Moose IX wrote:
> A matter of perspective ...
> A lot of places look strange to me from this perfectly normal place. :-)
> Benevolent Dictator Moose
"Normal" is where you grew up. I've lived in four different states,
and find that the "normal" is abnormal in all four states. I grew up
in a racially mixed area with heavy black and hispanic populations. At
least a third of my graduating class was non-white. Did we have
problems? Sure, but not anything compared to a few years earlier when
we had the race riots. Schools did a huge clamp down on it and the
churches did their part too. We got things sorted out because we HAD
to get them sorted out. Neighboring communities were not so fortunate,
though. It all depends on the leadership and resolve of a community.
In recent years, the leadership has changed and so many of the gains
we made in the '70s and '80s have been reversed.
Living in Quincy, Illinois, was a bit different. I felt like there was
a bit of a truce, but it never was a resolved conflict. We bought a
house in the "wrong" part of town and was ostricized by other white
people who grew up in that town. Those who were move-ins, like us,
could care less and had no issue with it. Our neighbors were great and
we got along with them perfectly well. We stayed in close contact with
one couple for many many years after we moved.
I think Iowa is a bit odd in that most people just don't care. While
there are the meth-heads that are racists, for the most part people
around here just want to be respected and will treat others with
respect. Yes, every place has issues, but they are not the big issues.
We've got other issues we deal with. Like figuring out which
presidential candidates are worthless slimeblobs.
A friend of mine at work has been bothered about moving his family
here from a major eastern city because of the lack of an
African-American population. They love it here and are treated very
well, but there are so few other African-Americans that they feel out
of place. I can understand.
Honestly, of all the places I've been, and that includes extensive
business travel in Canada and most of Europe, I find that racism is
alive and well absolutely everywhere. It's just that the bigotry is
towards some other group of people. No country is immune. Even
Amsterdam, of all places, has issues. Go figure.
As to the confederate flag. There are several factors in play which
makes the USA extremely unique. The presence of the flag today is a
result of a decision made by Abraham Lincoln. The idea was
restoration, not domination. The idea was to reunite the country, not
put people who fought on the wrong side of the war into prison. While
some of that happened, there was one particular flaw to the thinking
in that for you to have "reunification" you would have had to have had
a "unified" country to start with. The evidence is that from the very
founding of the country, the USA was never really "unified". It never
was. The roots of sectionalism started a hundred years before the war
for independence from England.
To this day, you have tin types with Robert E Lee's photo on it
proudly displayed in households throughout the south. You've got all
sorts of artifacts from that time period. It's not just flags. This
was determined to be acceptable by our nation's leadership in order to
heal the country, not create a nation of winners and losers. The
success in this program was set back a few times and it took two world
wars, Korea and Vietnam before we really became one country.
At some point, there was an attempted change in the historical
narrative. Instead of a war over slavery, it was a war against
federalism. While an argument could be made that this would have been
a "holy war", it wasn't what it was officially about. To downplay the
role of slavery in the decision to break away from the Union is to
ignore the facts. It is absolutely true that many people fought
because this other narrative, but the documents and constitution of
the Confederate States were about slavery. Even Abraham Lincoln
acknowledged both story lines and that helped influence his viewpoint
on reunification. It also influenced how he chose to fight the war.
My vehicle happens to have been made in South Carolina by a company
that made airplanes and engines for the Nazi war machine, (BMW). Is it
possible that the BMW or Mercedes insignia is just as racist as the
confederate flag? No. It isn't. One is a "brand", but the other is a
"symbol". The two are worlds apart. Now, if BMW had a Swastika as
their logo, then yes, it would be as abhorant.
What is the symbol for? What does it REALLY mean? It means you
"identify with". As a Christian, the cross is one of my symbols. I
identify with it and what it stands for. It isn't a decoration. It is
a statement.
The beauty of the USA is that we have freedoms here that most people
in most countries don't understand and can't even fathom. Arguments
can be made about the gun violence, etc., but historically, the USA
has always been more than a bit rough. Substance abuse is rampant from
the very beginning--to the point where the King of England even tried
to cut off our supply of rum to get the colonies to sober up. That
didn't work--we switched to hard cider and fought a war with him.
These freedoms include the ability to display whatever you want and
say whatever you want. That doesn't always mean that there aren't
consequences for those statements, but at least we do have the freedom
to be idiots. If an individual wants to display the confederate flag,
I say go for it! It's a great symbol because it instantly tells me
what type of person he/she is and I can go on with life. But for it to
be hung on the statehouse and other government buildings? Eeeeeww, not
so much. Why? because we have representative governments. This means
that the government actually represents us. To have this symbol as
part of the official portrayal of the government means that it is an
official portrayal of ME. That's what is wrong here. This isn't about
whether or not an NFL football team should change their name, it's
about official representation and identification.
That's where we also run into another unique aspect of the USA. Each
state is able to choose their own flag and since this particular
symbol has never been outlawed by the federal government, it is up to
the state to make it right. Given cultural issues, and a long long
history, telling somebody that they MUST do something will usually
cause them to trench in and resist change even though they know that
they should change.
AG
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