A Florida county says hell no we’re not getting rid of the pro-slavery flag; it’s our history, dude.
Marion County, Fla. officials took down the Confederate flag that flies at the county government complex last week, temporarily replacing it with a flag bearing the county seal, News 13 reported. The County Commission unanimously approved a move to fly the flag again days later, saying members would meet with historians to discuss placing markers by the flag to “explain its historical significance.”
I can tell you its historical significance. I majored in history at an actual university, so I know. Its historical significance is that it stands for the confederation of southern states that seceded from the US in order to retain the institution of slavery. It’s a pro-slavery flag. It’s a white supremacist flag. That’s its historical significance.
One Confederate flag supporter told the station: “We live in America, and the last time I checked it was a democracy. So, here in Marion County, which has, what, 300,000 people, how can one man decide to take it off a flagpole?”
It’s a constitutional democracy. I say that as a history major, so you can take it to the bank.
Re ‘it’s our history’ …
Why yes. Yes it is…
Actually, come to think if it, kinda their present, too…
Normally, this would be where I’d send that home with a facetious ‘and they should be so proud’. Except, oddly, apparently they are.
Maybe we should all be flying the Union Jack? (Or, in Florida’s case, the Spanish flag?) It’s our history!
The other part, besides the important that-is-a-pro-slavery-flag part, is that it’s a flag of states that LEFT THE US. They were… traitors? Seceders, certainly. Not American. They lost a war over this, and their flag is a flag of people who waged war agains the United States of America. So I guess what I’m saying is “America: love it or leave it”? Or maybe “Go back to Russia, commie”?
Yep, that’s why I included “seceded.” They ditched the country because they wanted slavery more – doubly awful.
I mean, if the US became a slavery country I would want to secede, treason or no – but the fact that they seceded for such a shit reason is I don’t know how to end this sentence.
A good point was made by a liberal friend when I was at the height of my right-wingness. He said, “Regardless of your theories about the Civil War, the significance of the stars and bars to people today is that they flew it on their houses and pickup trucks to signify their opposition to integration in the ’60s. Even if you believe the ‘lost cause’ theory of the Civil War, for this generation the flag stands for opposition to civil rights.”
Before the civil rights era, the confederate flag wasn’t widespread. Know why? Because racists didn’t need a coded signal back then. They could use racist language openly, and they could assume that everyone who looked like them agreed with them about race. Then suddenly the federal government changed the rules on them, and they found a need for a symbol. Anyone who used to look for pinkie rings or green on Thursdays knows right away what that flag is: a signal of identity that’s only meant for the initiated to recognize. Just like the Christian’s fish used to be, back when they were actually persecuted.
And that’s why they are so afraid to give it up now, I think. They won’t know how to find each other now except by personal recognition, and they won’t know who to look to as allies. Considering how fearful the RWA personality is, this has to be scary for them.
Remember, kids! “Confederates” means “losers!”
that’s what history tells us……
If they stamp the flag with the words racist, then they are welcome to use it
America is heading toward a minority-majority future. So when whites become less than 50% of Marion County’s population, they will be perfectly happy to let the 51% non-white population say which rights the whites can and cannot have, right? Why certainly they will. None of that judicial activism stuff for them, no sir!
Not only to retain slavery, but to expand the institution into new states and territories.
moarscienceplz – I believe there are already quite a few areas in the south where whites are already a minority. They just manipulate the voting system to make sure they either can’t vote, or their vote is distributed in such a way that “they” can’t take over the power structure.
iknklast,
Whites were a minority in South Carolina after the Civil War. They used every trick in the book to suppress the black majority. They seemed to have succeeded for almost 100 years. So much for the military victory in the Civil War.