@mrmhead Said
Do you think the Dukes were brandishing it to promote racism and slavery?
Or the producers of the show?
As with many, if not all, "symbols" meanings depend on who is using them and why.
I am a "southerner". As I grew up the confederate flag was in large part a symbol of being a "southerner". I don't remember anyone carrying, wearing, presenting the flag as a symbol of slavery or hate or segregation. I had a pair of cufflinks that were the confederate battle flag. It was "no big deal".
The reality, however, is that in many ways the confederate flag did in fact support those ideas of segregation and (in large part) hate... given that it was fully accepted that slavery was bad and long since gone.
Now... today... white supremacy groups from the "north" (we would have called them "damn yankees" ) have appropriated "our" flag specifically to promote their racist agenda.
This lead me to reassess my view of this "harmless" symbol... it isn't harmless... it isn't nice.... it is about raising one group (white people) up and putting all others (non-whites) down. Ultimately... that is its message.
@Jennifer1984 Said
Yeah, that's what I thought. I said so in another thread and I'm still none the wiser.
Yes. A battle flag. A flag of rebellion. A flag of war against the country. People can pretend like it is not, but that is what it was, and ultimately what it is.
Rebel Flag >>>> rebellion.
Flag of war >>>>> war.
A flag that symbolized a state's right to selectively suppress and repress a group of people into slavery... even if the "Federal" government wanted to protect
all of its people... a state's right to discriminate as it saw fit.
Thankfully our "federal" government won that war.... though "we" still have a long way to go to fully make "things" right.