for independence was to keep slaves!" And you would be right, if we were talking about the people flying the flag during the Civil War. A lot has changed since then. Hell, even at the time, it was the wealthy who cared about the right to own slaves. The average soldier was just told that the war was about independence from an authority that wanted to dictate how they lived their lives.
Given the relatively recent battle for civil rights, trans rights, etc, I would think people could empathize with not wanting other people thousands of miles away to dictate your laws and morality. But that's the funny thing about power. When you don't have it, those who do are oppressors. When you do have it, you're just "right", and you have to make sure everyone else is living by that same morally pure doctrine. The doctrine of diversity, equity, and inclusion is in power now. Anything that goes against it will be crushed.
