Posted in the Cherokee Village Forum
I'm not sure why I go onto this stupid website, but every once in a while I go to it, and all that happens is me getting upset by the shit for brains that live around this area. I have a very strong hatred for some of the people that write things on there.
This morning for example, I went to that site to see if anything had been said about the earthquake from Sunday night, but the first topic that caught my attention was this (you can click on the name to see what all was said).Who are these people from around this area? If they feel so strongly about not having "colored's" in this area, then why don't they actually put their names on this site for the world to see? You can say whatever you want on any website that you want, but at least have the balls to say it with your real name showing. I think most of the people on these types of sites are too scared to actually put their real names with their thoughts because they are terrified of what people may actually think about them. Terrified that people might actually call them out on the "ideas" that they talk about. They want to be able to say things without the repercussions of what is actually said.
It disgusts me to know that my daughter will grow up in an area that is so blatantly racist and offensive that even the school mascot is a Confederate soldier and the school flag is a REBEL FLAG. No wonder hardly anyone new moves here, and usually the only people that do are white people. Do you blame people that aren't white for not coming here? You should just put "no one but whites will be accepted here by the majority of people that already live here" on all of our city limit and "Welcome to _____" signs.
I hope that our school board some day realizes what the mascot and flag represents in the eyes of what the "real world" actually sees it as. I mean, come on, really? You cannot honestly believe that a Confederate soldier holding a Confederate Battle Flag isn't offensive. If you do believe that to be the truth, either you are lying to yourself or are just to ignorant to understand what it stands for.
I'm going to have a little history lesson today. If you don't want to listen to it or feel that you already know about the Civil War and the history of the Confederate Battle Flag then you can skip to the paragraph that has a (*) at the beginning of it and you won't have to read what really happened 150 years ago.
Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, also known as "the Confederacy". Led by Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy fought for its independence from the United States. The U.S. federal government was supported by twenty mostly Northern free states in which slavery already had been abolished, and by five slave states that became known as the border states. These twenty-five states, referred to as the Union, had a much larger base of population and industry than the South. After four years of bloody, devastating warfare (mostly within the Southern states), the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was outlawed everywhere in the nation.
In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republicans were strong advocates of nationalism and in their 1860 platform explicitly denounced threats of disunion as avowals of treason. After a Republican victory, but before the new administration took office on March 4, 1861, seven cotton states declared their secession and joined together to form the Confederate States of America. Both the outgoing administration of President James Buchanan and the incoming administration rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion. The other eight slave states rejected calls for secession at this point. No country in the world recognized the Confederacy.
The main reason for the Southern States receding from the Union States was about slavery. They didn't want to end slavery. The main reason they fought in the Civil War, was because of slavery. When those States were fighting, guess which flag they carried into battle? That's right, the Confederate Battle Flag, better known as the Rebel Flag.
* So a few months ago, our area high school, and my alma mater, someone started a HUGE rumor about our new superintendent "doing away" with the school flag (which is the confederate battle flag) and the whole area went absolutely bat-shit crazy over the whole thing. We literally almost had our own little civil war between the people that wanted to keep the flag and the ones that stood up and said that they wanted to get rid of it. It seemed to me that a lot of the people that pro-keeping the flag had the argument of "it's meaning is not for racism, or anything of the sort. Instead, it is a representation of our way of life as southerners". Okay, I'm confused? How is your life as a southerner different, present day, than that of a person from let's say Nebraska?
Another history question. Can anyone tell me where the Mason-Dixon line really is? I'll wait while you look and your mind gets blown about where it actually is. It is NOWHERE near the south. It is between Deleware, Virginia (present day West Virginia), Pennsylvania and Maryland. The "common known" version of what most people call the Mason-Dixon line, is actually called the Missouri Compromise. It was an agreement in the year 1820 between PRO-SLAVERY and ANTI-SLAVERY states. So, to say that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery is nothing but ignorant. There may have been other factors involved in the fighting, but the real reasoning behind the succession of the Confederate States from the Union was slavery. Which brings me back to my former argument of, the Confederate Battle Flag (rebel flag) brings nothing to the table besides bigotry and racism.
I can understand some points in the "heritage, not hate" argument about the flag...the same argument I used when I got the rebel flag on my class ring in high school, even though the mascot was the actual rebel. It IS part of southern heritage and was a source of pride for a lot of people (ya know, in the 1800s). BUT, nationwide it's viewed as a symbol of a past that just won't go away. It represents pro-slavery attitudes, persecution, and racism toward minorities. For some reason southerners have clung to the flag with everything in them, grasping at straws trying to defend their love and respect for a symbol of hate. We lost the war. Let it go. Ya know, this is probably one of the reasons southerners are stereotyped as dumb hicks, now that I think about it. Rather than join the rest of the country in tolerance/acceptance/understanding, we cling to old traditions of racist behavior and call it respecting our "heritage."
ReplyDeleteI would almost guarantee that if an anonymous survey was given at schools that have rebel mascots, the percentage of racism would be significantly higher. Why? Because it's deemed okay. The rebel is portrayed as powerful, aggressive, almost holy. And what rational racial minority would want to subject their children to school where this was the case? There's almost no chance of schools like this being able to provide a multicultural, accepting, and enriching life experience to their students. And why stop there? If it's okay to think of African Americans as less than, why not Hispanics or Muslims or homosexuals? *sigh* It's a downward spiral.
Anyway, this turned out a lot longer than I intended, but I really liked your post. I wish more people would look the hell around and be able to say, "This isn't right."