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The Confederate Flag

This image holds a lot of emotions and different outlooks on it. What do you think of when you see the flag above? What message do you think it sends? Racism? Slavery? Hatred? White Supremacy? I honestly feel people are so quick to judge and just assume what this flag means with out doing the research on it. I am not going to lie me moving to georgia in seventh grad and not knowing much I thought every one that had this flag on there shirt or truck were racists. But now me being older and all I can understand things better and I understand that a lot of people have these flags on a belt buckle or truck because they have a lot of pride from where they are from and shows their heritage. But on that note there are ways you should not display this flag and in doing so can turn the whole meaning of this flag around and turn it into the negative way which a lot of people have towards it. 

The Confederate Flag is not racist because it did not represent slavery. No slave ship ever sailed under the rebel flag. They sailed under the American Flag actually. The Confederate flag (rebel flag) represents heritage, not hate. It is true that racists have used the flag as their symbol, in hate crimes or like I said they displayed it in a racism manner, but the actions of few should not represent this flag as being a racism symbol. If you want to say because of the idea of slavery being behind the Confederate that the flag itself is racist than that is fine, but by the same logic that makes the American flag the most racists symbol ever because behind it is the idea that killing Native Americans is okay, nuking cities that have Japanese civilians is okay, and that declaring war upon peaceful nations is okay.

To me this flag is ok to have pride in, and if people have a problem with it they should sit in a history class again and actually learn their stuff before they judge some one else for what they believe in. When I look at this flag I see thirteen stars which stands for the thirteen colonies, and I see red white and blue. If this flag actually represented slavery, hatred, white suprimacy, or something worse, as so many biased and uneducated people so foolishly believe, then its design would reflect that by incorporating images of those whom it stood against in my opinion. Believe what you believe but please make sure you do your research on the topic before you speak out makes you look stupid. Me not being born in the south and kinda looking at it from my side and reading thru history that is my opinion. Crazy how one image and start a full blown argument, that really shows you how strong certain images are when it comes down to advertising and all of that. You can read up on the civil war on this website http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Confederate_Flag.htm