hi bryce can we hold hands

+1

fyp

no i dont think we can youre a thousand miles away.
I dont really think i deserve to die but i feel bad about eating animals and not spending more time with my family.

Well, it seems a better outcome than ignoring animals and eating your family, but some say I'm old fashioned like that.

I have been vocal in threads pertaining to sexism in the past but not very vocal to threads pertaining to racism. I have been reading a lot about racism in society- a conversation sparked by the horrific charleston massacre from both left wing and right wing sources. I grew up in predominantly white neighborhoods and have never fully understood the racial tensions in society. To me as a child in the early 1990's the confederate flag was something I associated with re- enactments / plays of the civil war and bikers because those were the people I saw with it most. I never really saw the flag as a symbol of oppression and hate because that hate and oppression didn't apply to me. I saw it sort of the same way as someone with a can of chewing tobacco; I associated it with being white trash and a little bit racist and sexist. I didn't really understand it's as a swastika but even worse in one way because it is our own oppressive and bloody history on us soil.
Thinking about this has forced me to think about the actual nature of injustice
and see those things for what they are. The world is full of many symbols of hatred and many evil people. It's very sad.

Not that it is the core issue but only since I havent talked about it i just thought i should say the confederate flag should come down everywhere.

I didn't really want this to be a political blog but some things had to be commented on.

While I appreciate your insights and thoughtful expression, I would submit that there are places the flag you are referring to (or derivatives of it) actually make sense.
I am not advocating for the continued display or the removal of it, but advocating caution in the blanket statement " it should come down everywhere".
Current trends are targeting memorials and tombstones of folks that fought and died under that banner.
I see this as akin to removing American flags from US soldiers in foreign cemeteries.

My 2-cents.

I hate to see my internet friend Bryce taking the popular and trendy anti-Confederate flag stance here. You better be prepared for confrontation which you start telling non-racist Lynyrd Skynyrd type good old boys their pick-up flags are objectionable. Good ****ing luck with that.

I think you are right.

It is only a symbol. People should not put so much into symbolic objects like that - there is no need to fetishise objects. Then, when you consider what it stood for - a battle banner for the Confederacy whose primary war goal was the maintenance of bondage, then there really is not much to be said for keeping it.

It is a good thing - to be able to change your mind. It is also good to be thoughtful and be measured in your comments. I think your post reflect both of these things.

Memorialising violence in any fashion, I believe, is highly problematic. It is a shame young men were slaughtered in enormous numbers during the Civil War. Just because we think it is a shame does not entail that we should respect everything they stood for. Nor does it mean we sanctify all sacrifices.

The US, like Australia, is struggling to deal with its own history. Now, in some ways 'we' (both our nations relative to rest of world) are further down a path of reconciliation because we are discussing our past failings. But we both have a long way to go.

you don't see germans going to ww2 cemeteries and battle sites and laying down tiny plastic nazi flags.

Your grandpa was a nazi?

OOOOOOOOO. I am in Germany. There are certain groups: neo nazi, who do that a lot. They do also some strange things, like wearing certain signs from really old german alphabet and such. So they basically attach new meaning to things, that are actually neutral from the beginning on. But it is usually in normal society frowned upon.

With this confederate flag. The thing is what meaning do you/people who show it attach to it.

Well - the context is usually upon a public monument or memorial. So your analogy, whilst interesting, is off the mark. Where your example is private citizens imbuing old cultural artefacts and co-opting them into their current ideology. Here, the confederate flag is being used in public spaces as symbols of an ongoing tradition. There is a inferred continuity of public ideology conferred upon that flag and its past meaning with contemporary Southern life.
Given what we know the flag represented as an official symbol associated with the right to maintain slavery - then it is quite appropriate for the body politic to question the relevance and appropriateness of what that symbol represents and whether that symbol is part of the tradition that should be valorised in the 21st century.

Does it really represent the right to maintain the slavery? It is very hard for me to believe, that anyone it todays western world is pro-slavery?

What I want to say, is that even such thing as "Southern life" can mean very different things, dependent with whom you are talking.

But I agree, that if for some people it represents the appropriateness of slavery, then it should definitely be questioned.

It doesn't represent the right to maintain slavery; it's a symbol of a war the South fought to secede in order to maintain their constitutional right to own slaves.

I like lapka's comments.

Y'all seemed to have solved this, good work. Back-pats for everyone.

Wat

I didn't really want to make a political blog....i will let the mini- debate speak for itself.

One weird thing about writing sentences and other things is that you usually plan out the whole sentence in your head before you type it but not always. Sometimes you type a whole sentence and its just sort of there and you don't know how to finish it. You're 29 now so surely you should be able to plan ahead the entire

I've always thought of you as more 'stream of consciousness' writer.

Wazzzzup Bryce?!?! I hope all is well!!

Hi villian! Im kind of disinterested in talking about myself on the internet that much these days. Things fall apart.

Welcome back Bryce!

Hi Brock!

I mean Bryce!