One more place racist garbage is no longer welcome

Check this out:
www.superflycircus.blogspot.com/2013/02/...nd-against-hate.html

I know many of you view me as a dirtbag, but this can at least illustrate that once in a blue moon I may have some merit.

BGG has banned the confederate battle flag microbadge. I even did so using a Jubal Early (Firefly, not Confederate) quote.

I wonder if there is a red cross micro-badge. That could be offensive to Muslims and Middle Easterners.

I wonder if there is a Viking symbol micro-badge as that may be offensive to people of non-Norman ancestry in Northern Europe.

I wonder is there is a B-17 micro-badge and how that makes the people of Germany feel?

I appreciate your sentiments, Pete, but if your logic is applied equally then there is nobody, no race, no creed, that can't cite being offended by some symbol. Censorship is censorship. Freedom of expression is more valuable than the "right" to not be offended.

If a guy puts up a Nazi symbol, or a rebel symbol, or a commie symbol, I may not like it but it gives me insight into who and what he is.

I'm glad that you did this, and surprised that BGG took you seriously on this issue after banning you on multiple occasions.

However, I have always found the Confederate flag to be objectionable, and not just recently due to appropriation by racist groups. People today like to say that the Civil War was about states' rights and not slavery, but that's because they have forgotten (or never knew) about the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850. Both Compromises were congressional bills passed to mandate how new states would be admitted as either free states or slave states. It's clear that the southerners were very concerned about one specific right, the right to own slaves. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America refers to slaves or slavery at least ten times.

Shouldn't this thread be titled "One more place racist garbage is no longer welcome" or "One less place racist garbage is welcome"?

Most people who use the Confederate flag as a symbol often claim "heritage" and "history" as reasons but there's always a wink and a nod about its loaded meaning. It's a lot like the guy who wants to study Swastikas and SS Uniforms, or "88" tattoos, but claim he's just a "fan of history."

I'm all for free speech, and I'm a southern boy through and through, but I won't weep to see good ol' boys forced to fly the flag elsewhere.

Jeff, this isn't any of those situations. This is a singular situation. The same reason you can't yell FIRE in a crowded theater is the same reason that you can't put up a confederate flag.

You're looking at really stupid arguments, which is very unlike you. A B-27 isn't emblematic of a firebombing of Dresden, it's emblematic of an airplane. There's no deep-seated history there. And it's not one or two people being offended, it's an entire culture, in this case. Maybe you don't know a lot of black folks, I can't say that, but I do. My city is populated by more minorities than Caucasians, in fact. And I can tell you without a doubt, when a redneck has a rebel flag on his truck, he's not displaying it to show how educated he is on Constitutional theory, he's got it there to loudly, and legally, claim, "The only good nigger is a dead nigger." The way I see it, if you enslave an entire population, then let them free with provisos, and then only 40 years or so ago actually accept that they're not "2/3 a person" or lesser beings, the least courtesy you can afford them is to not slap them in the face with a symbol of the ideology that TO THIS DAY causes problems nationwide.

Remember also that the 1st Amendment only applies to government interfering with free expression, not a private business' allowance or censorship of something that is found offensive. So, I'm all in favor of a private citizen or entity shutting down the use of a symbol that, in virtually all cases, is a symbol of hatred and racism.

In the end, anything that keeps Al Sharpton off the TV is a good thing.

Speaking as a fellow southerner (and a southerner proud of much of our cultural heritage and tradition excluding anything to do with slavery and the Civil War), Ken is 100% right on the money. The confederate flag has become an out-in-the-open rallying point for racists. It's like these rednecks that bitch about "political correctness"- what they really mean to say is "why can't we say n- in public".

There's TONS of veiled racism in right wing,fringe conservative ideology. The confederate flag is one such example. It's the same kind of thing like when you're around just racist white people and they "confide" with you as a fellow white person. They take on this "well, you know, it's because he was (whisper) black" tone. It still goes on today. Don't think for a moment that it doesn't.

I'm always suspicious of war gamers, black metal fans, "fans of history" or whatever that act like stuff like the confederate flag, SS insignias, or whatever are OK and should be covered under "free speech".

I would be willing to bet that a sampling of confederate badge holders at BGG would reveal lots of extreme right-wing politics and closet racists. No doubt in my mind.

When you see people with Confederate flag emblems on their trucks in northern Idaho and backwoods Iowa, you know it's not about the South anymore.

Savor it: Pete, you are totally right and this was really awesome of you!

(also thumbs up for not calling any of those racists "cunts"!)

This guy wrote a nice little piece on the phenomenon of semiotics:


xroads.virginia.edu/~class/am483_97/projects/sarratt/intro.html