Maintaining a separate set of standards for professors and students is very common and very necessary - they fulfill two completely different purposes at a university. Importantly, many professors have tenure, meaning that they can’t be fired for expressing their opinions (unsavory as they might be). That was, in fact, the purpose of instituting tenure - so that university professors could be thought leaders in their fields without worrying about getting fired. It works both ways - many university professors were able to agitate for civil rights and liberalism in the 1950s and 1960s because they knew they couldn’t get fired (and some still did, through backdoor methods. Howard Zinn was dismissed from his position as the chair of the history department at Spelman for encouraging his students to join the movement and serving as an adviser to SNCC).
I’m going to stretch myself a little bit here because I’m African American (and Southern) and the Confederate flag does not elicit good feelings in me.
But there are many people who really DO view the Confederate flag as simply a symbol of Southern pride and heritage; who intend “South will rise” to mean economically and politically rather than in a rebellious, bellicose way; and who don’t have any overt intent of racism when they take pictures with it. That doesn’t mean that the Confederate flag is not offensive and not tied up in some racist underpinnings; however, I think intent could be considered in the particular case of two teenagers visiting a Civil War memorial, particularly when their futures are at stake. We don’t know the context of the picture; we don’t know their thoughts while taking the flag and neither one of them seems to be the one who made the racist comment about slaveholding, so I think in this instance they should be given the benefit of the doubt - and that the occurrence should be used as a learning opportunity for them. One of the things I’ve learned is that people often make social faux pas out of ignorance, and patience is usually a better way to change their minds or at least give them something to think about.
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Gettysburg is virtually a Civil War theme park at this point. The blame for that doesn't attach to these particular students.
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I think Hunt makes an interesting point. I have never visited Gettysburg, but spend a whole lot of time touring antebellum properties. In my lifetime, there has been a huge shift in interpretation of these sites. Usually now they are interpreted though the eyes of the enslaved inhabitants as well as the plantation owners. After that sort of tour, I doubt anyone is waving that flag around and taking fun photos for instagram.
An 89 year old white friend recommended the following book and documentary to me. Her family owned plantations. She still owns a property. It’s her history and heritage. She doesn’t display any Confederate memorabilia in her home.
One of my memories of this film is Hinton responding to an elderly white cousin (probably about the same age as my friend) when she assured him the Civil War was about states rights. His response: “What rights were those?” She was flummoxed.
I am a white southerner with eight or nine generations in the family cemetery, back living in the south after decades away. I abhor the flag.
Last week I accepted a lunch invitation at the home of a friend of a friend, one of my rural neighbors. This woman, another white southerner, is a transplant to the area and feels socially isolated. According to our mutual friend she hasn’t hit it off with her neighbors. My friend had brought her by my house for a drop-in visit and coffee and this woman figured out we had a lot in common because we are both collectors.
She gave us a delicious lunch and was excited to show me her home and all her collections, which are vast and wonderful. However, as we began the house tour, she warned me, “I have something you aren’t going to care for” and explained she had just recently bought a Confederate Flag at an auction we both attend and had it framed for display. I was surprised but didn’t comment. When we came to the hall where she has it displayed, she pointed it out to me and I just commented on other items hanging there. Then she followed up, saying she knew I didn’t care for that sort of thing (she has previously spent less than two hours in my company) but it was meaningful to her because, “everyone always has told me I’m a rebel.”
I was a polite guest and sent a polite and correct thank you note for the lovely lunch and house tour. It is my turn to reciprocate but I will not. I will not be willingly socializing with her again, even though she has already left a message that she had so very much fun and wants to get together again very soon. If she drops in, I’ll be polite.
I don’t have enough time for friends I like and to whom I owe a lot. No time for this woman.
As a Westerner who has spent little time in the South, I would have been among those who checked the “neutral” box with regard the Confederate flag. I have rarely seen the flag displayed in my lifetime, other than when driving through rural Maryland a few times years ago.
Juillet’s quote above is the general impression I got while visiting the South a few times. Someone there told me that a favorite bumper sticker is: “We don’t care how you do things up North.” This was in the context of a conversation about the trend of Northerners buying up luxury vacation properties in the South. I didn’t notice (not that I, a white person necessarily would) racist behavior, but I did notice anti-North (and anti-California) sentiment. This is why I agree with the idea that these kids are probably displaying “Southern pride,” not racism when flying the flag.
Yeah, the flag is a symbol of states’ rights. The right to OWN humans. Slavery was the Middle Passage, it was the r ape of women and children, it was whipping and chains and cutting off Kunta Kinte’s foot, it was the systematic degradation of the human rights of black people. It led to segregation and Jim Crow and the ingrained racism that comes out in employment, profiling and police brutality statistics. If that’s what you want to celebrate, then go ahead but please stay away from higher education (and reproduction).
Offensive connotations, no. The sentiment/design is associated with the American Revolution; today it’s used to illustrate a more of a libertarian attitude. If you’re not offended by libertarians, you probably won’t have a negative reaction to it.
I was born in the north but went to high school in the south. My history teacher taught us that the Civil War had more to do with state rights than slavery. I don’t know if that was her particular view or the curriculum at that time. Even then (in the mid-80’s), northerners weren’t referred to as Yankees, we were “damn Yankees,” so maybe the curriculum was written that way on purpose to prevent conflict. As I recall, the history books still painted the explorers in a far better light than many deserved, so I suspect many unpleasant truths were still being heavily whitewashed. As adults, we know better, but these young people may not. And if their parents were taught from the same books I was, they may not either. I hope whatever college these students attend is successful in broadening their view.
I don’t get it. People go on about “I am Charlie Hebdo” and this is somehow offensive enough to get the kids’ acceptances rescinded?
And there are people who find the old Soviet flag appealing, and the Soviets killed tens of millions. I don’t see a problem with the picture.
Per Wikipedia:
“In Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia vehicle owners can request a state-issued license plate featuring the Sons of Confederate Veterans logo, which incorporates the square Confederate battle flag.”
Do people have a right to honor the losing side in a war?
While the primary states’ right of concern to the seceding states was slavery, based on http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html , promoting the “states’ rights” cause of the Civil War allows the speaker to avoid calling attention to the fact that the those states seceded to protect the institution of slavery. If said often enough, some people will end up believing that slavery was not a big issue in the cause of the Civil War compared to states’ rights generally (more people believe that the cause of the Civil War as states’ rights rather than slavery specifically, according to http://www.people-press.org/2011/04/08/civil-war-at-150-still-relevant-still-divisive/ ).
People can honor just about whatever they want on their own (freedom of speech and press and all that). Some might make an argument that putting what may be seen as a symbol of racism or treason on a government issued license plate is inappropriate, though.
Some losing sides in wars were what many think of as the “good” or “less bad” side.
It depends a lot on the context and the involvement of people.
I watch the movie Gettysburg several times, love Lee and don’t have any problem with seeing the Confederate flag. I am currently watching the series The Americans and don’t have problem with seeing the hammer and sickle at the beginning of each show.
There are plenty of swastika flags in history museums. But if someone hangs a swastika flag near a sinanogue then it’s a big offense. Similarly I doubt that anyone dares to hang the communist Cuban flag on their house in Miami or the current Vietnam flag in Californian cities.
And the leaders of WW-II Ally countries did not participate in the Victory parade in Moscow today because of Putin’s involvement in the Ukraine.
Second - Rhandco - “being Charlie Hebdo” means one is against violence towards someone based on their expressed beliefs. Not against freedom from consequences.
Third - I just want to say that as someone who grew up in the north, I was taught and raised to think we were all one big country. It’s frightening to me to see how northerners would be referred to as “damn Yankees” and how you’d use the term “war of northern aggression.” I thought the war was over 160 years ago. Apparently some are still smarting from the wounds, it’s unbelievable. And it’s unbelievable in this day and age anyone would have a confederate flag outside of a museum setting. How embarrassing for the flag-flyer.
“In Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia vehicle owners can request a state-issued license plate featuring the Sons of Confederate Veterans logo, which incorporates the square Confederate battle flag.”
Do people have a right to honor the losing side in a war?"
One can always put a confederate bumper sticker (etc) on a car. The question is whether the state has to promote it / participate (by selling license plates. There is, certainly, that “Nyah, Nyah, you can’t make me” feel about it when states and people persist on honoring the conf flag. It comes across as immature.
" there are many people who really DO view the Confederate flag as simply a symbol of Southern pride and heritage; who intend “South will rise” to mean economically and politically rather than in a rebellious, bellicose way; and who don’t have any overt intent of racism when they take pictures with it"
Do they not get that the rest of the country just kind of laughs at them? I mean, sheesh, might as well get a mullet and proclaim that you’re one of the Dukes of Hazzard. A Conf flag is pretty much a cultural signifier of being backwards.
Who gets to decide what a flag symbolizes, the flyer or the viewer?
The UCI elected student government voted to ban the American flag, stating that it was a symbol of oppression. (The administration reversed it).
I don’t think this is true for everyone. I’m thinking specifically of Hawaii, which for some residents was and continues to be, a reluctant member of the union.
In some states, like CA and TX, you can see images of their states’ flags on all kinds of things. There seems to be a lot of state pride displayed, perhaps even more than country pride. I don’t think anyone objects to that? It could be because those states by themselves are as big as many countries. Or in CA’s case, it could be because our flag with its brown bear is very cool. I cannot tell you what the NY, NJ or IL state flag looks like off the top of my head.