teamosil
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2009
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- Liberal
Its like you say, symbols are a communication device, that part is true. What is also true is that the communication is dependent on people understanding what is being said, with that, if someone who is not part of the culture mis-represents what the symbol means then there cannot be proper communication which is exactly why people saying "The confederate battle flag is racist" are completely wrong, there is quite a history beyond slavery that is communicated by Dixie that a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals completely do not understand because they were either taught the oversimplified version of U.S. history or they don't want to understand the other point of view. I listen, I take all sides, and I come to better understandings of subjects because of that, it is frustrating to see so many people make proclamations of one of the most critical points of U.S. history in a biased manner. I have nothing to "face up" to, the people causing the mis-communication are responsible.
I agree that the listener can mess up the communication just as easily as the speaker. But, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that your stance is that the confederate flag can mean many things, one of which is a pro slavery message. Right? But, you think it is ok to use it, so long as you mean it in one of the other ways. Am I summarizing that correctly?
If so, I strongly disagree. Because then you can't blame the listener for not reading your mind and figuring out which meaning you had in mind. They are correctly concluding that at least one of the messages that symbol sends is pro-slavery. It's like somebody burning a cross and then arguing that it doesn't mean anything racist because the flaming cross is an ancient christian symbol that goes back far before the KKK. Well historically that is true, but that doesn't change the fact that the symbol has picked up the meaning of white supremacy. Same deal with the confederate flag. It's debatable how central the role of slavery was in the civil war. There are some that argue vehemently that it was only an after thought, but there are plenty of historians that argue that it was by far the dominant issue. I don't really care which of those sides is right, the reality is today that the confederate flag carries a pro-slavery connotation. So, knowing that and still using it is consciously choosing to communicate a pro-slavery message.
It's like, imagine that tomorrow you come across some old history book that explains that the origin of the n-word is that it used to mean "great king" (I'm just making this up, it doesn't mean that). Would you feel like first thing the next morning you could just start throwing that word around and anybody who got offended would be crazy because you read this thing in a history book?
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