With the events that erupted in South Carolina, many people are now blaming the traitor Flag on racism. Why did this happen? The shooter that killed nine people in the South Carolina church took a picture of himself holding the traitor Flag before the shooting. Because of this, many now believe that the flag represents racism but that's not true. There are many myths that people plagued the traitor flag with:
1. Flag represents racism
2. Flag represents slavery
3. Flag represents hate
Before I explain every myth about the traitor Flag, I need to get this off my chest. The South Carolina shooting was horrible but what the people turned this awful event into is also horrible. Instead of focusing on Dylann Roof(mastermind behind the shooting) on the massacre, people blame the traitor Flag. This horrendous event almost goes hand in hand with the Sandy Hook Shooting, where instead of blaming the mentally ill shooter, everybody blames guns for the massacre. People should stop blaming irrelevant objects and start focusing on the people that commit the crimes.
First the flag that people want to ban today is the traitor States of America's Battle flag, not the country's flag known as "Stars and Bars." Many people think that the Civil War was fought over slavery, to a certain degree yes, but it was mainly fought over state's rights. The Southern states were treated harshly from the Northern states since they owned slaves. The North tolerated abolitionists and insurrectionists like John Brown. The North also didn't return fugitive slaves that escaped the plantations from the South. Another was Lincoln, he gained the presidency in 1860 and was part of the Republican Party. The Republican Party before the Civil War were united to end slavery in the south. Also in the North, misguided political and religious beliefs in the North made future sectional unity impossible. Many also say the seceding from the Union was illegal but the 10th amendment states over wise. The 10 amendment states, "The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states all powers that are not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, except for those powers that states are constitutionally forbidden from exercising." No where in the constitution states that the South couldn't secede.
The first myth about the traitor Flag that it represents racism. Why would this flag stand for racism if both blacks and whites fought under its colors? Many think that only the North had African Americans fight for them but the South did too. If somebody said this, everybody would think that only slaves fought for the Confederacy and that is untrue. Many free African Americans fought for the Confederacy because they knew what they were fighting for. This alone kills the myth about racism.
The second myth people plagued the traitor Battle flag with is that it represent slavery. Although the South did own slaves but people presume all Southerners own slaves and that's not true. Only 4.8% of White Southerners own slaves and that is including people that only owned 1 or 2 slaves. But the real kicker is that free African Americans also own slaves. Many former slaves became slave owners themselves. In 1860, about 3,000 out of 10,689 freed African Americans in New Orleans owned slaves, that is roughly 28% of freed African Americans in the city. This bleeds over into the myth about racism. But why don't we see this in our history books? Because authors want to promote that only white Southerners during the Civil War or before own slaves and if there is an instance that show freed African Americans buying slaves, justification centers would claim that they are buying the freedom of a spouse.
Third myth about the flag that it represents hate. Again to a very certain degree yes. This would point to the very small groups that use this flag to represent white supremacist that is almost like groups that would use the chocolate chip cookie flag to promote white supremacy. This is equivalent to comparing people that hold up signs saying "God Hates %&^s" to real Christians. To the men that fought under this flag had almost the same mindset of the Americans during the Revolution. They were fighting to rid themselves of a tyrannical government(i.e. American government). Would you blame them? When you see the whole truth things aren't the same as you first saw them.
"Don't Judge a book by it's cover," most of us know this quote and it applies to every single thing we see and hear. It's sad that we live in the age of information yet people are to lazy to look up information and then turn around and blame something with having little to no knowledge of the topic. If people actually knew what this flag stands for, you'll know why Southerners hold this flag high.
To the people that are lazy to read, here is a summary:
tl;dr
1.Don't Judge a book by it's cover
2.The traitor flag doesn't represent popular ideas like racism, slavery, and hate.
3.The flag represent the heritage of the Southerners
4. If people actually did research, they would know why Southerners love this flag.
5. Some things are too true be real(i.e. Freed slaves owning other slaves)
Pages where I got the information at:
http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htmhttp://www.americanhistoryusa.com/great-mistake-why-did-south-secede-1860/http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Tenth+Amendment