A Quote by Shelby Steele
I do not like the Confederate flag. It excludes me, profoundly. And if many good people fought honorably to defend it, I still experience the sight of it as a little racial aggression against me.
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The Confederate flag was the flag of the American South during the civil war. It was the flag of people who were fighting against their own government in an attempt to retain slavery. It was the flag of people who thought slavery was no problem, who thought slavery was a good thing.
For the average person, 98 percent of those who fought in the Civil War, they did not own slaves. They were simply answering the call, and in this case many, many young men - 17, 18 years old - coming in to defend what they saw as a federal invasion of Virginia, and they fought honorably.
I've done so many unpredictable things and so profoundly. Even the people who want to go against me, are afraid to go against me. They've been wrong so many times. A lot of them are just being mum right now. They must feel I can still do things.
We have, for generations, been trying to be more inclusive of the word Southern. And a symbol like the confederate flag indicates white only are allowed into that world. And removing the Confederate flag from public view to the pages of history is long overdue.
For me, the things like the Confederate flag - I just don't think that it does anybody much good, and it certainly causes a lot of people a lot of pain.
[Confederate flag] it's a symbol of racial hatred.
The only argument you can make against having Confederate flag as spectacularly shown as it is around the south is the Nazis. I mean, it would be like having the swastika flag...
What surprises me is-even though discrimination against women and racial discrimination still exist, they have improved a lot, especially among artists. And just when I felt I could finally take a break, I encounter the age discrimination. I turned 72 and started noticing a drastic difference in people's attitudes. I started with racism and sexism in the beginning and fought them so hard and was finally ready to relax. Then, here comes ageism, and I feel like, "Give me a break!"
I think the ties to slavery and the terrible tragedy that followed the Civil War with Jim Crow and racial violence is closely linked to the Confederate flag.
The last couple of years have been a good learning experience for me and a good journey. My first world title fight I fought Erik Morales and how much experience do you think you can get from that? A lot of people thought he would beat me because of experience. I've faced a lot of experienced fighters.
However, displayed right alongside all the Confederate flag paraphernalia is a bunch of American flag merch – American flag place mats, patriotic “body crystals,” flag stickers you attach to your skin. Personally, I’m small-minded and literal enough that I see the two symbols as contradictory, especially in a time of war. But I fear that the consumer who buys a Confederate flag coffee cup, which she will then put on her American flag place mat, is the sort of sophisticated thinker who is open-minded enough that she is capable of hating blacks and Arabs at the same time.
I heard someone say that concern over the [Confederate] Flag is sensitivity to micro-aggressions, to which my response is to say that kidnapping and enslaving people, breaking up families, terrorizing families, if that's not a macro-aggression, I don't know what is.
South Carolina, as a matter of compromise, displays the Confederate flag on a flagpole in front of the state capitol. Because I grew up in the South and believe that the Confederate flag is a very divisive symbol, I have stated publicly a number of times that I believe that South Carolina should remove the flag from the state capitol grounds.
Germany has spent the decades since World War II in national penance for Nazi crimes. America spent the decades after the Civil War transforming Confederate crimes into virtues. It is illegal to fly the Nazi flag in Germany. The Confederate flag is enmeshed in the state flag of Mississippi.
I believe that the flag of the Confederate States of America is a painful symbol and reminder of racial injustice and slavery which Abraham Lincoln denounced from here over 150 years ago.
In South Carolina, the Confederate flag flies high on countless flagpoles. Those who defend this practice by saying it is part of Southern culture are lying to themselves.
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