Jump to content
IGNORED

Bob Evans employees claim Confederate flag cost one his job


hahe77

Recommended Posts

No matter what other people think it means, it will always represent independence and a willingness to stick up for oneself against those that would take it away to me. I don't fly it myself, and I never have. I was simply hoping that people could understand that it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, and that's one reason some people get so upset over it. If you can't understand that, then there's nothing I can do to change it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Once more: There will be racism with or without a flag. I wouldnt work for someone like Bob Evans. ? All this silliness over a 150 yr old lag should stop. it helps nothing. And Malcolm X, a member of the Nation of Islam, wanted to separate the races, but no one says anything about that. I dont get how he's a hero, but not the ones who fought for 'the enemy' in the Civil War . What happen when someone displays a Black Panther on their vehicle or a gang symbol ? What if someone blasts a rap song degrading women from their vehicle?

. I have gotten older and wiser and finally had to stop believing everything I was taught about the Civil War. The whole the good guy(the North) pounded on the bad guys(the South) for wanting to keep slaves is over simplistic. We have to stop being sheeple, and i hate to say it, like the Fundies. We holler about how they never use their brains to analyze what they are taught or listen to other opinions. People supporting him likely arent supporting the flag itself. I HATE these discussions because again they solve nothing.

Like I said, why use an offensive flag whose history is tyranny and oppression to represent independence? Why not choose a flag that wasn't designed to defend oppression?

Well, that leaves the American flag out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No matter what other people think it means, it will always represent independence and a willingness to stick up for oneself against those that would take it away to me. I don't fly it myself, and I never have. I was simply hoping that people could understand that it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, and that's one reason some people get so upset over it. If you can't understand that, then there's nothing I can do to change it.

Can you not understand why people get upset with people taking a flag that was used to defend tyranny, oppression and racism and turning it into a symbol of independence? There are people alive today who remember that flag being flown to intimidate black people from trying to gain equality. How do you think it makes them feel to see people act like it is a symbol of sticking up for oneself and independence?

Roddma, in the last thread where you kept defending the Confederacy and the Rebel flag you refused to address any real questions people had and kept ranting about things people didn't actually say, so I'm not sure there is any point in addressing your comments. Feel free to prove the cornerstone of the Confederacy wasn't slavery or that the Confederate Constitution didn't remove rights from states or create a tyrannical country. It solves nothing to pretend that the Confederacy wasn't the really, really bad guy in the Civil War. The North was hardly perfect, but it was the lesser of the evils.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wasnt defending any flag. When I do answer questions, you dismiss even when proof's in the pudding. IMO it's no different from the Fundies when you try to prove something with factual evidence or maybe get them to thinking about another perspective I was just saying how silly it is for folks to make an ordeal of something 150 YEARS OLD. None of us are slaves today and we cant control what our ancestors believed- enough of this 'HATE/BEAT ON THE SOUTH MENTALITY'. As I say it solves nothing. You must have skipped the part of Malcolm X. Move on already and let's focus on TODAY. LET IT GO Those who keep beating on the South for something 150 YEARS AGO have a bigger problem and are just as prejudice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wasnt defending any flag. When I do answer questions, you dismiss even when proof's in the pudding. I was just saying how silly it is for folks to make an ordeal of something 150 YEARS OLD. None of us are slaves today and we cant control what our ancestors believed- enough of this 'HATE THE SOUTH MENTALITY'. As I say it solves nothing. You must have skipped the part of Malcolm X. Move on already and let's focus on TODAY. LET IT GO

You must have missed the part where Malcolm X repudiated his past with the Nation of Islam when he realized that the group wasn't teaching mainstream Islam. When Malcolm made his pilgrimage to Mecca, he saw Muslims of all races and ethnicity and realized that not all white people were racist. Unlike a lot of public figures, Malcolm X was willing to admit that he was wrong and publicly stated his mea culpa. He said, "The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks." This is why the Nation of Islam had Malcolm X killed, because the most famous member of the group was now speaking out against it. Malcolm X also grew to dislike the Nation of Islam because it was too quietist and didn't believe in getting involved in politics. The Nation of Islam was content to be left alone, but Malcolm X was too flamboyant, which caused the FBI and other law enforcement officials to start monitoring them, another reason why he was killed.

You ask why Malcolm X is a hero. It's because he encouraged black people to be proud of being black, rather than feel ashamed for not being white. While Malcolm X didn't coin the phrase, he was really the first to say that "black in beautiful" in a country where black was considered bad and ugly. Urban blacks in the north also felt that he expressed their frustrations about living in ghetto conditions better than MLK, and the criticisms that Malcolm X makes about the false integration in northern states is still valid, and this country hasn't done anything to solve these problems. If this country had adequately addressed its racial problems in the 1960 -- or better yet, during Reconstruction -- a movement like Black Lives Matter wouldn't have to exist. If you think Malcolm X is rough on America, other black leaders are just as rough, including Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois, and MLK. From Douglass' 4th of July speech:

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1 ... july4.html

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

W.E.B. Dubois' 1906 Niagara Movement speech:

Against this the Niagara Movement eternally protests. We will not be satisfied to take one jot or tittle less than our full manhood rights. We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil and social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America. The battle we wage is not for ourselves alone but for all true Americans. It is a fight for ideals, lest this, our common fatherland, false to its founding, become in truth the land of the thief and the home of the Slave–a by-word and a hissing among the nations for its sounding pretensions and pitiful accomplishment. Never before in the modern age has a great and civilized folk threatened to adopt so cowardly a creed in the treatment of its fellow-citizens born and bred on its soil. Stripped of verbiage and subterfuge and in its naked nastiness the new American creed says: Fear to let black men even try to rise lest they become the equals of the white. And this is the land that professes to follow Jesus Christ. The blasphemy of such a course is only matched by its cowardice.

People like to quote the end of the "I Have a Dream" speech and ignore the first 75 percent of it:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeche ... adream.htm

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

So Malcolm X's critiques of the US weren't anything that hadn't been said before by other more "respectable" leaders.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can you not understand why people get upset with people taking a flag that was used to defend tyranny, oppression and racism and turning it into a symbol of independence? There are people alive today who remember that flag being flown to intimidate black people from trying to gain equality. How do you think it makes them feel to see people act like it is a symbol of sticking up for oneself and independence?

Roddma, in the last thread where you kept defending the Confederacy and the Rebel flag you refused to address any real questions people had and kept ranting about things people didn't actually say, so I'm not sure there is any point in addressing your comments. Feel free to prove the cornerstone of the Confederacy wasn't slavery or that the Confederate Constitution didn't remove rights from states or create a tyrannical country. It solves nothing to pretend that the Confederacy wasn't the really, really bad guy in the Civil War. The North was hardly perfect, but it was the lesser of the evils.

As I've said, I understand why people are upset by it. I'm only asking if people can understand my side of it. The folks here, who I usually agree with, have made it clear that they don't. That's fine. I don't need others to agree with me to know what I think. I had relatives on both sides of the civil war. I know that the only relative with slave ownership in their background fought for the north. I know that Lincoln had no intention of freeing the slaves until it looked like he'd lose unless he did. I know that most men were fighting for state's rights, not necessarily slavery, since they didn't own any slaves. It was a different way of thinking back then. The message I hear from history is that if your government tries to take that which is yours, defend yourself. Did they go about it the right way? Yes, and no. If they hadn't, somebody would have. It's a lesson we needed to learn. Now we don't have to repeat it. Hopefully. I don't see the civil war as being a battle over slavery. It was a battle over what the federal government could and could not dictate. Slavery was the flashpoint, and we're better for it. We still argue over federal reach, we just don't go to war over it, because we learned the lessons of the civil war. I'm not saying it wasn't about slavery, I'm saying it was about more than that too.

To the bolded. There are people alive today who remember that flag being used on the top of a car that never represented anything even remotely racist or intimidating. Mostly it was used to help others. Do you get that even a little?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only thing I understand is that you and others who love that damn flag care for nobody else's feelings but your own.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wasnt defending any flag. When I do answer questions, you dismiss even when proof's in the pudding. IMO it's no different from the Fundies when you try to prove something with factual evidence or maybe get them to thinking about another perspective I was just saying how silly it is for folks to make an ordeal of something 150 YEARS OLD. None of us are slaves today and we cant control what our ancestors believed- enough of this 'HATE/BEAT ON THE SOUTH MENTALITY'. As I say it solves nothing. You must have skipped the part of Malcolm X. Move on already and let's focus on TODAY. LET IT GO Those who keep beating on the South for something 150 YEARS AGO have a bigger problem and are just as prejudice.

Can you point out where that happened in the other thread? I asked you questions several times in that thread that you would either ignore or answer a question I didn't ask. What proof did I miss? This isn't just a flag from a 150 years ago, this is a flag that has been used fairly recently to oppress and intimidate people. Why should people move on when people keep re-writing history to pretend that the Confederacy wasn't a tyrannical country built on slavery and that it's battle flags stood for independence. This isn't a beat on the South mentality, I'm a Southerner. This is have an honest discussion about the reality of Southern History. Something you have not wanted to do in any of the threads about the subject.

Like I said, if the Confederacy wasn't a tyrannical country whose foundation was enslaving a group of people, feel free to prove me wrong. If you can't, why not admit that that is in Southern history and that that is what the Rebel flag was created to defend. It was created for tyranny.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I've said, I understand why people are upset by it. I'm only asking if people can understand my side of it. The folks here, who I usually agree with, have made it clear that they don't. That's fine. I don't need others to agree with me to know what I think. I had relatives on both sides of the civil war. I know that the only relative with slave ownership in their background fought for the north. I know that Lincoln had no intention of freeing the slaves until it looked like he'd lose unless he did. I know that most men were fighting for state's rights, not necessarily slavery, since they didn't own any slaves. It was a different way of thinking back then. The message I hear from history is that if your government tries to take that which is yours, defend yourself. Did they go about it the right way? Yes, and no. If they hadn't, somebody would have. It's a lesson we needed to learn. Now we don't have to repeat it. Hopefully. I don't see the civil war as being a battle over slavery. It was a battle over what the federal government could and could not dictate. Slavery was the flashpoint, and we're better for it. We still argue over federal reach, we just don't go to war over it, because we learned the lessons of the civil war. I'm not saying it wasn't about slavery, I'm saying it was about more than that too.

To the bolded. There are people alive today who remember that flag being used on the top of a car that never represented anything even remotely racist or intimidating. Mostly it was used to help others. Do you get that even a little?

That is really not true, but it has been something that has been tossed around as truth for so long that many people think it is. Have you read the Confederate Constitution? For all the claims about the Civil War being about state rights and the Confederacy protesting what the federal government could and couldn't do, the truth is, the Confederate government removed rights from states. How could that be if the war was about state rights and the federal government over stepping their bounds? If this was true, wouldn't they have created a country where states had MORE rights? But they didn't.

You also have to keep in mind that these same Southern states that ranted about being told they couldn't own slaves had absolutely no problems with using the federal government to force other states to do things like return slaves. They wanted to use the federal government to take rights away from states when it came to slavery. When they couldn't they got mad and started plotting to build their own slave based country.

Have you read the Cornerstone Speech? It was given right before the Civil War started. In it the foundation of the Confederacy is spoken of. Was it state rights? The idea of there should be limits on the federal government? No. It was slavery.

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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

This speech also states that the immediate cause of secession was slavery.

I get you have fond memories of the Rebel flag, but you know what, my dad has fond memories of some really, really, really racist stuff. To him, as a child, those things didn't represent racism, it was just fun. But as an adult he sees now that it would be foolish to act like these things didn't represent racism. He realizes that the things he viewed as innocent fun were viewed as hurtful and oppressive to many, many others. I have fond memories of things that I know realize are racist and offensive. I didn't enjoy those things as a child to be racist, but I wouldn't let my kids play with or watch some of the things I played with or watched because no matter how good of memories I have about those things, no matter how I didn't view them as representing racism, they do. And I realize that now. I get you saw the Rebel flag as just an innocent symbol of independence, but that doesn't make it any less racist and offensive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only thing I understand is that you and others who love that damn flag care for nobody else's feelings but your own.

Hell to the Yes, RosyDaisy.

Some of my unfortunate ancestors fought & died for the Confederacy. The flag offends me. It is a symbol of oppression and tyranny. And for my non-white relatives, it is even more offensive.

Its the 21st Century, people, grow the Hell up & admit your ancestors lost, stop pretending to be victims, and get on with your lives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only thing I understand is that you and others who love that damn flag care for nobody else's feelings but your own.

Well that was mean spirited, and totally untrue. If I didn't care about other's feelings I wouldn't bother trying to explain that some people don't intend what you think they do. If I didn't care about others feelings I would wear the Rebel flag print scrunchi that I have instead of just keeping it in a drawer. The feelings you have toward it aren't going to change mine. Just like my feelings toward it aren't going to change yours. Please don't lump everyone who likes that flag together. That's been my whole point in this conversation. Whether you think it's right or not, it has different meanings to different people.

I hear what you're saying fg. I maintain that there was nothing even remotely racist about the Dukes of Hazzard. They named their car after a general and painted his battle flag on the roof. Then they set about helping anybody and everybody that needed it. I did not grow up in the south. I never saw that flag used in any other way as a child, so in this context it wasn't racist. There are some old Popeye cartoons that we bought for our son that went straight into the trash for some of depictions they had. I also remember some questionable things about Little Lulu videos I had as a child. There are plenty of examples. I just don't think the Dukes qualify. Maybe we just need to agree to disagree on that one.

At this juncture I think I've done everything I can to explain my point. As I've said at least twice here, I get why people can be upset by. I'm not saying that it hasn't been used in terrible ways. I was just trying to point out that not everybody thinks of it that way. It's not a hill I'm willing to die on, so if you understand, you understand. If you don't, you don't. I'm moving on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm pretty sure we all understand that some people don't know the real history of the flag and think about it as just a sign of rebellion. But what happens when they do know but continue to use it? To me that is when it slips into racism and not caring about history or others. And it also changes the perception of history when people take a flag like that and start using it as a symbol of independence. I've not seen a single person who waves it actually admit that the Confederacy was a country of tyranny and oppression. No, they say it was an example of the little guys trying to stand up to the big, bad government. And many times that wrong perception of history comes from being told that the Confederate flag stands for independence and freedom. It doesn't do justice to history to downplay how horrible the Confederacy was and how that flag was used to defend something really bad.

You might not view the Dukes of Hazzard as racist, but black people in the South did and do. The car is named after a guy who fought to keep them enslaved and on top of that was known to hunt down and beat his own slaves. Painted on top of the car is a flag that in very recent history when the show came out, had been used to intimidate black people from trying to gain equality. It was a more subtle racism. It wasn't overt, but what it did was promote this myth of a racist free Confederacy and General Lee being an all around good guy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I get that what was once considered good (or bad) can change over time. I look back on some of the old cartoons I watched as a kid and loved - holy SH!t those some of them were extremely racist. It doesn't mean I think they should be banned but used as educational tools in the correct context. I view the confederate flag as one of those things as well. I didn't grow up with any particularly negative connotation (nor a positive or I may add) but as I learned later in life there are many people who view it as a hate symbol.

I get where you are coming from Daisy, but I'm a bit perplexed why you don't seem to condemn it as a symbol of hate now that you understand why many people feel this way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally I find the Confederate flag obnoxious, but I don't support banning the flag either, let private owners and companies decide. This guy's rights were not violated cuz he was flying it on his employers property and his employer has the right to call the shots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well that was mean spirited, and totally untrue.

That's exactly how I intended my comment to be, and yes it is very true. You are like every Rebel Flag hugging asshole. You cannot and will not see the flag for what it truly was and is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No one said we 'love the flag I wish you would folks saying that. If the employee handbook didnt say he couldnt have a flag or any other symbol, he likely has strong case. I think there are more things to focus on than a car named 'The General Lee'. The Dukes were hardly racist people.

I still dont think Malcolm X is a hero any more than Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was a white supremacist. Malcolm X was a black supremacist. Neither were right. Your skin color doesnt protect you here.

It's one thing wanting your rights, but going around calling 'whites the Devil' or wanting to' beat up the N**'' isnt going to solve it. Malcolm X also praised the assassination of Kennedy. Though Forrest left the KKk and Malcolm left the Nation of Islam, both thought that you could solve things with violence in the beginning , unlike MLK who preached peace.

If anyone has a right to be angry it is Native Americans, None of us were ran off our land in the name of freedom. Im all for racial equality but we all have to stop playing victim.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roddma, how exactly is acknowledging the truth about the Confederacy(that it was a tyrannical country founded on slavery) and acknowledging that the Rebel/Confederate flag is an offensive symbol of racism "playing victim"? This isn't just something that happened 150 years ago. People are still alive today who remember that flag being used to intimidate black people.

The problem with ignoring things like turning the Rebel flag into a symbol of freedom is that when people start ignoring those things, other people stop remember what really happened in history and start believing an altered version. We can clearly see that with the Confederacy. So many people think that it was a nation founded on the idea of state rights and that slavery was something they would have gotten rid of eventually and one of the reasons behind people believing that is because they have been told for years that the Confederate flag is a symbol of freedom, rebellion and independence instead of being told the truth that it was a symbol of fighting to defend tyranny. It doesn't do justice to history or to the people who suffered to rewrite it.

It seems to me the people who really need to "let things go" are the Southerners who cling to Confederate flag and those who cling to a fake version of history where the South was the good guy. Many Southerners need to stop playing the victim and own up to the dark side of Southern History.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roddma, how exactly is acknowledging the truth about the Confederacy(that it was a tyrannical country founded on slavery) and acknowledging that the Rebel/Confederate flag is an offensive symbol of racism "playing victim"? This isn't just something that happened 150 years ago. People are still alive today who remember that flag being used to intimidate black people.

The problem with ignoring things like turning the Rebel flag into a symbol of freedom is that when people start ignoring those things, other people stop remember what really happened in history and start believing an altered version. We can clearly see that with the Confederacy. So many people think that it was a nation founded on the idea of state rights and that slavery was something they would have gotten rid of eventually and one of the reasons behind people believing that is because they have been told for years that the Confederate flag is a symbol of freedom, rebellion and independence instead of being told the truth that it was a symbol of fighting to defend tyranny. It doesn't do justice to history or to the people who suffered to rewrite it.

It seems to me the people who really need to "let things go" are the Southerners who cling to Confederate flag and those who cling to a fake version of history where the South was the good guy. Many Southerners need to stop playing the victim and own up to the dark side of Southern History.

I'm a Southerner, my grandmother belongs to the Daughters of the Confederacy, (my other one could join if she wanted to), and I agree with the above post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.



×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.