Mall boots kiosk selling Confederate flag clothing

TuscaloosaNews ^ | December 13, 2002 | AP

[stainlessbanner]

The manager of a Mobile mall has evicted a merchant selling clothing with Confederate battle flag designs, citing complaints from people angered by the merchandise.

The merchant, Camo Unlimited, opened a kiosk in Colonial Mall Bel Air just after Thanksgiving. The Blountsville-based company sells Dixie Outfitters clothing at the Mobile mall and at other malls throughout the Southeast, owner Toby Smith said.

Dixie Outfitters offers more than 600 designs with themes such as hunting, trucks and dogs, all including the stars and bars of the Confederate battle flag. The clothing line's "Legends of the Confederacy" series features generals and other leaders of the Confederacy.

Smith said that soon after he opened the kiosk, employees of another store at the mall complained. Soon afterward, the mall's management told him to clear out by Sunday.

Tim Nolan, the mall's general manager, said he heard from several people who indicated the store could spur a boycott of the mall.

"May I remind you that blacks and other minorities constitute a major portion of consumers who patronize Colonial Bel Air Mall," chapter president Lettie Malone wrote in a Dec. 5 letter to Nolan.

"They should not be embarrassed or made to feel uncomfortable by those who are still fighting and trying to revive a war that never should have been a part of our civilized society."

The state president of the NAACP, the Rev. R.L. Shanklin, said the group never had plans for a boycott, and that he would have to approve any boycott carried out by the organization.

Nevertheless, Nolan said the mall was in an "emotionally charged controversy that we didn't want to be in the middle of."

"There was going to be no easy decision," he told the Mobile Register. "Certainly customers are disappointed that we took them out. Customers would have been disappointed had we left them in."

Asked whether he thought his clothing was offensive, Dixie Outfitters owner Dewey Barber said, "We certainly don't put any designs out there that we feel are offensive to anyone."

Dixie Outfitters' Web site has links and news stories about the Battle Flag, and in a section called "Our Mission" it states:

"The truth about the Confederate Flag is that it has nothing to do with racism or hate. The Civil War was not fought over slavery or racism. We at Dixie Outfitters are trying to tell the real truth via our art and products in regards to the Confederate Flag."

Ben George, head of a local Sons of Confederate Veterans camp, said he was considering a protest against the eviction.

[Bluntpoint]

Pretty soon all your Walmarts and McDonalds will look nothing like ours.

[stand watie]

i fear you are wrong on that. the country is getting "homogenized". that is NOT a good thing.

free dixie,sw

[Non-Sequitur]

But would you not agree that Lincoln worked actively to free the slave though the Emancipation Proclamation and working to pass the 13th Amendment, while Jefferson Davis and the southern leadership worked actively to preserve and strengthen the institution of slavery? And that Lincoln's words, while appearing racist by the lights of our times, still came closer to the idea of racial equality than anything any of the southern leaders said before or during the war?

[Bluntpoint]

Not a good thing. But a real thing.

One mall in Ohio looks the same mall in Georgia.

Unique is gone.

That is sad.

Blame the internal combustion engine.

If you fall asleep during a road trip and wake up at an exit you have no idea where you are today. Everything looks the same.

[stand watie]

even when dixie LIBERTY comes, we'll be blessed/cursed by wal-mart,mikey d's, etc.

the almighty $ will win.

free dixie,sw

[Bluntpoint]

The "Dixie" happy meal at McDonalds. Does not really make the heart expand with pride.

[stand watie]

YUCK!

mikey d's is NOT fast food, though it is occasionally fast;it is NOT food, EVER.

free dixie,sw

[Bluntpoint]

While I wish you the best for your New Dixie. I am afraid it will be as bland as the old Union from which you seceeded.

[stand watie]

well, i HOPE you're wrong. i KNOW the new Southron Republic will be FREE;that's a good thing.

somehow the land of tobasco,tamales,pho,jerked chicken & goat, as well as a lot of other food both native to the southland & imported by new southrons is UNLIKLY to be BLAND.

politically, it will be anything BUT BLAND! free nations are LOUD! it is their nature.

free dixie,sw

[Bluntpoint]

Problem is it will probably be served at a Benningtons, Applebys, TGIF Fridays, Red Lobster or Golden Corral.

[stand watie]

YECTCH!

free dixie,sw

[jjm2111]

Actually, FUBU is an urban clothing line. For Us, By Us.

[Lee'sGhost]

"All of them are not to the point and most are not even close."

Yes, we've crossed swords before. His MO also includes ignoring the five or six solid points you make and addressing only one or two that might be debatable. The other points are never addressed and certainly never conceded.

[jjm2111]

So, the South WILL rise again, in your opinion?

Have you ever read Guns of the South? Excellent book. I'm a Yankee w/ appreciation for Southern food and culture. However, the weather is unbearable. Maybe Virginia would be O.K..

[jjm2111]

That's a pretty incredible story.

"On my way back home in a pouring rain after we'd put the next day's paper to bed, I saw a little Pinto or Vega station wagon and a pickup pulled off to the side of the road. The car had 3 little old black ladies in it. Outside changing their flat tire were two guys from the Klan rally, including the state Grand Dragon who'd given me the usual line about how they didn't hate blacks. His actions spoke louder than his words."

This really happened?

[mac_truck]

...I should have, of course, said that it was the Union that INITIATED the war by refusing to remove their occupying force from sovereign state soil at Fort Sumter.

Your refusal to provide support for the comments you write, and your reliance on the ranting of nutjobs like stand watie, lead me to conclude that your grasp of history (southern or otherwise) is quite weak.

Now be a gentleman and apologize to the lady in #13, as she is correct and you sir, are not.

[jjm2111]

Re: 161&162

Too funny.

[archy]

This really happened?

The rally was held at the former Shasta coal mine property near Bicknell, Indiana; I was a columnist for the Hiatt Newspapers writing my Along the Way pieces for Hiatt's flagship Knox County Daily News at the time, in Spring or early summer of 1990, as I recall, maybe a year or so earlier. And when breaking news or a particular project beckoned, I hauled out my Nikons and Konicas and shot spot news photos, the newspaper job for which I'd originally trained, and still my first love in that racket.

But yep, it really happened.

[Lee'sGhost]

"Your refusal to provide support for the comments you write, and your reliance on the ranting of nutjobs like stand watie, lead me to conclude that your grasp of history (southern or otherwise) is quite weak."

Sigh. . . I "refused" nothing. I simply don't have time at the moment to build detailed replies. I took a short cut by pointing to a very valid post which you -- interestingly enough -- appear to be refusing to address. My grasp of history is certainly a lot stronger than your ability to affect worthy rebuttal.

"Now be a gentleman and apologize to the lady in #13, as she is correct and you sir, are not."

I did nothing to apologize for. I did not call her names and I admitted to the mistake of my wording when another poster pointed it out. The true offense was "the lady's" comparison of the South's attempt to rid themselves of foreign invaders to the Twin Towers attack. While you may not agree with the South's point of view, you must at least concede that Sumter was not a terrorist attack perpetrated on unwitting people. We can both agree that the Union soldiers were forewarned -- NOTHING like what happened on 9/11. It is I, and all Southern people who were offended by that totally unwarranted attack by that "lady" who deserve an apology. So why don't YOU be a gentleman, admit you are wrong, and see if you can't get her to restore her dignity by retracting such an "mean-spirited" (to use your lib lingo) attack.

[Colt .45]

"In no way does the quote you provide above from Madison support the statement you made earlier. In fact, it says the opposite.

None of the framers held that the states were sovereign and indepedent under the Constitution. Stop lying. It is amazing how the bloody handed rebel traitors can be held up as perfect Christian gentlemen, and their defenders will then tell any kind of lie."

Walt, your statement only proves that you are a Yankee asskissing moron incapable of an intellectual thought. The original 13 colonies were recognized by England and France as Sovereign and Independent STATES after the American 's of 1776 won their independence. NO STATE surrendered their sovereignty! You are a buffoon who has bought into the lies perpetrated by the 1865 victory of a tyrant.

For your further edification - ' Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 formulated the explicit doctrine that the Union is a compact among states. In the "compact" only limited powers were assigned to the created Federal government. Since the Constitution was founded on a "compact" among the states, each state retained the right to "judge for itself, as well as of infractions [of the compact] as the mode and measure of redress."

Jefferson also stated in support of his early drafts of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions 'Virginia is my country..."

At the time upon entering the Presidency, Jefferson tended to identify the power of the federal government with that of foreign relations, while "domestic regulations & institutions" he thought belonged to every state.' - Jefferson and Madison - Adrienne Koch (1950)

The bottom line being that if we are a "government of the people", then the people being the lexus of governmental power have the right to determine when a government is no longer working in their best interests and becomes oppressive, and after it is determined that peaceful change cannot work, Natural Law gives the people the right to secede. So as we can clearly see ... the States never surrendered their sovereignty when they joined the "compact", they surrendered only specific enumerated powers to the federal government.