I grew up in a city where the local football team was called the Rebels, and the confederate flag was flown everywhere- it could be seen paraded down the drag in an impressive array of sizes. The confederate flags were brought to games to cheer on the (mostly black) team, and most denizens had stickers on their car with the flag-- as much a signal of support for the team as animosity toward the cross town rivals. The stereotypes of the schools seemed to self-fulfill: Lee's support being the jean and work-boot wearing kids and the rival being the typical jock set.

In 4th grade I went to Tennessee and I bought a tie-dyed confederate flag t-shirt to wear to games. That summer, I went to camp and, as any reasonable kid might, otherwise lacking the mandatory red, white, and blue attire, I put on my tie-dyed t-shirt.

That got some looks. The fact that I made it through almost the whole day is problematic on an unfortunate number of levels. An older black friend of mine questioned me about it, and after I assured him I had no idea I was bearing a racist symbol he told me why the flag was offensive- I changed.

I really did grow up not knowing that the confederate flag was a negative symbol. Any child who had to explain why they would want to bear the symbol could see the horrific callousness of any words they said in answer.

As for it being a symbol of Southern Pride- I never understood it. A lot of people say it's about history... given the short duration of settlement and frequent intrastate immigration and emigration, just how strong is any person's link to the South? This isn't Bosnia and Serbia. I always thought one of the great things about America was the historylessness of the individuals. State. regional, and even national identifications are kinds of self-deluding jokes.

"Are you proud to be from Texas? Are you proud to be from the South? Are you proud to be from America?" Who would answer no? How about the question, "Is it worth creating an idea of yourself around any of these regional qualities? If so, why?" An affirmative response to the former without considering the latter: that's what Southern Pride is. The latter is the question I hope enough Southerners, Northerners, Americans, Texans, etc, will ask themselves to end American regional pride. Hopefully the fact that being born in a certain area is not a virtue will dawn on some people. If there can't be a greater unity to such a shallow divide- places with 'real' (read: long) regional conflicts like the Balkans are doomed.

A lot of people say that the South or America stands for somethings; some vague qualities. Given the flux of our collective ethos in our brief histories, I'd hope everyone can see that grasping at a regional identity is reaching into the flowing stream and saying you've caught it.

What it is to be an American or Southerner will continue to evolve, and those that cling to the dead vestiges of 'history' will stay mechanically ingrained, while the rest of the world will hopefully move on to better identifications.

As a public figure, Huckabee does damage to the idea of states rights, by showing us how greater state rights can lead to protecting racists. Thanks.

Excellent post.

I'd note you don't hear much about "northern pride" these days like you do "southern pride". Or how the North will rise again. But still good points.

"n older black friend of mine questioned me about it, a"

So you admit that you had to be reprogramed to consider it racist.

And you somehow don't realize it?

Reprogrammed? Try educated. I do realize the big change in my perspective- my childhood ignorant bliss wasn't an innocuous vestige of innocence, but an unfortunate result of growing up in prevalent racism. Knowing my town, I know the flag means racism much more than southern pride, as west Texas' ties to the South are tenuous at best. My black friend wasn't there to reprogram me, he gave me some information I had never heard before- I decided on my own later that the flag was an undisputed racist emblem.

ryanlindy- Thank you for the thoughtful post. It is not easy to admit that we and those we love have been swept up in the regrettable tendency to forge an identity at the expense of greater values. I know for my part i have said and done stupid things trying to fit into either my town or my college. And they were contradictory things. On the one hand, I have put on regional bigotries (among them, anti-Southern-ism and blatant racism) to try to fit into small-town Massachusetts. On the other, I have practiced knee-jerk liberalism and class-ism in the name of making it at an elitist school. Thank God for growing older and getting braver in one's assessment of oneself.

San- try asking yourself "why" and coming up with some real conclusions. I am interested to hear your perspective, and I am not saying you need re-programming. Exposing your values to the light of day and to real internal debate as often galvanizes them and adds nuance as it does "reprogram" them. Your venom is growing tiresome.

Sorry, I meant "ryanlindly"

The Southern attachment to the battle flag is precisely that --- it was a battle flag in a war that was fought between two regions of the nation and our region lost.   One way to deal with that loss was to cling to the symbols.  Ironically, both segregationist fervor and clinging to the flag, while not one and the same thing, increased largely due to the North's failure to stick around to make sure Reconstruction actually took and perhaps lessen Southern white resentment.  In Plessy v. Ferguson, the only rational justice and one who wrote a classic dissent was a Southerner who fully understood what was at stake.  He was a unionist during the war, but he was still a Southerner and he fully understood the effect.

But on your main point --- that, gee, we're all a bunch of nomads and why don't we just all get along? --- nonsense.  In many areas of the country, and perhaps particularly in the South, while movement between those areas has always been a constant, there are many people whose families have always been in one area.  This occurs in New England, in the Midwest, and yes, in the South.  My folks started out in the Carolinas and in Virginia and made their way through both the upper and lower South to get here just across the Mississippi 150 - 100 years ago, and we've been in the South for almost 400 years now.  When I discovered one branch of my family came down to Georgia around 1800 from New Hampshire, I was surprised to find that I was actually a bit shocked.  In current times, my generation has married a Texan, someone from Ohio, and someone (my wife) originally from Mexico and raised in Illinois so I suppose our ratio is only 1/3 Southern, but even in my age range, the most common experience for most Southerners is a very stable sense of place and of belonging.  We're not as mobile as you think in the South and I suspect elsewhere in the nation.  I'm about as liberal as they come and Dr. King has always been one of my heroes, but I'm also still very much a Southerner;  I honor Justice Harlan, but one of my other main heroes has always been Robert E. Lee.  It may seem a bit odd, but many folks I know feel the same way.  We somehow manage to hate the racism that has marred our history and yet take pride in our basic culture and honor those both white and black who accepted the results of the war and of simple justice even if they felt compelled to wear gray between 1861--- 1865.

Anyway, family ties tend to go back a bit down here, and I suspect in some other parts of the nation, it's much the same.

You missed my main point (it's not that we're nomads) and it isn't nonsense. Who wouldn't want a reflective view of the past you seem to have? I don't think and didn't posit that we should all just get along. To the extent that there is a rational interest individuals have in promoting their region, such as economic, they should do so- and this might might involve confrontations and disagreements. However, I do think if everyone were more reflective about 'pride' about being from a certain region people would benefit for it. Too many times regional pride is more like choosing a sports team than reflecting and acknowledging history.

While the 400 years of people sharing similar genes as yourself living in parts of the South seems meaningful, I think it's a little self indulgent to feel such a connection considering the last 50,000 years. I don't think people in the South are any more or less likely to move than anywhere else- every region should be more critical of regional prejudices. Anyhow, as American identity goes through the impending changes due to immigration and globalization, I hope regional identities fade, and coddling symbols of them.

People will still have different rational interests in different regions, but hopefully they won't be accompanied by all the prejudice and historical baggage tied to traditional regional identities. Not to prevent confrontations, but to hopefully make it so that the confrontations are not caught up in a group's meaningless identity.

If one person considers something racist, does that make it so?

Can the person who says, "I don't think this is racist" not equally be right? I mean, they are the person who knows the intention behind their actions.

Doesn't intention matter more than symbolism? A word is just a word and a flag is just a flag until someone uses it to purposefully hurt another pereson.

Are the only correct people the ones who are offended? I don't think you all want to know what all I think is offensive!

I grew up in Texas. When I was a boy, they used to sell postcards all over the South showing a cartoon of a aged Confederate soldier with a long white beard waving a Confederate flag, with the caption: "Save your Confederate money boys, the South will rise again!" He was a ridiculous figure, the whole question is ridiculous: We are living in the 21st Century, not the 19th!

One thing to remember about the South: It is the Bible Belt. Doesn't anyone read the Good Book anymore? Show me where the Bible says anything good about pride. The Bible says plainly that pride is a sin. How can proud to be a Southerner? It doesn't make any sense. I deserve absolutely no credit for being born in the South, and just as little for the deeds of my ancestors. If I were to claim such credit, I would have to accept the blame for their evil deeds as well, and who wants that? I want to be judged by my own deeds, not someone else's.

faust, if you want to be judged for your own actions, and not others, how can anyone defend affirmative action? MLK wanted to be judged by the content of his heart and NOT the color of his skin, yet affirmative action does the exact OPPOSITE of his wishes, that is judging people by the color of their skin and the actions of others....isn't that hypocritical?

Damn are you retarded. You've asked this question time and again. Any number of people have explained it to you. You might not agree with the explanation in the end, but can't you fucking let it go.

Here's a clue. If Obama was Steve and he was white and not black, Democratic Party people would be like, "Hillary who?"

a simple "YES" would suffice......

So far as I can tell, affirmative action is about redressing present injustices, not those of the distant past. While it is wrong, as a general thing, to judge people by skin color, if someone has suffered from prejudice because of his race, you can't ignore that.

why oh why is it so hard for people to ADMIT that it is discrimination? why is that? if you choose one race over another, its discrimination, if you choose one sex over another, its discrimination, and yet to choose ALL over ONE GENDER/RACE is, according to the elites, not discrimination...talk about shades of 1984 doublespeak,,are you all crazy? does 2+2=4 only if it fits into your social agenda? define hypocrisy, and discrimination..look them up, how can you deny their meaning? or do you wish to change their definitions to make them less of the exact thing you wish to eliminate....