I lived in the south in the 70's, and was surprised to see that many people still flew the Confederate flag. I remember think, "don't they know the war is over?". I was told by someone I knew that some people start teaching their kids as soon as they can talk, to hate black people. Tradition.............I guess. Very sad. People up here in the North Country, I have noticed, do these things out of ignorance, and just following the crowd. They are completely clueless! I belong to the North Country Light Brigade, and we did lights Friday night in support of Ukraine. An elderly woman brought a Ukrainian flag as we were setting up and asked if we would fly it. I had the honor of doing that, and later a woman walked by and thanked us for flying the flag. She said, "Ukraine is my home country", and then walked away. THAT is when a flag can hold a much deeper meaning. A flag to be proud of. In honor of all Ukrainians here in the states, and in Ukraine, I was honored to wave your flag for you.
I have followed the same progression as you, Will, assuming people were simply unaware of all that flag really stands for. But I was wrong and, as you so rightly point out, condescending. As a liberal I want to believe in my fellow humans. I want to assume immigrants come here for a better life, intending to earn they way if given half a chance. And I want to believe bigots’ driving emotion is fear, not hate. But that is also condescending. And wrong. Hate is hate. They know it. They embrace it. They are Proud of it.
I gave up long ago trying to even talk to people with this mindset.
The man who drove the truck in the parade actually referred to poc as "colored".
I stopped reading there.
The ignorance and refusal to move on from the past is mind boggling and I don't have the energy to attempt reasoning with people like this.
I too grew up in a small town up north. I lived with that mindset. Which is why I can't go back to living there, even though I'd love to go back to the foothills of Gore. Nothing beats the beauty of the ADKS. But the 2A , Stefanik and trump signs along with Confederate flags would drive me crazy.
We can only keep voting, showing up and of course writing.
There's so many wonderful people I've come to know who are fighting , such as the people who make up the Lights Brigade, or my friends who stood with me protesting Stefanik and suffering abuse by our local *good ol" boys* - many of whom drove big trucks with assorted signage.
We stick together and try to be heard.
The people who engage in condoning Confederate flags etc can't be swayed. No use in wasting that energy.
Displaying a Confederate flag is about irritating people. The irony is that the people who want to provoke with these rags and the FJB swag are the most easily upset little dumplings on the planet.
Epic fail on the MAGA mission statement of creating liberal tears on Friday. Only tears of joy at the continuance of Trump being subject to laws and justice.
Thank you, June. I could never have anticipated that giving you the flag I bought 2 yrs. ago at our downtown Peace March for Ukraine could/would bring comfort to a native Ukranian woman.
God bless you and all members of the North Country Light Brigade for lighting up my elder spirit this morning.
Thank you again, Will, for your continual attempt to explain history in order to bring consciousness...for your continual work in the newspaper, in different counties, and in your life against prejudice and hate....and also for your conclusion about who can be talked to, who can change with information, and what actions can and need to be done to restrain and restrict the harm and hatred of those who hold onto that hate, act on that prejudice. I think of the Jim Crow South...and their "laws" enforcing hate...the laws of our country.. Martin Luther Kind said, in one of his speeches, that we can't make people love other people, but we can have laws that restrain and protect people from harm, can create legislation that recognizes the rights of all, the dignity of all. Your honest voice and honest life are a blessing.
I’ve decided we are at the height of this response in this decade based mostly on fear. The world obviously has more brown people and “other” people and it threatens those who have limited resources to grow in understanding. You are right, we must not let their behaviors make us unsafe. But understanding more about why they act this way may moderate our response.
Have you followed up on the lives of your bullies? Could be interesting.
I lived in Mississippi in the 90’s and was shocked to see how many people were still flying the Confederate Battle flag. And then quickly realized that for some, the war wasn’t over, and that many people still believed that the war was about states rights and not slavery, or so they said, as they still held strong opinions about blacks being the lesser race.
Fast forward to 2011 when I moved to Washington County and imagine my disgust to see the Confederate Battle flag flying from peoples homes and vehicles. At this point in my life, I see it for what it is. Not ignorance but that person’s message to everyone, especially people of color, that they are a racist. Here is where I check my white privilege, I can look away, and not confront the individual or the meaning behind this message but some of my children of color cannot do the same and it sparks fear in their hearts when they see this flag. It also sends a message to them that they have to be hypervigilant as there are people that they know they can avoid but not everyone who is a racist or a white nationalist flys the Confederate Battle flag. As a community, every one of us who find this flag abhorrent, should be standing up and calling out the use of this flag. It does not belong in parades, at fairs or at any community gathering.
The confederate flag was carried by those that took up arms against the United States of America. It represents hate and slavery that many died fighting against. It has no place except on historic battlefields and museums. And those that took up arms against the US should not have public buildings or streets or schools named after them. In my opinion.
Whew.......there just seems to be no way out of this..... It's a solid wall, not even one made of brick that you might take down, one at a time over time.
There were a number of flags of the confederate states. The one we see today was only adopted near the end of the war when the South was well on the way to defeat. See:
Thank you, Will, for calling out the Confederate flag wavers. It isn't nostalgia, or history, or free speech. It is White Nationalism, unadorned. Racial hatred is not confined to the former Confederate States, but is very much alive and well everywhere. And Donald Trump has bestowed permission to subscribe to it. Next time you see that treasonous flag, check on whether the displayer has Trump signs to match. But it's the "Don't Tread on Me" flag that tells the true tale. These symbols appeal to a population that resents. Threatened by the bicoastal "elite," the well-educated, and especially "Other," they fear the coming demographic reversal. The flag is no accident. I love Hillary, but she NEVER should have coined "Deplorables."
It seems worth considering the sentence about middle school bullies. What is it that made them bullies? It wasn’t the sort of racism represented by the confederate flag, and in some ways those kids might have been given pause had you been black. Some number of them might have realized the wrongness of bullying the new kid if it appeared to be outright racism. (Do not get me wrong, having lived in small towns with few black people I have never known a black person who didn’t face blatant racism of the worst kind at some point from one kid or another) Bullying is racism adjacent, but not exactly racism itself. They often coexist but racism is complex. There are bullies of every color and ethnicity, but the urge to bully is more predatory, more of a herding behavior, to separate a member of the herd who stands out in some minute way (everyone stands apart in some way) and subject them to ridicule, embarrassment, shaming in order to subjugate the entire herd lest they become objects of derision.
It is a Darwinian small-mindedness that develops its own local culture and works like compound interest. Survival depends on fitting in. Moving to a small town automatically targets a child as an outsider. Being smarter, more talented, just different in some way becomes a danger and the vast majority of kids like them will move away to somewhere they feel more welcome and never come back to live in the small town. It becomes a regression to the least common small town denominator.
Of course adults are not kids, and they get better than their middle school selves but still there is a generational devolvement that they and we see as local culture.
So the kid taunting a classmate with the universal epithet of the ignorant “you think you’re so smart” becomes the local color, the pillar of the community, the volunteer fire chief, the town trustee. He doesn’t see himself as racist. He will tell you as much.
“There was never any prejudice on my side. Never have. I was in the military. I was around Black guys. You know. We all carried each other,” Dupree said. “We don’t have the colored much here. But I’ve never seen one that wasn’t welcome. … I’m not one of those guys. Nobody is a racist in my family, my shop, nothing.”
And so those who don’t feel welcome by the culture stay away. “We don’t have the colored much here. But I’ve never seen one that wasn’t welcome.”
I lived in the south in the 70's, and was surprised to see that many people still flew the Confederate flag. I remember think, "don't they know the war is over?". I was told by someone I knew that some people start teaching their kids as soon as they can talk, to hate black people. Tradition.............I guess. Very sad. People up here in the North Country, I have noticed, do these things out of ignorance, and just following the crowd. They are completely clueless! I belong to the North Country Light Brigade, and we did lights Friday night in support of Ukraine. An elderly woman brought a Ukrainian flag as we were setting up and asked if we would fly it. I had the honor of doing that, and later a woman walked by and thanked us for flying the flag. She said, "Ukraine is my home country", and then walked away. THAT is when a flag can hold a much deeper meaning. A flag to be proud of. In honor of all Ukrainians here in the states, and in Ukraine, I was honored to wave your flag for you.
Agreed. There's also power in simply standing up for what you believe in, joining together, and speaking out. Thank you, Will.
Good one.
I have followed the same progression as you, Will, assuming people were simply unaware of all that flag really stands for. But I was wrong and, as you so rightly point out, condescending. As a liberal I want to believe in my fellow humans. I want to assume immigrants come here for a better life, intending to earn they way if given half a chance. And I want to believe bigots’ driving emotion is fear, not hate. But that is also condescending. And wrong. Hate is hate. They know it. They embrace it. They are Proud of it.
Keep agitating. “Someday this war will end.”
I gave up long ago trying to even talk to people with this mindset.
The man who drove the truck in the parade actually referred to poc as "colored".
I stopped reading there.
The ignorance and refusal to move on from the past is mind boggling and I don't have the energy to attempt reasoning with people like this.
I too grew up in a small town up north. I lived with that mindset. Which is why I can't go back to living there, even though I'd love to go back to the foothills of Gore. Nothing beats the beauty of the ADKS. But the 2A , Stefanik and trump signs along with Confederate flags would drive me crazy.
We can only keep voting, showing up and of course writing.
There's so many wonderful people I've come to know who are fighting , such as the people who make up the Lights Brigade, or my friends who stood with me protesting Stefanik and suffering abuse by our local *good ol" boys* - many of whom drove big trucks with assorted signage.
We stick together and try to be heard.
The people who engage in condoning Confederate flags etc can't be swayed. No use in wasting that energy.
It's maddening .
Thank you for this forum.
Displaying a Confederate flag is about irritating people. The irony is that the people who want to provoke with these rags and the FJB swag are the most easily upset little dumplings on the planet.
Epic fail on the MAGA mission statement of creating liberal tears on Friday. Only tears of joy at the continuance of Trump being subject to laws and justice.
Thank you, June. I could never have anticipated that giving you the flag I bought 2 yrs. ago at our downtown Peace March for Ukraine could/would bring comfort to a native Ukranian woman.
God bless you and all members of the North Country Light Brigade for lighting up my elder spirit this morning.
"There are two ways of spreading the light:
to be the candle...
or the mirror that reflects it." Edith Wharton
Thank you again, Will, for your continual attempt to explain history in order to bring consciousness...for your continual work in the newspaper, in different counties, and in your life against prejudice and hate....and also for your conclusion about who can be talked to, who can change with information, and what actions can and need to be done to restrain and restrict the harm and hatred of those who hold onto that hate, act on that prejudice. I think of the Jim Crow South...and their "laws" enforcing hate...the laws of our country.. Martin Luther Kind said, in one of his speeches, that we can't make people love other people, but we can have laws that restrain and protect people from harm, can create legislation that recognizes the rights of all, the dignity of all. Your honest voice and honest life are a blessing.
I’ve decided we are at the height of this response in this decade based mostly on fear. The world obviously has more brown people and “other” people and it threatens those who have limited resources to grow in understanding. You are right, we must not let their behaviors make us unsafe. But understanding more about why they act this way may moderate our response.
Have you followed up on the lives of your bullies? Could be interesting.
I lived in Mississippi in the 90’s and was shocked to see how many people were still flying the Confederate Battle flag. And then quickly realized that for some, the war wasn’t over, and that many people still believed that the war was about states rights and not slavery, or so they said, as they still held strong opinions about blacks being the lesser race.
Fast forward to 2011 when I moved to Washington County and imagine my disgust to see the Confederate Battle flag flying from peoples homes and vehicles. At this point in my life, I see it for what it is. Not ignorance but that person’s message to everyone, especially people of color, that they are a racist. Here is where I check my white privilege, I can look away, and not confront the individual or the meaning behind this message but some of my children of color cannot do the same and it sparks fear in their hearts when they see this flag. It also sends a message to them that they have to be hypervigilant as there are people that they know they can avoid but not everyone who is a racist or a white nationalist flys the Confederate Battle flag. As a community, every one of us who find this flag abhorrent, should be standing up and calling out the use of this flag. It does not belong in parades, at fairs or at any community gathering.
The confederate flag was carried by those that took up arms against the United States of America. It represents hate and slavery that many died fighting against. It has no place except on historic battlefields and museums. And those that took up arms against the US should not have public buildings or streets or schools named after them. In my opinion.
Whew.......there just seems to be no way out of this..... It's a solid wall, not even one made of brick that you might take down, one at a time over time.
There were a number of flags of the confederate states. The one we see today was only adopted near the end of the war when the South was well on the way to defeat. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America
Thank you, Will, for calling out the Confederate flag wavers. It isn't nostalgia, or history, or free speech. It is White Nationalism, unadorned. Racial hatred is not confined to the former Confederate States, but is very much alive and well everywhere. And Donald Trump has bestowed permission to subscribe to it. Next time you see that treasonous flag, check on whether the displayer has Trump signs to match. But it's the "Don't Tread on Me" flag that tells the true tale. These symbols appeal to a population that resents. Threatened by the bicoastal "elite," the well-educated, and especially "Other," they fear the coming demographic reversal. The flag is no accident. I love Hillary, but she NEVER should have coined "Deplorables."
It seems worth considering the sentence about middle school bullies. What is it that made them bullies? It wasn’t the sort of racism represented by the confederate flag, and in some ways those kids might have been given pause had you been black. Some number of them might have realized the wrongness of bullying the new kid if it appeared to be outright racism. (Do not get me wrong, having lived in small towns with few black people I have never known a black person who didn’t face blatant racism of the worst kind at some point from one kid or another) Bullying is racism adjacent, but not exactly racism itself. They often coexist but racism is complex. There are bullies of every color and ethnicity, but the urge to bully is more predatory, more of a herding behavior, to separate a member of the herd who stands out in some minute way (everyone stands apart in some way) and subject them to ridicule, embarrassment, shaming in order to subjugate the entire herd lest they become objects of derision.
It is a Darwinian small-mindedness that develops its own local culture and works like compound interest. Survival depends on fitting in. Moving to a small town automatically targets a child as an outsider. Being smarter, more talented, just different in some way becomes a danger and the vast majority of kids like them will move away to somewhere they feel more welcome and never come back to live in the small town. It becomes a regression to the least common small town denominator.
Of course adults are not kids, and they get better than their middle school selves but still there is a generational devolvement that they and we see as local culture.
So the kid taunting a classmate with the universal epithet of the ignorant “you think you’re so smart” becomes the local color, the pillar of the community, the volunteer fire chief, the town trustee. He doesn’t see himself as racist. He will tell you as much.
“There was never any prejudice on my side. Never have. I was in the military. I was around Black guys. You know. We all carried each other,” Dupree said. “We don’t have the colored much here. But I’ve never seen one that wasn’t welcome. … I’m not one of those guys. Nobody is a racist in my family, my shop, nothing.”
And so those who don’t feel welcome by the culture stay away. “We don’t have the colored much here. But I’ve never seen one that wasn’t welcome.”