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I am a black South Carolinian. Here’s why I support the Confederate flag
WaPo ^ | 06-24-2015 | Byron Thomas

Posted on 06/24/2015 9:21:37 PM PDT by NRx

Four years ago, I became a national news story after I hung a Confederate flag in my dorm room window at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. Controversy wasn’t my intention. For me and many Southerners, the flag celebrates my heritage and regional pride. One of my ancestors, Benjamin Thomas, was a black Confederate cook, and I do not want to turn my back on his service to the South. So I hang the flag in honor of his hard work and dedication to South Carolina during the Civil War.

My Confederate flag isn’t racist; after all, I am black. I’m also an American who strongly believes in the constitutional right to free speech. I fought back against the university’s demand that I take my flag down simply because others view it as a symbol of racism. I fought back against the racist interpretation of the flag and I won.

Now there’s a similar debate about the Confederate flag that flies over South Carolina’s statehouse. In the wake of the Charleston church shooting and pictures of the accused killer posing with the Confederate flag, people have demanded the flag be permanently removed from the statehouse grounds. I deeply respect and honor the nine people whose lives were lost in that church, who died with love in their hearts even though evil was among them. I felt that lowering the flag would give power to the racist terrorist who killed them. For a long time, it bothered me that every time someone raised the Confederate flag, someone else fought to have it removed. Racists hijacked the Confederate flag, and by effectively banning it on college campuses and government grounds, we would allow them to keep it.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; US: South Carolina
KEYWORDS: confederateflag; southcarolina
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To: NRx
My Confederate flag isn’t racist; after all, I am black.

That statement is BS. I strongly reject this idea that whites are evil. The implication in this statement is that 'racism' is a one way street.

21 posted on 06/25/2015 3:12:06 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
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To: RginTN
the Confederate Constitution never got amended to abolish slavery

Why do you think that didn't happen?

22 posted on 06/25/2015 3:24:38 AM PDT by cmj328 (We live here.)
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To: Altura Ct.

Tell it like it is, Mr. StormFront Troll.

You tell me, Mr. StormFront Troll, are they?

Your posting history makes perfectly clear exactly who and what you are:

- near exclusive focus on race-related posts.

- use of language/phrases that are associated with white nationalist groups (”wake up white people,” “white quislings,” “white collaborators,” etc.)

- open support for white nationalist groups like the CofCC

- open support for white nationalist authors/ sites

- support for segregation and separation of the races.

It’s all right there, out in the open, for anyone to see. You are a white nationalist StormFront troll. Those cesspools send people like you onto forums like this to quietly/softly try to bring people around to their point of view, and you are playing that role. You don’t even deny it (though you’re is careful not to say the magic words and/or explicitly admit it, as you know it would get you zotted instantly, which would defeat the purpose of your presence).


23 posted on 06/25/2015 3:55:48 AM PDT by Conscience of a Conservative
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To: gleeaikin

Those who don’t understand the 3/5ths compromise would probably be best advised not to bring it up...

Just saying.


24 posted on 06/25/2015 4:00:22 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: NRx

Has H. K. Edgerton weighed in on this? He was the black defender of Southern and Confederate history who walked, in full CSA uniform carrying the battle flag, from his home in North Carolina to Washington, DC.


25 posted on 06/25/2015 4:03:48 AM PDT by Oratam
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To: cmj328
the Confederate Constitution never got amended to abolish slavery Why do you think that didn't happen?
...because the war of northern aggression burned down their capital?
26 posted on 06/25/2015 4:04:46 AM PDT by ThePatriotsFlag ( Anything FREELY-GIVEN by the government was TAKEN from someone else!)
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To: gleeaikin

And before you get all offended let me point out that the abolitionists wanted slaves to count as NOT HUMAN. 0%.


27 posted on 06/25/2015 4:05:57 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: bray
So why are you not up in arms about African slave trade going on today? Shouldn’t you be stopping that rather than running around with a 150 yr old chip on your shoulder?

Arab Muslims are buying and selling black African slaves today. Today. June 25, 2015. Today. As in right now. Right this minute. Today. This second.

And who cares?

Hint: no one.

28 posted on 06/25/2015 4:10:00 AM PDT by samtheman
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To: NRx

Sounds good, but I still don’t think trying to defend the rebel battle flag is a winning issue. Instead, why not get the actual, historical flag of the confederacy? The battle flag is the DEMONCRAT flag!


29 posted on 06/25/2015 4:10:54 AM PDT by Mamzelle
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To: samtheman; bray; RginTN; NRx
bray - So why are you not up in arms about African slave trade going on today? Shouldn’t you be stopping that rather than running around with a 150 yr old chip on your shoulder?

sam - Arab Muslims are buying and selling black African slaves today. Today. June 25, 2015. Today. As in right now. Right this minute. Today. This second. ... And who cares? ... Hint: no one.

Even more - black African Muslims in Africa are buying and selling black African slaves today. Today. June 25, 2015.

30 posted on 06/25/2015 4:23:20 AM PDT by tarheelswamprat
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To: NRx

Bookmark


31 posted on 06/25/2015 4:24:02 AM PDT by DocRock (All they that TAKE the sword shall perish with the sword. Matthew 26:52 Gun grabbers beware.)
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To: RginTN
I don't know many Americans who are black who do *not* have a slave-owning ancestor, but you'd be surprised how few very southern whites, even many generations in the south, have no slave-owning heritage. In modern money, owning a slave in the 1800's was like owning a second home on the beach, and a fine, upscale one at that…out of reach for all but the 1%. And you'd be surprised how many old families in the *north* DO have a slave-owning ancestor. Connecticut, New York…all at some point were slave territory.

Few Americans who go back several generations in this country are "pure" in any sense, which makes nonsense of "sins of our fathers" since we all have the same fathers! I invite you to read the continuing saga of the very white-looking Henry Louis Gates and Ben Affleck on Breitbart. Ben is so ashamed of his ancestry, that he tried to hide it and Gates tried to help him!!

The fact is that there is a cachet and romance attached to the "Lost Cause" in the South, which is the thing that the left is trying to destroy, to shame southerners into abandoning. The fact is, this romance accounts for a lot of the cultural success of the south, the rich religious heritage, the art and music, the land and the voices. I happen to love the south, but I detest Democrats like Earnest Hollings who put the rebel battle flag of northern Virginia on the dome of the capitol in ***1961*** in a defiant gesture against integration. I do think the real flags of the Confederacy have a place at memorials and museums..and nobody can kill the magnificent "Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell, which was really a farce that lampooned all that was pretentiously southern. Margaret was not Scarlett.

32 posted on 06/25/2015 4:27:36 AM PDT by Mamzelle
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To: tarheelswamprat; bray; RginTN; NRx

The left doesn’t care about slavery. It never has. Slavery fits right in with the utopian vision of the left. Look at Stalinist utopia. Maoist utopia. All those people were slaves and worse. But the left enshrines those utopias as the Ultimate Good. It only pretends to care about slavery in the states 150 years ago because it fits in with their propaganda goals of pushing Stalinist and Maoist slavery today.


33 posted on 06/25/2015 4:37:31 AM PDT by samtheman
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To: wastoute
Pish-posh. That was all bout political negotiations and jockeying to do southern states out of power. It is better to deal in facts rather than what you think they "wanted"--the north and abolitionists had few economic stakes in slavery. At one time or another, several prominent northern Founding Fathers owned slaves. That they abandoned the practice was probably due more to do with economics than shame.

If any of us could go back to 1810 and see the conditions under which our American ancestors lived, we would be shocked at the discomfort, poverty and squalor. The modern middle class is purely an American creation, and is fading rapidly. I visit historical plantations and listen to the tourists go tsp-tsk over the slave cabins. It is very likely that their own ancestors never knew such comfort!

34 posted on 06/25/2015 4:39:30 AM PDT by Mamzelle
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To: Mamzelle

Well of course it is nonsense. So to raise the 3/5ths issue is nonsense. Unless one’s intention is to attempt to “score debating points” with an irrelevancy. To raise the issue indicates to me one is either 1) uninformed or 2) insincere.


35 posted on 06/25/2015 4:44:10 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Mamzelle

I wouldn’t say the north and abolitionists had “no stakes in slavery”. My wife majored in history decades ago and Civil War was a particular interest to her. At the time I was working evenings putting her through college. When she had a particularly good professor she would insist I go hear a “special lecture”. I particularly remember one. It was the last lecture of the semester on the Civil War. The guy made a 60 minute compelling case that the Civil War was fought over a railroad.

He talked fast for an hour with facts, figures, and footnotes. (I swear I missed my calling, shoulda been a Southern Baptist preacher). Before the war the South was where the money was. The industrialists of the North had really yet to rise. In fact, it was probably arming the North (at a nice profit) that gave the Northern Industrialists the boost they enjoyed later. The real point of contention from an economic standpoint was where would the rails be laid to exploit the new resources in the west? The Southern politicians who held the money and power insisted that those rails start in Atlanta. The Northern politicians new they had neither the money or power to cause any other outcome. So they found a way to negate the political power and money of the South. End result? The rails started in Ohio and Chicago. And the rest, as they say, is history. From an economic standpoint 600,000 soldiers and who knows how many civilians died to decide where a railhead would be.


36 posted on 06/25/2015 5:01:26 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Conscience of a Conservative

Thanks for that heads up and great post. One time, I started to compile a list.

One does not need to be a “bleeding heart” to detect the aroma.


37 posted on 06/25/2015 5:04:58 AM PDT by don-o (I am Kenneth Carlisle - Waco 5/17/15)
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To: RginTN

Blacks contributed in large numbers and made great contributions to the Confederate war effort. They filled rear echelon roles allowing whites to do the actual fighting They were cooks, teamsters, black smiths, medical ambulance drivers, grave diggers, did rail road repair and personal servants. Blacks built almost all of the earthen works which dominated the last part of the war. Some even were armed soldiers.


38 posted on 06/25/2015 5:14:00 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Mamzelle

Beg to differ. My family name goes back to the Revolutinary War. My amateur genealogical work on other parts of the family has yet to reveal a single slave. I suspect I am not all that unique. Now when you start looking at families who historically had wealth and power, of course you will find slavery. The vast majority of us descended from peons who had to do their own work.


39 posted on 06/25/2015 5:29:24 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: NRx

Thanks for posting this.


40 posted on 06/25/2015 5:56:18 AM PDT by tbpiper
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