Why is the display of the Rebel flag considered inappropriate?

Answer 1

The first couple of answers here are correct in the facts, but this situation had interested me personally, so I wanted to point out a few things.
When I was a child, I didn't realize there was any problem with the Confederate flag. I mostly associated it with the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard, of which I was a big fan at the time. I don't know what the real motivation was for including that flag on the car or indeed calling it the General Lee, but I assume it was some kind of attempt to observe the South as a whole, as a place with its own particular history and culture. Part of that history and culture would certainly be slavery and later, Jim Crowism, but I don't think that was what was intended to be memorialized with the use of the flag in the case of the Dukes of Hazzard or in many other cases. I think a lot of times it just stands as a symbol of the the Southern US. So I don't think "slavery" when I look at it. That doesn't seem fair. There was slavery in the North at one time as well, but we don't see it in the Northern flag. We don't look at the Dutch flag with disdain because they once participated in slave trafficking. People don't see the British flag and regard it only as a symbol of forced labor in colonial India, and the British don't look at symbols from Anglo-Saxons and see them as images of their Briton ancestors' enslavement.

I do understand that the Confederate flag is a much more recent symbol than most of those associated with a culture allowing/promoting slavery. I just recognize that like those older flags and symbols, it is also associated with a lot more within that culture than just slavery.

But in spite of what I think when I see the Confederate Flag, I also think of the shocked reactions of others who saw a pin I had of it once---something I randomly found mixed in with my toys (Dukes action figures included) in my old house, and stuck on a bookbag. It didn't last very long there, because so many other people saw it as something offensive, and a statement that they felt I was making, even though I definitely had no intention to make any such statement! So be warned, many people *do* find it offensive, and apparently it is sometimes used with the intent to be that way. That's probably the most damaging thing to it---if people are currently using it as a symbol of hate or intimidation, it can't be accepted as more than that to others, even if they understand that it originally signified a region composed of more than just a glaring offense against others.

I hope I've explained this sensitively enough, but in case I may have unwittingly said something without enough care or with a suggestion I didn't mean, let me say right now that I think any sort of slavery is inhumane and wrong, and I do not promote the subjugation of one race by another EVER, even though I acknowledge that it has happened historically in many if not most cultures (and continues to happen in some).

Answer 2

A lot of people are offended by the rebel flag because before the Civil war the Rebel flag was the flag of the south, representing the division of our nation. Since the south wanted to keep slavery legal and it became abolished only when the north won the war, the flag represents the opinion that slavery is a good thing.
Hope that helps.

Answer 3

It was the flag that the Southern States that left the Union flew under, the States that wanted to keep Slaves...therefore black find the flag offensive because it mean a person using it believe in the ideals that the Rebels believed. Would you like it IF you were of a race of people and others rubbed your nose in something from your past that made you feel less than human...I think not.

Answer 4

The Rebel flag was the standard of the people who wanted the right to own other human beings so badly, that they were willing to secede from their own country, and fight a war over it.

When I see it, I think, that's a person who agrees with the aims of the Confederacy: pro the right to own slaves. While I don't believe that individuals and clubs should be prevented from flying it, or having the decal on their property, for government buildings or institutions to fly it, I feel, is an act of hostility towards Black people. Maybe it's unconscious, and maybe that isn't what they intend to convey, but that is what I feel when I see it.

Thanks for asking a good question!

Answer 5

Many people here are giving the same old politically correct answers. If it's really about slavery then why is it SUDDENLY offensive in the last ten years or so almost 150 yrs. after slavery? Why was it not offensive when the Dukes of Hazzard was out? That was over a hundred years after slavery. I've seen it depicted many times in everything from David Lee Roth music videos to Scooby Doo cartoons to episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies. Almost every American grew up seeing this stuff. I can understand if this was back in the days of Jim Crow or done mostly by Southerners but that's not the case. It was done by many mainstream Americans in the modern era. I'm not saying it should be displayed in official ways but it has gotten ridiculous in terms of what people will complain about and this is one of those things. Saying all this is about slavery is like saying the war we're fighting in Iraq is about freedom. So many people have lost their ability to reason and will go along with anything if they hear it often enough.

Answer 6

i'd say that I too believe the few status adverse to the various on idea. i'd make certain they were conscious that that flag represents the area that made a community American (Stand Watie) a prevalent of their military and that he commanded many Choctaw, Cherokee, and Chickasaw accomplice troops. i'd also congratulate them on being proud to no longer be on the area that abducted women human beings and little ones and despatched them north with none ability as Sherman did. there is no longer some thing to be embarrassed about in any respect in that flag. How about the blacks who're fiercely proud of their ancestors service below that flag? ought to they be seen immature besides?

Answer 7

The war is over. Move on.