A Confederate Flag still flies over Louisiana city courthouse

[Le Libérer]

Source (http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20110504/NEWS01/105040321/NAACP-wants-Confederate-flag-removed-Caddo-Courthouse)

The NAACP, joined by a coalition of civil rights leaders, is calling for the Confederate flag that flies in front of the Caddo Parish Courthouse to be taken down immediately.

Lloyd Thompson, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, and the group, including members of the American Civil Liberties Union, stood on the courthouse lawn Tuesday arguing that the flag symbolizes glorified racism and prejudice.

Harvard University Professor Charles Olgetree Jr. questioned how a symbol of injustice can highlight the outside of a building where justice is served.

The gathering preceded a town hall discussion at Lake Bethlehem Baptist Church about the death penalty where Olgetree and others continued on the subject of the courthouse flag.

"What does this tell us in the 21st century if it looks the same as it did during the period of slavery?" asked Ogletree who also is founder of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

"This is a constant reminder of the incomprehensive past. Not only at this courthouse, but there is no place for a Confederate flag anywhere in the United States. I hope today will be the first step in a relentless struggle to bring Louisiana up to justice."

The flag has flown in front of the courthouse since 1951. It was raised on private property during a protest of a Civil Rights movement and flies beside a Confederate monument. The monument was put in place in 1903 to honor Caddo Parish as the final stance of the Louisiana confederacy.

The Confederate flag outside the courthouse is the subject of a hearing before the Louisiana Supreme Court on May 9. Attorney Anna Arceneaux, with the ACLU, will ask the high court to remove it. Arceneaux says the flag poses a risk that criminal justice cannot be fairly administered inside of the courthouse, particularly in death penalty cases.

The attorney, a Shreveport native, represents a potential juror in the May 2009 murder trial of Felton Dorsey. During jury selection, Shreveport resident Carl Staples allegedly was struck by the prosecution after Staples expressed his thoughts on the Confederate flag being near the courthouse.

[Le Libérer]

The crazy thing about all this is, in the 1860s the confederate flag was taken down. But in the 60s the Daughters who own a small plot of land in front of the courthouse, raised it back up in protest of the civil rights movement. There has been several court cases attempting to have it removed, but being on private property, its been over ruled each time.

Of course these "daughters" are the affluent families who have lived in that city for years and years and who owned all most of the land and companies.

I am hoping this court case will be different than the others, of course. And maybe the angle the ACLU attourny is taking in the higher courts will be the end of it.

I will say this, it was quite an accomplishment when the present African American Mayor won over a white candidate. It practically froze over in the middle of a scorcher summer.

[Red Commissar]

If they won't complain about the NAACP and ACLU being "politically correct", they'll start opting for the whole "heritage" angle. It would be good to see it go down and stay down.

(also I don't mean to be an ass but you misspelled "Flag" in the thread title)

[Le Libérer]

If they won't complain about the NAACP and ACLU being "politically correct", they'll start opting for the whole "heritage" angle. It would be good to see it go down and stay down.

(also I don't mean to be an ass but you misspelled "Flag" in the thread title)

You are correct. I posted this story on my facebook page and you should see some of the "heritage" comments. For example:

Heritage is simply a matter of birth and family. I don't hear Ann outcry about African Flags being flown on private property. Were not the slaves captured in Africa, auctioned off by Africans and arabians to the dutch, and others including Yankee traders. Some were sold to southern plantation owners.
Might want to consider freedom of speech, rights. I know another property that fly's a flag that flew over another slave trading country. Do you want that flag removed also.

How many slaves were sold or traded while the GAS, was in existance?

One of my favorite quotes by a friend is

Funny how some of the same White Southerners who say that "Blacks need to get over the fact that their ancestors were slaves". can't get over the fact that their OWN ancestors lost the Civil War!

[Revolutionair]

How many slaves were sold or traded while the GAS, was in existance?

Just a random question, what does GAS mean?

[☭The Revolution☭]

Governmental Asshole Society.

[Dr Mindbender]

sorry for asking, as a ignorant british isleser but is the confederate flag still seen as offensive, as say the swastika?

It seems as stupid as white south africans still trying to fly the apartheid era flag. Both symbols are redundant, and as far as i know, no proactive initiative exists to reinstate slavery or the confederate states whereas nazis are still politically active.

Not that im sticking up for the racists but I always thought the confederate flag was a popular symbol in contemporary american culture and iconography.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5XaVUGMk9Wo/TaSOoi07V_I/AAAAAAAAD9Q/vriJ3gQqG50/s400/08.jpg

[Le Libérer]

Racism, lynching, slavery, segregation: all a significant part of the history of the South. So perhaps southern states should be memoralizing those aspects of the history, not the fact southern states once tried to unsuccessfuly tried to secede from the United States. The flag represents all of the above to most people. Not a Proud Heritage, and part of the Myths of the Southern Heritage that the South would like claim as a part of its history.

The confederate flag is flown all over the south. I see it waving proudly on flagpoles in private yards. On the flag at the courthouse. In the back windows, and on bumbers of cars all over the road.

To quote again;

I have never met anyone who waves this flag, and stands behind the symbol, that is not a terrible racist, and bigot. When I see the flag, it doesnt represent anything good. Unless you count, automatically knowing if some one is racist by their bumper, as good.

And yes, I would say it equals the swastika in every way.

[tachosomoza]

http://www.civilwarhome.com/lostcause.htm


The Civil War Centennial, more a Northern than a Southern celebration, did little to reverse the decline of interest in the Lost Cause or to reshape its definition. Rather, the centennial further demonstrated the increasing commercialization and trivialization of the memory of the war. During the civil rights revolt of the l950s and l960s, many white Southerners did revive the use of Confederate symbols, especially the Confederate flag and "Dixie," in behalf of segregation and white supremacy. They thereby did much to reverse what the turn-of-the-century Confederate celebration had done to render them symbols of honor and loyalty to country. In the 1980s continued display of the Confederate flag exacerbated tensions between white and black Southerners. By then blacks who objected to Confederate symbols as an assertion of white supremacy probably reacted more to the battles of the l960s than to those of the 1860s. But with few exceptions, black Southerners had never participated in or embraced the Lost Cause. For them the Civil War brought not defeat but deliverance from slavery They gloried not in Confederate legions but in their ancestors participation in a Union army that brought emancipation, which many black communities after the war, and into the present, celebrated on January 1, June 19, or various other dates.
These conflicts over Confederate symbols exposed, more than anything else, the nations failure to establish a biracial society after it emancipated the slaves, but they also revealed that the Civil War remained important for some Southerners. Even in the 1970s and 1980s, many people, not just Southerners, reenacted Civil War battles. The Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans persisted; many of their members continued to interpret the war much as the SHS had. But only a small minority of Southerners participated in reenactments or descendants organizations; for the majority, Confederate symbols and evocations of the Lost Cause had little fixed meaning and little clear relationship to the issues that motivated Confederates from 1861 through 1865. When a neoconservative Harvard student flew the Confederate flag out her window to challenge liberal calls for cultural diversity on campus; when a country-music singer bragged that if the South had won the war, murderers would be hanged and the day Elvis Presley died would be a national holiday; and when an advertisement for an Atlanta hotel featured William Tecumseh Sherman's picture and told patrons "Say Sherman sent you" to receive a discount, then defining any specific ideological or cultural content to the Lost Cause became difficult, if not futile.
Moreover, in the 1980s most white Southerners displayed limited knowledge of or interest in the history of the Civil War. One survey found that just 39 percent of white Southerners claimed to have had an ancestor in the Confederate army; another 37 percent did not know if their ancestors had fought or not. Only 30 percent of the same respondents admitted they had a great deal of interest in the Southern history, though another 51 percent claimed to have some interest.
By the 1990s the memory of the Civil War had not totally disappeared from Southern culture, but certainly the specificity and power of the Lost Cause had dramatically declined.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Why these White nationalist neo-confederate losers still try to pull this sort of bullshit is beyond me.

Seriously,there needs to be like an educational seminar on the evils of this flag.

[tachosomoza]

Why these White nationalist neo-confederate losers still try to pull this sort of bullshit is beyond me.

Seriously,there needs to be like an educational seminar on the evils of this flag.

That'll have a big turnout down in Dixie. :lol:

[ar734]

It is still a very popular symbol. I think the flag has undergone a process of "encoding." The flag is a kind of code word for racism, the same way that "welfare mother," "rapist," etc. are used as code words. The currently accepted code word is "heritage." Everybody knows what it means without being forced to use explicit racist language.

They don't even have to explain that the flag is a "heritage" of slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, segregation and various other forms of southern hospitality.

By the way, you might be interested to know that around 1890 a charity hospital was built in Shreveport, La. It was named, oddly enough, the Shreveport Charity Hospital. In 1953 the city fathers renamed it, for reasons I have always thought obvious, "Confederate Memorial Hospital." In 1978 it was renamed Louisiana State University Hospital. I think there is a dialectic there, but not sure exactly what it is.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

That'll have a big turnout down in Dixie. :lol:

Haha...I know...I can already hear the crickets chirping!

[DrStrangelove]

The Confederate Flag is still on Mississippi's flag. It's pretty insulting to anyone who bothers to know about the South's history (most people down here just watch Gone With The Wind and take it as historical fact). I have a black friend who hates going to sporting events partly because of the fact that the Mississippi state flag has the Confederate flag on it, and he refuses to salute it.

[Sasha]

When I was in Atlanta on a studentexchage an decade or so ago I had an great talk with the (black) major and his wife (who.organised the exchange program) where they stated that if the state readopted the confederate flag he would declare independence :lol:

[greenwarbler]

There is a confederate flag flying over a Schrebergarten here in Düsseldorf.

[Dr Mindbender]

Why these White nationalist neo-confederate losers still try to pull this sort of bullshit is beyond me.

Seriously,there needs to be like an educational seminar on the evils of this flag.

I have heard it argued that the confederacy treated the slaves 'better' than the north on the grounds that while they provided them with a roof, a bed and 3 square meals the north was happy to leave them in poverty and destitution.

I think if there is holocaust denial there also perhaps exists denial or revisionism about the slave era.

[Olentzero]

You've pretty much nailed one element of the revisionism there yourself, Doc. Note there's no indication of the quality of the housing, bedding, or meals provided for the slaves - or of the laws preventing them from being literate backed up by corporal or capital punishment, allowing their masters to split up families for sale, or any number of other ways that the South reinforced the fact that Blacks were private property that slaveowners could do with as they liked.

Over the past couple decades the flag has been heavily whitewashed (pun intended) to make it somewhat of an icon of harmless good ol' boy anti-authoritarian rebellion, but given that it has its earliest roots directly in the US Civil War as the flag flown by the slaveowners in their efforts to create a country founded on the expansion of slavery (instead of, say, being a previously existing flag adopted by them), there is no way its inglorious bloody past can ever be fully eliminated or forgotten.

In short: that shit needs to come down.

[☭The Revolution☭]

Ironic how the Republicans fought to abolish slavery back then, and they defend it with their lives now.

[Le Libérer]

I have heard it argued that the confederacy treated the slaves 'better' than the north on the grounds that while they provided them with a roof, a bed and 3 square meals the north was happy to leave them in poverty and destitution.

I think if there is holocaust denial there also perhaps exists denial or revisionism about the slave era.

I have never heard such bull malarky. The North's slave oppression wasnt as bad as the souths slave oppression? Oppression is oppression.

[Tim Finnegan]

And yes, I would say it equals the swastika in every way.
Except, you could argue, that the swastika doesn't, by its very existence, tar an in-itself-legitimate concept- of a Southern regional-cultural identity and an associated body of symbolism- with a vile and reactionary ideology. Which basically makes it even worse.

[#FF0000]

Except, you could argue, that the swastika doesn't, by its very existence, tar an in-itself-legitimate concept- of a Southern regional-cultural identity and an associated body of symbolism- with a vile and reactionary ideology. Which basically makes it even worse.

The Southern regional-cultural identity at the time was thoroughly reactionary though.

[Red Commissar]

Down here I've never seen an issue with a Confederate flag being flown though it appears a lot on bumper stickers. There are some rather questionable naming for some schools, such as Stonewall Jackson Elementary (http://www.dallasisd.org/schools/es/i_l/jackson/). Even more disappointing when you consider the neighborhood is mostly African-American. Granted Stonewall Jackson was no Forrest, but still...

[FreeFocus]

The Confederate flag fucking sucks but I don't get too upset about it. The American flag represents worse to me, frankly. It symbolizes all of the sins of the Confederacy (the Union was complicit in slavery for all but the four years of the Civil War, and technically not even that long an amount of time), everything prior to the Civil War and then the accumulated crimes from 1865 to the present.

[Tim Finnegan]

The Southern regional-cultural identity at the time was thoroughly reactionary though.
Arguably so, but that says nothing of that identity today, let alone in the future.


The Confederate flag fucking sucks but I don't get too upset about it. The American flag represents worse to me, frankly. It symbolizes all of the sins of the Confederacy (the Union was complicit in slavery for all but the four years of the Civil War, and technically not even that long an amount of time), everything prior to the Civil War and then the accumulated crimes from 1865 to the present.
I think that you're being over-simplistic. The problem with the Confederate flag isn't an accumulated taint, as one could argue of the United States flag- or the Union Jack, or the Tricolore, or a great many other flags- but that it was at its conception and from that point on an explicit symbol of what is undeniably a white supremacist movement. The US flag, for all the ill associated with it, can't be so simply reduced to anything so outright despicable as that, any more than the Soviet flag can be so reduced to the gulags and the purges.

[Metacomet]

I have relatives and neighbors who have that crap on their cars/clothes/houses.

The thing is..........................I live in MASSACHUSETTS! It is about, and was then, about as opposite to the south as it gets.

[Olentzero]

Yeah, I gotta wonder what my ancestor who fought in the 43rd Mass would have to say about that... Awesome user name, by the way.

[Metacomet]

Yeah, I gotta wonder what my ancestor who fought in the 43rd Mass would have to say about that... Awesome user name, by the way.

Thanks. I picked it because he is one of my favorite historical figures, and I'm part Native on my father's side (Abenaki)

I had ancestors in the Civil War as well, actually most of them were in the U.S navy. one was a bosun's mate on Admiral Farragut's flagship the U.S.S Hartford. Another ancestor was in the 2nd Mass. Regiment of Cavalry.

Knowing family genealogy is one of the greatest things ever. :D

[Olentzero]

Abenaki? No shit - there is a rumor of a drop or two on my mother's side around two hundred years ago from up Canada way, but nobody's ever been able to prove it.

And hell yeah, I gotta agree - knowing genealogy rules. Although I guess my own pedigree wouldn't be too distinguished for a revolutionary, seeing as how it is filled with nineteenth-century industrialists and Pilgrims on the Mayflower and such. (I believe I actually have an ancestor who was in the Great Sudbury Fight, tbh. White man's side.)

[Proukunin]

Do you realize how much work it is going to take to bring this down? This southern heritage is hard to change. It's been tried many times, hopefully we can bring this down and I'll do whatever it takes. I never liked the flag and I hope the white people in Louisiana realize that they are praising an extremely racist and wrong past.

Do you think this will create demonstrations? I certainly hope so! We need some good news here.

[Olentzero]

If we didn't realize how much work it would take, we'd be deluding ourselves. We just need to look at the civil rights movement - it took some fifteen years to go from the Montgomery bus boycott to the Black Panthers. Of course, the people behind the lunch counter sit-ins didn't hope the situation would create demonstrations; they went ahead and did it themselves. Just sayin'.

[p0is0n]

Rip it down and burn it?

[Le Libérer]

Do you realize how much work it is going to take to bring this down? This southern heritage is hard to change. It's been tried many times, hopefully we can bring this down and I'll do whatever it takes. I never liked the flag and I hope the white people in Louisiana realize that they are praising an extremely racist and wrong past.

Do you think this will create demonstrations? I certainly hope so! We need some good news here.

To quote another comment from my personal blog on the same article

The monument (and flag) should be moved to the Mansfield Battle Park. The location is due to the fact that Shreveport was the last governmental body - the Department of the Trans Mississippi - to surrender. It is on private property & it was erected more of a shrine to Jim Crow than a Civil war monument. I'm for it's removal. For those interested in history, a plaque commemorating the last surrender could be place somewhere on the court house grounds.and


The Sons of the Confederacy actually came out with a policy about 12 years ago to secede from the United States. They want to set up the Southern States again, and the main purpose was to make blacks and Latinos and women completely powerless in their society. The based it on how they perceived the OLD SOUTh to be. Or the Myths of the South, as it is also called. They also stipulated in interviews that if you didn't like the way they ran their states, you could leave. It's public record, BTW.

[Dr Mindbender]

To quote another comment from my personal blog on the same article
and

So is there still an active desire to 'reinstate' the confederacy among the boneheads?

:confused:

[tachosomoza]

So is there still an active desire to 'reinstate' the confederacy among the boneheads?

:confused:


Not just among the boneheads, an alarmingly large number of rank and file Southerners would happily fight for the Confederacy in the laughably unlikely scenario of a second full blown Civil War.

[Le Libérer]

So is there still an active desire to 'reinstate' the confederacy among the boneheads?

:confused:
Images I see daily

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8Bk8ao0dyxE/TWFrOz0BkMI/AAAAAAAAAu8/4RZ5pa2-mlI/s1600/tag007.jpg


http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT30qjFH_z_SagQBoId_iIPFJzaMBCDV 7joyV4GsTjxC5bB1-vZ&t=1

http://i38.tinypic.com/1zn30bm.jpg

[tachosomoza]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2300/2069219473_d5660d8e34.jpg

[Nolan]

How many confederate troops deserted? It was a lot.

Some "Southern Heritage" idea is a modern phenomenon.

[Metacomet]

Rip it down and burn it?


I'm down. Simple and effective.

[Return to the Source]

It's remarkable that the Confederate flag wasn't banned following the Civil War. Another testament to the defeat of Reconstruction...

[Olentzero]

Oh good God, there was so much Reconstruction should have done. Like hang Davis and Lee, for instance.

[Tim Finnegan]

Oh good God, there was so much Reconstruction should have done. Like hang Davis and Lee, for instance.
Davis, certainly, but Lee? I don't mean to buy into any of the revisionist mythology here, so stop me if I appear to be doing so, but he opposed secession- publicly before hand, and still privately afterwards- and was a moderate on the issue of slavery. His sin was a blinkered dedication to the Commonwealth of Virginia more than anything else, which isn't exactly a hanging offence.


It's remarkable that the Confederate flag wasn't banned following the Civil War. Another testament to the defeat of Reconstruction...
As somebody who owns a kilt, would it be beyond reason for me to suggest that this sort of prohibition is rarely permanent?

[MattShizzle]

That flag should not be flown. It would be no different from someone in Germany flying the swastika and making excuses as to it's just their heritage/their grandfather fought in the war/etc. Except in Germany if someone flew it they would probably be arrested. It's a symbol of racism and hate just like the swastika.

[Olentzero]

Davis, certainly, but Lee? I don't mean to buy into any of the revisionist mythology here, so stop me if I appear to be doing so, but he opposed secession- publicly before hand, and still privately afterwards- and was a moderate on the issue of slavery. His sin was a blinkered dedication to the Commonwealth of Virginia more than anything else, which isn't exactly a hanging offence.His blinkered dedication led him to head up the military wing of the rebellion, in direct support of a system that in its very constitution stated its intent to expand slavery into new territory. (Read the CSA constitution sometime; it's an eye opener. The number of times 'slavery' appears in relation to the number of times 'states' rights' appears is, literally, a ratio of four or five to one.) He should have been hanged.

[Tim Finnegan]

His blinkered dedication led him to head up the military wing of the rebellion, in direct support of a system that in its very constitution stated its intent to expand slavery into new territory. (Read the CSA constitution sometime; it's an eye opener. The number of times 'slavery' appears in relation to the number of times 'states' rights' appears is, literally, a ratio of four or five to one.) He should have been hanged.
I'm sorry, but that's a non sequitur. Nobody is disagreeing that the Confederacy was an explicitly white supremacist slave-holder's state, or that this was not obvious from the very start. I simply don't see how serving in the military of that state actually is warranting of an execution, particularly of an officer who by all accounts acquitted himself in a professional and, for the time and within the limitations imposed upon him, civilised manner. I won't argue that he got off easy- a lost mansion and lost suffrage are barely a slap on the wrist, all things considered- but killing him wouldn't have achieved anything much at all.

[Olentzero]

Lee didn't simply 'serve in the military'. He commanded the Confederate Army. And what, exactly, do you mean by 'acquitted himself'?

[agnixie]

Lee didn't simply 'serve in the military'. He commanded the Confederate Army. And what, exactly, do you mean by 'acquitted himself'?

I think it's a comparison to other confederate generals who had far less qualms about wholesale massacres (of course anyone, compared to Forrest, looks good - of all the confederate generals, I'd say people like Forrest were far more deserving to be shot).

[Tablo]

I did not read the entirety of the thread and do not know what all has already been discussed.

I certainly want the confederate flag(I assume the battle flag as that is the most commonly raised confederate flag) taken down as, while it may mean certain cultural things to white southern individuals, it is a symbol of hatred and slavery to others. I do want people to recongnize that it is a cultural symbol to certain white southerners as well. While many are racists, not all are. Not trying to defend or justify the flying of such a symbol, just pointing out some don't see it the same as others. I certainly agree that in both a historical and modern context, it is a disgusting stymbol that should be eliminated. I just want European members to be aware that certain groups see the flag differently and that is part of the reason why it could be seen as acceptable imagery in certain television programs. For the longest tiem I enver even had any issue with it. I even have a cheap little confederate flag in my closet from when i was in elementary school and vistied a confederate fort. I think the level to which the confederate flag is ingrained in white southern culture is an example of how racism in general has become a part of white soutehrn culture. Fighting racism has gained significant ground all over the nation, but it will take much more time and effort to fight it in the southeast, in my own opnion just by observign the widespread use of this tyope of imagery. We have a long way to go and teh acceptance of groups that may not even be expkkicitly racist shows this. Hell, we have racists running all over my fucking state, but no one seems to want to do shit about it. We have a long struggle ahead of us and we will need to stay strong in the fight against bigotry to see any significant change in southern racial relations.

sorry is this may have been a bit of a ramblign or if any points I ahve made have came off as offensive. i'm a bit drunk. :/

[Os Cangaceiros]

The thing is..........................I live in MASSACHUSETTS! It is about, and was then, about as opposite to the south as it gets.

There's someone nearby where I live who has a confederate flag hanging outside on their porch. And I live in Alaska. :rolleyes:

It's always a subject of vicious ridicule for my parents whenever they drive by it.

As far as the swastika comparison goes: no, it's not seen to be as offensive as the swastika in the USA. A lot of people are simply indifferent to it, and the ones who do find it offensive usually tend to dismiss it as the symbol of ignorant "rednecks" and "white trash". Nazism, on the other hand, is about as close to being universally offensive as you can get here.

Funny aside: I once went into a mini-rant about how stupid the confederate flag and people who flew it were, only to realize shortly thereafter that one of my co-workers had a confederate flag tattoo. Awk-waaaaaaard....:sleep:

[danyboy27]

The confederate flag rightful place is in a museum.

[El Rojo]

burning or in some way fucking up the flag flying over the corst house might be a good small action if the security is low enough

[Tim Finnegan]

Lee didn't simply 'serve in the military'. He commanded the Confederate Army.
Well, to be specific he commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, meaning that was only in overall command of the Eastern Theatre. But, either way, that is still military "service", in the usual sense of the term, merely a highly senior position.


And what, exactly, do you mean by 'acquitted himself'?His performance as a general. As Agnixie says, Lee "followed the rules", to the extent that means anything, which is more than can be said of many other officers of that time and of others.

[danyboy27]

If its done properly, burning the confederate flag could be done in a proper, instructive way.

you get a group together, read a declaration and texts about the plight of the common folks during the confederacy, and finally, in a ceremonial manner, burn the flag has a way to start a new begining for ''the south''.

but beside that, i think its rightful place is in a museum..

[Le Libérer]

The latest story (http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20110509/NEWS01/105090314/Confederate-flag-Shreveport-key-death-sentence-appeal?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE)on the flag.

The Confederate flag — a flashpoint between Southern pride versus civil rights — is key in a Louisiana Supreme Court appeal of a death sentence handed down in the slaying of a retired Caddo fire captain.

Lawyers say the flag flying outside the Caddo Courthouse in Shreveport unduly influenced the outcome of the case of Felton Dorsey, who was convicted in the 2006 murder of Joe Prock.

Prock, a white man, was tied up, beaten and set on fire in his mother's Greenwood home.

Only one black served on the jury that sent Dorsey, a black man, to death row. The rest of the panel was white. The flag so offended Carl Staples, who had been summoned for jury duty in the case, that he raised his concerns during the selection process in 2009.

Speaking up, Staples said, got him removed from the jury pool.

"I indicated that they could not administer justice in a court of law when they have a symbol of one of the greatest injustices flying in front of the court," Staples said.

Excluding blacks such as Staples from the judicial process was unfair, Dorsey's attorneys say. And for that reason, among others, they say he deserves a new trial. A hearing is set for 2 p.m. today before the state Supreme Court in New Orleans.

Advocates say this case bolsters their stance to take the flag — viewed by many as a symbol of hatred and racial bigotry — down.

"What we're really hoping is that the Supreme Court will use this as an opportunity to send a very clear message that the influence of racial bias in the capital punishment system is intolerable," said Anna Arceneaux, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney. "Removing the Confederate flag is the first step on that path."

The ACLU joined the Shreveport branch of the NAACP last week asking parish government to remove the banner. Dorsey's attorneys are allowing the ACLU to use part of their time during today's proceedings.

The ACLU plans to prove the flag and its accompanying monument for soldiers who fought for the South in the Civil War are on public property — and they say that's illegal.

The monument as originally designed and built in 1903 to commemorate the final lowering of the last Confederate flag over land in Shreveport in the summer of 1865, did not include a flagpole or flag. However, a flagpole was added in 1951 and flies the Third National banner the Confederate States of America adopted in March 1865, the flag that flew over Shreveport at the time of the surrender. The most recent push for its removal, from Caddo Commissioner Ken Epperson, was in 2002.

"This appellate argument is an important part of the process in preserving the justice we obtained for the Prock family back in 2009," said Dhu Thompson, an assistant Caddo district attorney who prosecuted Dorsey. "We worked in a professional and ethical manner to obtain this verdict and sentence while preserving the due process rights of the defendant. We are prepared to present our record to the high court."

[MattShizzle]

If I see a house/car/whatever with a confederate flag I assume the resident/driver/owner is an ignorant uneducated racist redneck and give them the respect such a person deserves (none.)

[Le Libérer]

Awesome! I have waited all day for this to post!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42966868#42966868
Rachel Maddow takes on this flag incident

[Metacomet]

I also want to get mobs of black people together to go burn down southern plantation mansions.

I don't care how "nice" they are. That should've been part of reconstruction as well.

[Tim Finnegan]

I also want to get mobs of black people together to go burn down southern plantation mansions.

I don't care how "nice" they are. That should've been part of reconstruction as well.
What is it with you people and destroying things? Do you actually think that it'll achieve anything, or does it just feel satisfying to day-dream about it? :confused:

[agnixie]

I also want to get mobs of black people together to go burn down southern plantation mansions.

I don't care how "nice" they are. That should've been part of reconstruction as well.

They could just have been seized and turned into common buildings for new villages and towns. Collectivizing the plantations to the former slaves seems more productive than destroying them.

[Klaatu]

I told one of my black co-workers about a small Confederate flag placed on a house in my neighborhood, to get her opinion. (This woman had grown up in the Jim Crow era, in the American South.) Her view is that "If that's ALL they do, I am OK with it, but anything more than that might be offensive..."

I do not think that most black people are offended by Confederate flags, per se, but rather, they are troubled by active discrimination in hiring, home sales, and other practices, intended to discriminate and single them out for exclusion.

Who wouldn't be pissed off about being discriminated against?

[chegitz guevara]

I have heard it argued that the confederacy treated the slaves 'better' than the north on the grounds that while they provided them with a roof, a bed and 3 square meals the north was happy to leave them in poverty and destitution.

I think if there is holocaust denial there also perhaps exists denial or revisionism about the slave era.

It was a claim made by Southern slaveholders in order to claim that they were better to their workers. There is some truth in that lie, but no Black workers ever went South (willingly) to be enslaved, while many slaves did try and escape slavery. Of course, many workers also moved West to become farmers.

It pretty much all around sucked to be a worker or slave in the U.S. in the 19th Century, but at least a worker can pick his masters. It's a marginal improvement.

[chegitz guevara]

I do not think that most black people are offended by Confederate flags, per se,

I can't say what most Black people think on the issue, as I haven't time to interview 33 million people.

Of the one's I know and have asked on the subject, they regarded those with the flags as people to be avoided.

I have to say, one of the most chilling moments of my life was driving on I-75 North towards the Georgia border (still well within Florida), and coming over the crest of a hill and seeing the biggest Confederate flag in my life, lit up with lights, flying over the highway. That's when I realized I was in enemy country.

[Metacomet]

What is it with you people and destroying things? Do you actually think that it'll achieve anything, or does it just feel satisfying to day-dream about it? :confused:
It was more sarcasm then anything. But yea, I try to remind people who tell me how "nice" plantation houses are in Savannah or Charleston, that they were worked by slave labor, and built by the work of slave labor. And that cannot be whitewashed or forgotten.

[Tim Finnegan]

It was more sarcasm then anything. But yea, I try to remind people who tell me how "nice" plantation houses are in Savannah or Charleston, that they were worked by slave labor, and built by the work of slave labor. And that cannot be whitewashed or forgotten.
Yeah, but you could- give or take- say the same thing about most major architecture, and particularly about any sort of pre-Modern architecture. Unless you think that you'd really get a kick out of travelling around Europe scowling at cathedrals, then you just have to try and reconcile your political and aesthetic sensibilities as best you can.

[Klaatu]

I can't say what most Black people think on the issue, as I haven't time to interview 33 million people.

Actually a much smaller statistical sampling will do, say 3,000 or so.



Of the one's I know and have asked on the subject, they regarded those with the flags as people to be avoided.

I don't blame them. I would avoid them too.



I have to say, one of the most chilling moments of my life was driving on I-75 North towards the Georgia border (still well within Florida), and coming over the crest of a hill and seeing the biggest Confederate flag in my life, lit up with lights, flying over the highway. That's when I realized I was in enemy country.

Now that would be the excessive overload that my friend was talking about.

[Johnny Kerosene]

Images I see daily

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8Bk8ao0dyxE/TWFrOz0BkMI/AAAAAAAAAu8/4RZ5pa2-mlI/s1600/tag007.jpg


http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT30qjFH_z_SagQBoId_iIPFJzaMBCDV 7joyV4GsTjxC5bB1-vZ&t=1

http://i38.tinypic.com/1zn30bm.jpg


You should see some of the shit at the nearest flea market. What's really funny is that half of them have pro-military stuff in a lot of their shops, or a military tattoo or something, and then a big Confederate Flag on their shirt with something like "A Rebel and proud of it!" They all support the Union then claim to be Rebels. Sense is not made.

[Tablo]

I have to say, one of the most chilling moments of my life was driving on I-75 North towards the Georgia border (still well within Florida), and coming over the crest of a hill and seeing the biggest Confederate flag in my life, lit up with lights, flying over the highway. That's when I realized I was in enemy country.
Was it something put up by the Sons of Confederate Veterans or one of those groups? They have a bunch of giants flags up around my state.

[Tim Finnegan]

You should see some of the shit at the nearest flea market. What's really funny is that half of them have pro-military stuff in a lot of their shops, or a military tattoo or something, and then a big Confederate Flag on their shirt with something like "A Rebel and proud of it!" They all support the Union then claim to be Rebels. Sense is not made.
Yeah, I really don't get that at all. In Scotland, we have a very rough analogue to Confederate romanticism in Jacobite romanticism- both "Lost Causes" that seem vaguely romantic on first appearance, but on closer examination were perpetuating completely backasswards social and political systems for the sake of a reactionary ruling class- but the "Wha Wouldna Fecht Fer Cherlie" brigade are usually indifferent to the union, if not outright pro-nationalist, while these guys seem to have come out the other side of secessionism and decided to retroactively beat the Union-supporters at their own game. I swear, there's a big thick book waiting to be written on how they stitch all this stuff together, if there hasn't been already..

[tachosomoza]

Why was my picture of the black man with the rebel flags deleted?:confused: