TV Land pulls Dukes of Hazzard reruns over Confederate Flag!

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Yes, yes, one group killed 6 million people, another group bought 12.6 million people.

I am incredulous of what you say you were taught. This article is a good example of why:

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8847385/what-i-learned-from-leading-tours-about-slavery-at-a-plantation

The published documents we have from the confederacy make it clear that their leaders at least said on the record that it was 100% about slavery.

There's no mention in the printed record about other factors until near the end of the war.

You can try and re-envision the confederacy all you like, but it was conceived of as a white supremacist nation. We know this because the people who thought it up said that it was entirely about the white man's right to own and enslave black people.

Go read the cornerstone speech if you don't believe me. I'll give you three guesses what the metaphorical cornerstone is.

It's nice for you that it means something different to you today. But the man who designed it was published as saying that it exemplifies the white man's supremacy over black people. And we still have the original documents.



I don't particularly care what most white southerners know, feel, or think.

I've spent weeks on a few different trips in North Carolina. My best friend and his family live there. My youngest brother and his family live there.

I spent about 3 hours in South Carolina with my friends and the memory that sticks in my mind is that the restaurant we had lunch at had overtly racist literature for sale in the lobby, including one book that had a picture of a hooded klansman on the cover. This was in 2012. I don't intend to return.

My friend in Wilmington NC tells me that on the plantation tour he took, the guide stressed that this plantation used the task system, which was slightly less brutal than the gang system.

I also spent a few days in the backwater of Gloucester VA in 1997.

I have a friend here in Utah who grew up in some rural region of NC. Claims frequently to have been the last white man to work tobacco fields. He likes to say that North Carolina is a good place to be from - far, far from.

He's a little paradoxical. He's very smart and has an advanced degree in mechanical engineering. He's also a member of the John Birch Society and believes in things like chemtrails. He also says cringe-worthy racist crap from time to time.

But it's still sometimes paradoxical. He doesn't like being around "spics" and resents when public park appears to be hosting a great big hispanic family reunion, while at the same time expressing admiration for what it must be like to be that close with your extended family.

My general assessment is that there are plenty of kind, generous, intelligent people in the south - and most of them are black.



I don't purport to know what black southerners think about the flag aside from what they say about it.

We live in a nation where more than 40% of people think that cavemen walked among dinosaurs.

Hipsters wear shirts with pictures of Che Guevara without having any clue what he did.

People think a lot of stupid crap. But history is still history.

It's ironic that you are upset about people making assumptions or being willfully ignorant about people, history, places, etc and yet that is your entire basis for your view of the South.

Thats ok though, I'm used to ignorance and knee jerk reactions from people like you. We do have racist as*holes down here, but they are the minority. So, you keep right on thinking what you want to think about us because people like you and your half baked opinions don't matter at all. Mainly because you are flat out wrong about us. Everybody has a right to be wrong though, so you go right on ahead. We don't really care.

Bless your heart.

*shrug* I hate oldschool white southerners. So very much. I only had to meet a few of 'em. When the revolution comes, they'll be the first up against the wall, and all that.

I remember, this one time, I sort of walked past some old dude who had a cane, and he launched into this whole rant about how i disrespected him.

Traditional white southerners appear to stress a culture of honor. And honor is the refuge of people without virtue.

But what i feel and what you feel don't change what the confederacy meant, or what that flag was designed to represent, or the fact that y'all didn't start flying it again until brown v. board of education.

And you know exactly why the state of mississippi added it to their state flag in 1958.

You're just a racist ass.

And wrong.

But at least now everybody will know what they are dealing with then they read your posts.

And you still don't matter to us.

Racist? I'm whiter than most white southerners. I'm even blonde haired and blue eyed. I don't even tan properly - I just turn red. And it's the old-school white folk in the south i can't stand.

I'm not even gonna report you to a moderator for making personal attacks.

Why don't you try to address any of the factual arguments i have made?

Why are emotional appeal and personal attack your only two modes here?

Racism is disliking someone because of their race. You made that clear. You can be racist against your own race. Racism. Sorry. And that wasn't a personal attack, so report away if you'd like because I'm pretty sure that most of the mods here would agree that racists are asses.

I'm not going to try and address any of your "factual arguments" because I know exactly where it will lead and I have no desire to go there with you. Also, your opinion doesn't matter to me. I've neither gone for emotional appeal nor personal attacks.

I'm also pretty much done with trying to talk to you about this. It's not possible. You have assumed and twisted and formed your own ideas and refuse to even listen to someone who actually lives in the place you have an entirely wrong idea about. You won't change your mind, and I don't much care either way. At least now I know to just scroll past your posts because they are of no interest to me.

Again, bless your heart.

I hate old-school white southerners because of the vacuous, insipid culture of honor they espouse, and the hatred toward non-whites that it generally goes hand-in-hand with. It's really not about race, any more than hating neo-nazis is about race.

This is just some "I'm rubber and you're glue, what you say bounces off of me and sticks to you" school yard nonsense because you don't know how to argue.

I haven't tried to make an argument about what white southerners think the flag means.

I've made arguments about what the confederacy and what people recognize today as the confederate battle flag was about in the words of confederates, as preserved today on the printed material produced by confederates.

You don't want to address those arguments because you can't think of any defense.

Other than trying to paint some kind of Norman Rockwell version of the south where really it's just all about peach cobbler and friendship.

You divert instead of answer. Maybe you're just bad at this.

Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America

Cornerstone Speech

Savannah, Georgia

March 21, 1861

The Cornerstone Speech was delivered without notes by Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, and no official printed version exists, although a local newspaper reporter printed a transcription of the speech later that same week. The text below was taken from that newspaper article in the Savannah [Georgia] Republican, as reprinted in Henry Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, in Public and Private: With Letters and Speeches, before, during, and since the War, Philadelphia, 1886, pp. 717-729.

========================================================

At half past seven o'clock on Thursday evening, the largest audience ever assembled at the Athenaeum was in the house, waiting most impatiently for the appearance of the orator of the evening, Hon. A. H. Stephens, Vice- President of the Confederate States of America. The committee, with invited guests, were seated on the stage, when, at the appointed hour, the Hon. C. C. Jones, Mayor, and the speaker, entered, and were greeted by the immense assemblage with deafening rounds of applause.

The Mayor then, in a few pertinent remarks, introduced Mr. Stephens, stating that at the request of a number of the members of the convention, and citizens of Savannah and the State, now here, he had consented to address them upon the present state of public affairs.

MR. STEPHENS rose and spoke as follows:

Mr. Mayor, and Gentlemen of the Committee, and Fellow-Citizens:- . . . We are in the midst of one of the greatest epochs in our history. The last ninety days will mark one of the most memorable eras in the history of modern civilization. . . .

I was remarking, that we are passing through one of the greatest revolutions in the annals of the world. Seven States have within the last three months thrown off an old government and formed a new. This revolution has been signally marked, up to this time, by the fact of its having been accomplished without the loss of a single drop of blood. [Applause.]

This new constitution, or form of government, constitutes the subject to which your attention will be partly invited. . . .

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other -- though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind -- from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just -- but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.

In the conflict thus far, success has been on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world. As I have stated, the truth of this principle may be slow in development, as all truths are and ever have been, in the various branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by Galileo-it was so with Adam Smith and his principles of political economy. It was so with Harvey, and his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is stated that not a single one of the medical profession, living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him, admitted them. Now, they are universally acknowledged. May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of his ordinances, or to question them. For his own purposes, he has made one race to differ from another, as he has made "one star to differ from another star in glory."

The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to his laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders "is become the chief of the corner" -- the real "corner-stone" -- in our new edifice. [Applause.]

I have been asked, what of the future? It has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many they may be against us, when we stand upon the eternal principles of truth, if we are true to ourselves and the principles for which we contend, we are obliged to, and must triumph. [Immense applause.] . . .

[REPORTER'S NOTE. -- Your reporter begs to state that the above is not a perfect report, but only such a sketch of the address of Mr. Stephens as embraces, in his judgment, the most important points presented by the orator. -- G.]

Southern pride isn't something to be proud of.

I wish the world as a whole would move away from this idea. As countries become more and more interconnected, the ideas of nationalistic price and racial pride become less and less feasible, more and more worthy of scorn.
It's not healthy to be proud to be a black American (although admittedly, it is at least LOGICAL for minoriites to band together). It is not healthy to be proud of being born a Southerner. It's not healthy to be proud to be Vietnamese (although again, if you grow up as a minority, it at least is logical to group together. As we become more and more diverse and people are more and more free to move from country to country, as countries and races (hopefully) even out, it makes less and less sense to be a nationalist. No one's going to put up with this nonsense in the future.

We are all going to be looked on as idiots.

It's not logical to be proud of where you are born or who you were raised by or what your race is.

Proud human beings with differences but we are all humans.

Can we please stop with the personal attacks here?

Jeez, it's just a show. Just some good ol' boys having fun and getting into trouble. They're like real rednecks, except there's more police chases and less mud-based activities.

I agree. I actually think it was silly for viacom to pull the show, but i don't know what kind of pressure they might have been under.

But there is no positive demographic for the confederate flag.

At best it's the flag of the losing side of a war of secession -- a war of secession fought for the right to own black people and work them like animals.

At worst you're just labeling yourself as a racist.

Whitewashing IS censorship. The world is a brutal place, and people need to know it so we don't make the same mistakes our forefathers did.

Latest news on General Lee, the orange, '69 Dodge Charger featured on The Dukes Of Hazzard. The owner, golfer Bubba Watson, is going to paint over the confederate flag and then paint an American one on the roof of the vehicle.