I
wish the guests would have hit harder. Yes, white (men) feel under
attack these days - but they should have said that those feelings are
utterly baseless and not grounded in fact. Or if some whites are having a
harder go these days, it is not due to gains by minorities (and there
certainly isn't a minority conspiracy for "payback" against whites -
even if it's quite deserved). If they don't outright dismiss these lies,
then people will continue to believe them (like how the GOP injects
doubt into the global warming issue). You can't give Holocaust deniers
and Holocaust historians equal respect just to maintain a "fair debate".
Bill Maher said that denying the existence of racism (and accusing
others of race-baiting) is a form of racism in itself, and I think
that's correct. Some on the right would rather attribute Roof's actions
to "hatred of
Christianity"
instead of hatred of blacks. Speaking of that - to those who don't
think the SC massacre (and our reaction to it) was racial, what if a
synagogue or a meeting of (white) Wall St. execs was attacked by a black
power extremist? If America's response would have been different (and
it definitely would have), then that shows bias.
IMO,
the debate about the Dixie flag is a red herring. I understand that its
presence evokes powerful emotions on both sides, but it's a distraction
from the core issue. Fighting over symbols is often a fruitless
distraction. We can't change the past (nor its icons) and it's better if
we accept it and move on. I suppose it's understandable for Southern
folks to feel pride about their roots and the "War for Southern
Independence." But they also have to acknowledge that some aspects of
their society/regime were evil - and the consequences on blacks persist
today. They can acknowledge and find a better path forward like Germany,
or they can stick their heads in the sand like Japan and Turkey. I
would also hope that African-Americans can see past the flag and not let
it consume disproportionate attention. They have more important battles
to fight.
---
But unlike Germany the can't kick the flag. Pride in the south is pride
in a flag that was raised because they wanted to keep their slaves. I
get having southern pride but it would be unbelievable to have german
pride and use the swastika as your symbol. And the racist roots of the
flag have major events that occurred WAY more recently that WW2 so it
just strikes me as incredibly odd that anyone is fighting for this flag.
And i don't think the right answer to white men
feeling under attack is to say "your problems aren't real" or anything
of that nature. And ultimately the poor white people of this country
are cajoled into feeling this way to keep the powers that be in place.
Gun rights, anti poverty measures, anti voting measures, a lot of that
stuff relies on poor white people voting against their interests and to
do that they bring up the specter of the great "other" who for pretty
much all of America's history has been blacks. Sometimes we use brown
people now-a-days but the tactic is the same. So we should understand
that they feel a certain way and be riled up that it wasn't an accident.
---
Re: the flag - I am not well-versed in 1800's US
history, but maybe the Union went too easy on the South after the Civil
War. I am sure DC just wanted order and unity again, so they permitted
the South to cling to their Confederate heroes and imagery. This was
before the advent of hate crimes and war crimes, so it's not like any
Southern leaders were prosecuted for their atrocities against blacks.
And let's remember that most of America was still fairly racist, even if
the South was "more racist." So there may not have been much motivation
to chastise the South for clinging to racist icons until post-Civil
Rights era (plus they were Constitutionally protected).
Let's
also remember that many white-power groups display Nazi symbols to this
day. It may be outlawed in parts of Europe, but they make slight mods to
the swastika and still march in the streets. And lord knows what they
say behind closed doors. This is Greece's Golden Dawn (and there are
many other examples):
And this is the Klan of course:
As
Obama said, fighting racism doesn't end with making the N-word impolite
to say in public. You still have to discourage racist thought when no
one is looking; it's a matter of values. It might be a moral victory to
take down the Dixie flag and Robert E. Lee statues, but we haven't
gained much if the proponents of those icons still feel defiant and
bigoted in their core.
Re: angry white people -
yeah I wasn't suggesting that we should dismiss their
problems/hardships, but they need to understand that it is not the fault
of minorities. Many bigoted mass shooters like Roof are
paranoid narcissists
- they think that others are out to get them because they are superior.
It's a terrible mindset (incited by some third parties) and should be
discouraged/corrected.
If anyone can be justified in feeling
under attack and wanting to rise up, it's black/brown people. But for
the most part they know they can't, because society may not side with
them and law enforcement would not stand for it. Yet we condone
anti-gov't (mostly white) militias and questionable Southern pride
groups.
---
---
The secret is you can still be a bigot without a flag. And there will
be no problem finding the people to vote for who agree with you. Lots
of opportunity to ask for their views with codewords like voter fraud
protection, welfware waste, etc etc.
The Confederate flag is easier to get rid of than guns, they probably
think if they concede on that they’ll show they can “change.”
---
Thx, guys. Yeah Bill Maher said that guns kill people, but
flags don't kill people. Though I think that neglects the fact that
symbols can be powerful motivators. A flag can inspire people to hate
more, which then leads to the desire to use a gun.
Change
is a funny issue - I thought that hardcore conservatives want to show
that they are in fact totally resistant to change and proud of it. I bet
we will see a lot of that in the GOP primaries - who can be the most
proud and inflexible? But then again, this is not 2012 and the GOP is
even talking about wealth inequality these days. But I really think they
haven't done anything substantial to court minorities. I guess they are
clinging to their old (and failed) strategy of mobilizing the base.
Good luck with this field of hacks - who of them can energize and
inspire John Q. Voter?
If I had to, I probably would pick Graham except for his ultra-aggressive foreign policy approach.
---
I'm glad you guys raised the Nazi comparison. Has that been
discussed in the media? Both flags - among others - are symbols of evil
and a mindset that their are superior and inferior races. Both should
be banned from state grounds and memorials. In a free society, we can't
ban these symbols outright but we can - and should - call people and
institutions out when they use them under the guise of praising people
with strong moral convictions and enlightened values of a bygone era.
Somehow people are nostalgic about an era where the traditional, native,
good, naturally superior, white people owned black people and could
savagely beat and kill them without facing any justice because it was
their innate right based on their race?
Yes
there is racism is Europe and, sadly, in many other parts of the world.
There will always be sympathizers and groups who would like to go back
to the "good old days" where they were treated with the "respect" they
deserve.
What angers and frustrates me is that
most Americans seem to fail to recognize the similarity between
southern sympathizers and other evil groups. Honestly, I don't see the
difference between southern and Nazi sympathizers; but I get the
impression that the media and the corporate culture doesn't.
It
wasn't until this heinous incident that Walmart and other businesses
"realized" that the confederate flag was offensive and a symbol of
hatred? It wasn't until last week that the Governor of South Carolina
and other governors and state politicians realized that the flag and
other confederate memorials were an inspiration to racists and extremely
hurtful and offensive to African Americans?
---
To take a cynical view, I think Walmart and those others
stores decided that the scales finally tipped in favor of PR controversy
avoidance/respect for their minority customers vs. sales/pleasing their Dixie customers (like how car companies decide to issue a
recall only when the cost of suits/damages > cost of recall). I
think some companies decided to stop carrying guns & ammo after mass
shooting events.
I suppose it's natural that people don't
want to feel like they come from a bad/evil heritage. We are proud
creatures. The Germans have been exceedingly contrite after WWII, giving
huge reparations to Israel (quietly), enacting anti-hate laws, and
setting up a lot of domestic education/memorials. But not so for the US.
Didn't Obama get flak from the right for "apologizing for America" too
much? Maybe Romney said that. Well, the truth is that we have plenty to
apologize and repay for (if we actually care about the values we
profess), but we haven't because America is exceptional and awesome.
Except for:
- No reparations for slavery, only a tacit
declaration that the system was "wrong" (and then there were Tuskegee,
Jim Crow, lynchings, war on drugs, etc.)
- Very few
reparations and acknowledgement for Native Americans - who suffered war
crimes/genocide and we were no better than Cortez/Columbus really (and
we can them savages?)
- Promising citizenship and pay for
Filipinos who fought for our side vs. Japan in WWII, then totally
reneging (and doing the same damn thing with many Iraqis and Afghans who
helped us)
- And then there were all the times that we unlawfully and immorally wrecked another people's land
- The list goes on and on...
Empires
are not built with kindness and honorable behavior. I think progressive
Americans can be open and honest about our "evil" past, for lack of a
better word. Growing up in the US edu system, and despite being a crazy leftist, it
even gives me pause to call the US evil. But the facts don't change. So
I think some in the South haven't reached that point of clarity and
reason yet, and likely never will, even if the flag is banned (which we
can't do).
I wonder if our leaders/media even ask the
South - how do you feel about slavery and the Confederacy? They refused
to attribute race/guns to the SC shooting, and I think they would
hesitate to speak negatively about Dixie. They prefer to remember those
times as if it was "Gone with the Wind," or R.E. Lee charging gallantly
into battle against the evil Union oppressors. So actually the guys
trying to free your slaves were the evil ones.
Unless we go on
an education blitz, this false narrative will persist. We commemorate
the ends of the World Wars, why not remember the end of the Civil War
(costliest US war in terms of lives and domestic damage) and have a
national dialogue about the causes and teachings? We have the Holocaust
Museum in DC, why don't we have the US racism and war crimes museums
too? I know there are some black history museums here and there, but
maybe the public doesn't think it applies to everyone - it's for the
blacks to learn about their heritage, right? Well it's a shared
heritage, and if we don't confront it, the bad/evil ideas will linger.
Like M said, the flag is only part of the problem - we really need to
get Americans to stop maintaining the beliefs that the flag represents.
