Taking down the Confederate flag

This was a good discussion about Charleston and race: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/finding-roots-dylann-roofs-radical-violence/

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.

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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.

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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.

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Honestly, I'm amazed at how responsive Southern state leaders have been re: the flag.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/24/417162233/alabama-governor-orders-removal-of-confederate-flags-from-capitol

You'd think that times like this would make people dig in and stick to their pride/ideals. But maybe the sheer horror of the act (and a smart political calculus) convinced them that it's just not worth it to keep fighting modernity.

I bet a lot of right wing media is pissed, but some folks have changed their minds:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/22/the-southern-avenger-repents-i-was-wrong-about-the-confederate-flag.html 

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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.”

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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.  

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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? 

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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.