Honk for Confederate Pride

[Bdarg]

Either you are for the rights of others to say things, no matter how offensive, or you are against it. It would depend on what they said if they came out against this. I would hope that they would support the first amendment, but I imagine they will try to show how being against it somehow makes them more enlightened.

(WaltonGOP, not to pick on you, but after reading all these posts, you set up the launching point of my sentiments on this issue the best)

I am all about civil rights, however using civil rights to thinly veil racial hatred is not actually a civil right; it is a hate crime. For the state to underwrite a hate crime is unspeakable. The use of the confederate flag in this case and many others is not as a symbol of southern pride and heritage, but instead is being used a symbol of racism and hate. Let?s get real, the only reason that the confederate flag is being offered on the vanity plate is because the framers of this proposal knew that a noose and a tree would be turned down flat.



To frame it in a different light, what would you think if modern Germany decided as a symbol of national pride and to honor its heritage decided as a government to use the Nazi flag for license plates, flags, official stationary etc? My guess is that many ?southerners? would not be happy about that.



As a southerner myself, as well as being part American Indian (Cherokee) and above all as an American, I find that I look at battling such symbols of racism and hatred as not only a personal obligation to condemn such repugnant actions and symbols, but a duty to my country, a duty to our forefathers (Abraham Lincoln especially?as republicans like to claim him as their own), and our national heritage, as well as to keep America in high moral standing. I was raised that America did what was right, period, and that it was my obligation as an American to do what was right; period. To claim that a flag that was created by the confederacy, for the confederacy, as a symbol of slavery and everything confederate as being anything other than a symbol of slavery, is a dishonor to our forefathers and our heritage. It is a symbol of a period in our national history when we did what was profitable rather than what was right. Let?s not let that happen again!

 

[JustaLocal]

ummmmmmm.... yes, in my experience living in 5 different southern towns. Each very different kinds of southern culture. SoWal = perfectly suited for me.

birmingham = way too southern, MLK not a popular figure among whites who believe the media is responsible for any negative images associated with the south. rebel flags abound. food is wonderful. I would weigh 300 pounds if I still lived there. many people do.

tuscaloosa = pretty darn southern and funn too. good mix of friends, plus a group of good old boy / funn redneck friends who hated MLK holiday and would rather work. fewer rebel flags but still standard.

gainesville = not enough southern (almost no southern). great great great educational life experience in many ways.

pensacola = very good southern, very strange development planning with pockets of heavy industry, minorities scattered throughout, with naval influence. great people, but quite bible belt boring.

SoWal = just right southern.

I think there are many places in NE and NW Florida I would truly love but not south florida - that is the least southern of all.

I do not believe there is such a thing as "way too southern."

 

[Teresa]

I do not believe there is such a thing as "way too southern."

wail, there sure as hail is for me!

 

[elgordoboy]

I do not believe there is such a thing as "way too southern."

And you are entitled to your opinion just as Tootsie is hers.

 

[Alicia Leonard]

I do not believe there is such a thing as "way too southern."

I once took a wrong turn going to the mountains. Ended up in a place called Boogerville. I kid you not. Please insert banjo music here. Too southern for me and I was born in south Alabama. : O

 

[Teresa]

To claim that a flag that was created by the confederacy, for the confederacy, as a symbol of slavery and everything confederate as being anything other than a symbol of slavery, is a dishonor to our forefathers and our heritage. It is a symbol of a period in our national history when we did what was profitable rather than what was right. Let’s not let that happen again!

oh, man, this is the best point bdarg! thanks for chiming in.



aleo - you are a riot. boogerville? I can imagine that it was off the charts southern.

 

[JustaLocal]

wail, there sure as hail is for me!

I can't tell you how sorry I am to hear that.

And you are entitled to your opinion just as Tootsie is hers.

Indeed.

 

[rapunzel]

I think there are many places in NE and NW Florida I would truly love but not south florida - that is the least southern of all.

I once went to a college formal in Thomasville, Georgia, and the wonderful Ferrol Sams spoke. He said, "Well, Thomaston is about as far South as you can get. If you go much further south, you start going north."

There are fantastic things about the south. If you want to celebrate your southern heritage --

• Subscribe to the Oxford American http://www.oxfordamericanmag.com/index.cfm
• Visit the Ogden Museum of Southern Art http://www.ogdenmuseum.org/
• Join the Southern Foodways Alliance http://www.southernfoodways.com/

I love the South. I'm proud to be a Southerner.

The South and its history and heritage are so much more than the Civil War. The story of the south is broader and deeper and the soul of the South was not tied only to the slave owning plantation gentry, but the story of the slave and the immigrant and the mill worker and the yeoman farmer and the sharecropper, too. We forget the good ole boys were the ones used as canon fodder in a war about guarding the means of production for the officers who stayed far behind the lines. The food is the food of poor people who learned to turn greens and discarded bits of pork into a splendid feast. The art celebrates the sense of place, the beauty of a place that isn't always so beautiful.

There are things about being a Southerner that I'm not terribly proud of. My grandfather grew up in Newton, Mississippi -- about 3 miles from Philadelphia -- and I had second cousins who were involved in the Mississippi Civil Rights workers' murder. They were the kind people that resurrected the battle flag of the CSA as a symbol of rebellion against federal enforcement of desegregation rulings and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That's the heritage I think of when I see that flag.

A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others. -- Robert E. Lee

 

[Kurt]

just respondin' to jdarg's sassin'

I don't have time to read all 3 pages. But I do know that if I'm running down a cyclist; they won't care what flag is on my license plate.

It depends on the skin color beneath the spandex.

The Bama version:

 

[rapunzel]

Kurt! The Bama Trinity!!! :funn::funn::funn: