Racist Meaning Of the Confederate Flag, In the Words of the Man Who Designed It

[Triana]

Last edited Tue Jun 30, 2015, 11:30 AM - Edit history (1)

(perhaps this is something that can be shown to those who inexplicably choose to defend the indefensible by defending this goddamned flag - though as the article says, they surely know what they're defending)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

When Dylann Storm Roof attacked Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday, he killed nine African-Americans and left behind a manifesto decrying the low IQ of "negroes," the fact that America has "no real KKK" and that claimed segregation existed to protect whites "from being brought down to [black people's] level."

He would have had much in common ideologically with William Thompson, the Savannah, Georgia Daily Morning News editor who designed the Confederate flag that Roof took many photos with in his manifesto. Roof posed with photos of this Confederate battle flag, one of the central motifs of the second flag of the Confederate States of America. (In others, he could be seen burning the current American one.)
. . .



The following is Thompson quoted in an excerpt from the book Our Flag by George Preble:





If that isn't clear enough for you, Thompson then wrote that this new flag would "be hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN'S FLAG" (sic):




"THE WHITE MAN'S FLAG," notably, was supposed to be "chaste." The Civil War-era South (and other racists that followed them) were somewhat obsessed with the rape of white women by black men.

When Roof attacked Emanuel AME Church, he reportedly accused the black parishioners of raping white women. His manifesto talked of white women in interracial marriages as "victims" who could be "saved" from their black husbands.

So why is this flag still up? . . .

THE REST:

http://mic.com/articles/121082/here-s-the-racist-meaning-of-the-confederate-flag-in-the-words-of-the-man-who-designed-it


ALSO OF INTEREST:

Official secession declarations were all explicit that the goal was to protect slavery: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html

[malaise]

1. Off to the greatest page for you

Rec for truth

[PoliticAverse]

2. The article seems to confuse the 'battle flag' itself with the version with a pure white background.

In this whole debate I haven't seen anyone flying the version with the white background.

[Triana]

5. Alabama...

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



South Carolina 6/27

[PoliticAverse]

6. Ah I see. In Alabama they were still recently flying several versions of the flag...

"The four flags removed from the memorial were the first, second and third national confederate flags, and the better-known battle flag."

[Cryptoad]

25. Havent seen them flying this one yet!

[Triana]

28. +1

[shenmue]

26. Second picture: "Yay, we lost the war and got a lot of people killed!"

"Wait, whut?"

[Igel]

12. It also thinks "chaste" has as its antonym "rape."

Apparently if you consent to having sex with 30 partners in the course of a month, but none of them rape you, you're chaste.

Or perhaps you're considered promiscuous if you're raped. Not "imputed" impurity, "if you dress like that with a big hoop skirt you're asking for it" promiscuity, but more like the dictionary definition.

Unless we really do want to say that all rapes are requested and wanted.

I usually take chaste to refer to more of a moral quality; if you want the word for "never having had sex," that would be "virgin."

[gollygee]

3. So they placed it on a surrender flag?

OK.

[PoliticAverse]

4. Prophetic perhaps. n/t

[Triana]

16. It was an issue back then too...

Initial reaction to the second national flag was favorable, but over time it became criticized for being "too white". The Columbia-based Daily South Carolinian observed that it was essentially a battle flag upon a flag of truce and might send a mixed message. Military officers also voiced complaints about the flag being too white, for various reasons, such as the danger of being mistaken for a flag of truce, especially on naval ships, and that it was too easily soiled.[11] Addressing these concerns, the flag's designer, W.T. Thompson, stated that the battle cross in the canton was sufficient enough to distinguish the flag from that of one of truce and that adding any additional elements would make the flag look too much like the U.S. one, which he referred to derisively as "the Yankee flag".[5][6][7][8] However, despite these complaints, the second national flag was applauded by some for its design invoking Confederate ideology. George William Bagby praised the flag, referring to the saltire in the flag's canton as the "Southern Cross", as did others at the time, and stating that it embodied "the destiny of the Southern master and his African slave", pointing them southward to "the banks of the Amazon", expressing the desire many Confederates held of expanding slavery southward into Latin America.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America

[Recursion]

18. It was a problem at the time (nt)

[azureblue]

33. In Colonial times

Williamsburg, VA was over half slave...

[BumRushDaShow]

7. The problem back then was

that in some of those states, they were so rural and there were so many slaves, that whites literally were or were close to being a minority in their own states.

And you see this manifesting today - the smaller the white population by percentage, the more virulent they become, notably in the SE Atlantic and Gulf coastal subset of the old confederacy. Mississippi currently has the largest black population by % at just over 37%. Louisiana is just over 32%, Georgia is 31%, South Carolina & Alabama are both almost 28% & 28%.

The further north you go outside of that specific region - including states with large black populations like Maryland, with 30% black, the less you see this, most likely due to a significant migration of non-southerners there for government jobs in the D.C. metro area.

[Panich52]

8. So just what 'heritage' do flag's supporters honor?

K&R

[SwankyXomb]

11. The KKK of course

We should continue to call out these Klanflaggers, if you will, at every opportunity for their pathetic attempts to justify their racism.

[Volaris]

15. Surrender.

Bunch of fuckin' Quitters they were.

[Beartracks]

31. So, they were ethically wrong, but we're gonna chide them for surrendering, too?

Maybe Confederates and their descendants feel that it was only a surrender and that it was only temporary and they will "rise again."

But as I recall from school, they were beaten.

Calling them surrender monkeys will piss them off, sure -- but it will also bolster their delusion that they were in the right.

=====================

[Rex]

19. White slaver owner heritage.

The KKK.

[AuntPatsy]

9. Kicking

[smirkymonkey]

10. K&R

The flag is an abomination. It needs to go.

[Romeo.lima333]

13. K R

[calimary]

14. Fuck that. Two of the happiest marriages I know of, among my white girlfriends, are

the two who married black men. Both couples are just oozing a very pure and genuine love. Neither woman behaves or regards herself as some sort of victim, and certainly not someone's property!

The really sad thing is - this delusional young man who murdered the nine faithful in Charleston, if he had ever had any dreams of eventually finding a sustaining love and true partnership and the deepest mutual affection that comes from a rock-solid marriage, he would give anything to have the kind of loving, supportive relationship that these two couples have.

I still have this picture in my head of my friend Kathleen's first dance with her brand new husband at their post-wedding reception. His skin is as dark as hers is pale. They're gazing at each other with a look of near-rapture that telegraphs "DAYUM, I found you! I can't believe I FINALLY found you!!!!" You can just see it in both their faces. I'm getting all warm and weak-kneed and watery-eyed just thinking about it. One of the coolest photos I have ever seen! I've known her for years. But I've never seen her as happy as she's been since he came into her life.

I've also noticed that same rapturous gaze in a number of same-sex couples who, thanks to the Supreme Court's latest ruling, are now able to marry whom they love, and as they choose, and as their hearts decree - in every state.

[Triana]

20. Absolutely. Love is love.

And it's evident that these white confederate/conservatives consider white women their 'property'. It seems to have never occurred to them that 'their women' had minds and hearts of their own - that they are / were their own persons and that they would and should have the freedom to choose their own mates - whatever the color of their skin.

[BlueJazz]

21. We were ALL brown/black at one time. Our DNA proves it, our genes prove it. These idiots that...

...seem to think the human race is separated by huge gaps of biological differences really need to start reading something beside comic books. (not that there's anything wrong with comics)

[Triana]

23. +1 Exactly. n/t

[demwing]

42. I made this exact point to a racist relative

who responded that this was proof that whites were more evolved, thus better than non-whites.

To paraphrase Upton Sinclair: "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his ego depends on his not understanding it.”

[marble falls]

17. K & R

[Enthusiast]

22. Kicked and recommended to the Max!

There it is. There is no denying it!

[SunSeeker]

24. Perpetuation of slavery of African Americans is what this flag has always been about.

That is why it was resurrected in response to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and became ubiquitous in the South. It is flown to show defiance to civil rights of African Americans --and to express nostalgia for the days when African Americans had no civil rights.

[Triana]

27. Pro-Confederate flag protesters rally in South Carolina and Alabama

(a few different versions of the flag in these photos)

Confederate flag-waving protesters crowded the steps of the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia on Saturday, hours after an activist named Bree Newsome briefly removed the controversial flag and was arrested immediately afterwards.

A similar rally drew nearly one thousand demonstrators at the state capitol building in Montgomery, Alabama, where the flag was removed earlier this week on the orders of Gov. Robert Bentley, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

SOURCE: http://mashable.com/2015/06/27/pro-confederate-flag-rallies/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link

[Richardo]

41. I don't see a single confederate flag in either of those pictures.

Which of course, looks like this:



If those crackers really wanted to celebrate their 4-year "heritage" (can you really have a heritage in four years?) they'd use the national flag of the CSA. As it is, they're using the one recognized as the very symbol of racism in the United States.

[UTUSN]

29. Wingnuts are always on the wrong side of history, need revisionism of history to rationalize

They’ve been saying for decades that the Civil War was NOT about slavery, the same as how they try to diminish FDR. The local radio wingnut had a viscerally negative reaction to Eleanor possibly being the woman on the paper money (will there BE paper money much longer?) and has always tried to put CHURCHILL in place of FDR as the main man. So they’ve been saying the battle flag is a matter of “heritage, culture” not about racism and slavery. Glad to know what the horse's mouth had to say about his flag.

[azureblue]

34. to be precise

it was about preserving the economics of the rich plantation owners, who depended on slaves and trade with England, to survive. But in every pre civil war proclamation and every newspaper article, keeping the institution of slavery was foremost.

But let's not get distracted from the real racists here. The real racists are the ones that finance and fan the flames of racism. Racism will end a lot quicker if we expose these people.

[UTUSN]

38. Uh, you mistake me for somebody who wants to debate. n/t

[3catwoman3]

30. The words of the designer seem pretty...

...unambiguous to me.

[Dont call me Shirley]

32. K & R x 1,000,000

[napkinz]

35. William Thompson

[love_katz]

36. Huge kick and rec.

And any woman who is paying attention KNOWS that the KKK, and their allies, the wrong wing fundy fanatics see all women in the same light as they saw the slaves: as property, to be owned and disposed of on their masters whim.

[Triana]

45. That sentiment is very much alive and well among them.

It has not yet been addressed. Personhood for women is still a long way off. Corporations = persons. Zygotes = persons. Women = breeding stock, cattle, property, sexual & reproductive slaves to men.

[Gregorian]

37. When I see that flag I also see a KKK outfit in my mind.

[kestrel91316]

39. Posted to FB for the ignorant denialists crowing about courage and history.

[underpants]

40. Interesting

[Glassunion]

43. On an interesting side note: the 13 stars on the flag

Happen to coincide with the number of spelling errors in the average Facebook post defending it.

[Triana]

46. . . .

Not only funny, but likely very close to the darn truth.

[samsingh]

44. this could not be clearer

[SHRED]

47. The last doesn't open for me

[Triana]

48. Drat. Bad link. Here you go:

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html