Question Home

Position:Home>History> What is it about the Confederate flag that makes African Americans feel threaten


Question: What is it about the Confederate flag that makes African Americans feel threatened!?
I never understand how people can feel threatened by something as simple as a flag that is a Christian cross symbol!.

Only people that have sin in their hearts should feel threatened by the Confederate flag!. It's not like a little flag is going to suddenly make Blacks slaves again or at least I don't see it happening soon!.

Jesus died for your sins so please don't feel threatened by his Cross on our beautiful Confederate flag:)Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Simply put it is a combination of factors!.

First is the reality that the Confederacy lost the American War of the Eighteen Sixties!. Due to that there are those who find it easy to deride the confederacy through this singular symbol!.

Secondly, it is a misunderstanding of what the flag means and which flag is being discussed!. There is the National flag (actually three different variations) as well as State Flags and Battle Flags!. Usually it is the Battle flag which is displayed and this is also the one which those who object select!. This selection is an error in that this flag represented the fighting individual (including by the way 50,000 colored confederate troops) and not the policies of the Confederacy!.

Political correctness is another area in which individuals use these flags for motivations which have nothing to do with what occurred during the war!. That is, the applying of concepts of these times to those of a very different time and circumstance!. This is neither reasonable nor historically accurate!.

What has occurred, and is occurring, is the using of the people of another time to enter into political debates and fights of the current times!. However, this can be put into reality by considering the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg!. Here the surviving veterans of both sides of this battle camped and walked the battle field with all of its terrible memories!. On the last day these old veterans were to reenact Picket’s bloody charge!. The Union men lined up behind the stone wall and the Confederates (for the last time) made the Confederate battle yell and began the charge!.

This must have brought back to all of these men memories that we, today, will never understand because as the Confederates charged a moan came from the Union soldiers and they rose up and came down into the field to meet these confederates and would not let them complete the charge!. These men (both sides) understood the price these old soldiers paid and they understood what they (and yes their flags) actually represented and they knew that all prices had been paid in the blood of those fields!. That all of that war was paid with the deaths of over 660,000 men!.

For anyone today to try and make political advantage from any of the symbols of that war is disrespectful for all of those who fought on both sides!.
Www@QuestionHome@Com

first of all, the Christian cross is a vertical and horizontal line, not two diagonal lines!.
second of all the confederate flag is a symbol or hate, intolerance, and oppression!. i dont think people feel so much threatened as they do disgusted or disappointed, especially since out of all the culture that has originated from the south, people choose to relate to the confederate flag!. think of it this way, how would people have felt if Germany kept the Nazi flag after World War Two!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Sin in the heart has nothing to do with it!. If someone is waving and glorifying a flag that stood for a society that enslaved millions of people, it's not hard to see why many people, especially descendants of the enslaved, would take offense!. What IS puzzling is why someone can't fathom that!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

That is a Good Question! in answer to that, let me give you some words of Wisdom as follows : If you Hold onto your Past Long Enough and Hard Enough, It Will Become You FUTURE!!! Enough already with the Everybody Owes Me Something Bull Crap! Let go of the Past and Learn hoe to Bring Something Positive to Your Future! I am white Anglo Caucasian!. My ancestors were SLAVES TOO!! The difference is that I do not try to Hide Behind Bigotry----- I have let go of the Past and am working Toward the Future in a Positive Manner!. The Only thing that be done about the Past is To " Learn " from it and Not make the Same Mistakes Today!Www@QuestionHome@Com

One side of my family were Viriginians at the outbreak of the Civil War (I'm white), and I think the Confederate flag is disgusting!. While states' rights was the issues, the reason states' rights was the issue was because the South fought to keep and spread slavery!. There is nothing Christian about lobbying and fighting to keep the right to own other people--it's barbaric!. I'm also a Christian!.

I'm proud that I can call myself a member of the First Families of Virginia, but I am not proud of the slave heritage of the South!. If you wear or display the Confederate flag, it's like spitting on the American flag as far as I'm concerned!.

I hope you are a troll!. You really need to read up on history and get a clue as to what slavery really means!. And while you are at it, please read up on the Jim Crow laws that oppressed the blacks in the South for that much longer!. These were made and propagated by those who cherish the Confederate flag!.

"Why can't people move on and realize that slavery was a necessary evil to bring Africans to a better life than they would have had in Africa!."

I can't believe you said this!. Africans were not forcibly removed from their homes, transported on death ships, ripped apart from their families in order to get them here for slave labor, not to make a "better life!." The ones who lived arrived at slave ports like New Orleans (the worst) and Charleston, where they were hosed off and deloused in large pens like cattle, then stripped nearly naked for an auction to sell them!. That's how the great majority of them arrived in first the colonies and then the US!.

They had no possessions, were not able to learn to read (in case they became "uppity"), and most were forced into back-breaking work that killed many very early in their lives!. They could get "married," but the families could be torn apart at any time, and their children were the masters' property, not their own children!. The women were sometimes raped by whites and probably by other blacks, with no recourse!.

That Christians excuse this abomination is horrible!. We should all be ashamed, even if some slaves were "well-treated" (they were sitll slaves) and if other areas of the New World were worse (Brazil)!.

BTW the Iron Cross was adopted by Hitler!. Care to be in that company!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

It may be a Christian symbol, but it was also the flag of the confederacy - which tried very hard to perpetuate slavery!.

THAT'S what they object to, not the Christianity of the symbol!.

You could argue that the Swastika is a variation of the cross!. Does the fact that it has a cross in it mean we should cherish it!?

Does EVERYTHING with a cross in it deserve being revered!?

The Civil War was a very complicated event, and certainly slavery was only one of many issues bound up in it - but the fact remains that millions of modern Americans are descended from people who were slaves that were freed as a direct result of defeating the country with that flag!. Bringing that flag back represents (to them) a return to slavery, or at least seems to say that the years of the confederacy were "the good old days" - and of course, they were not the good old days for the slave population!.

You may think of that flag a sign of Southern Civility and it may make you think of the grand old south - they think of being whipped, raped, sold and slaughtered!.

I do not think it is being overly politically correct to be sensitive to that!. Unless, of course, you want them to return to slavery!.

And if you do, you're not going to get much sympathy here!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

it's not about the flag, everyone knows this!
it is about what it means, what it stands for!. it stands for the south, and as everyone in the worls knows: the south is known for slavery!.
so when you look at the flag, you think of slavery, suffering, inhumannity!.

also you said "It's not like a little flag is going to suddenly make Blacks slaves again or at least I don't see it happening soon", dude! it's about the past, its a reminder of slavery, just because it might not happen again dosnt mean people should just forget about all of the bad things that happend, you can't say "move on, it's over, who cares if your ancestors where tortured"Www@QuestionHome@Com