Decius wrote:
] I don't agree. I don't think confederate flags are racist by
] default. Its always said redneck more then racist to me.
] Sometimes those things are the same, but not always. People in
] Canada had them. Several state flags contained it until
] recently. It was on a big orange car in a popular TV show in
] the 70's. Lately there seems to have been a effort to equate
] it with the klan. I think thats dishonest really. The Klan
] certainly uses it, but its not something exclusive to them.
] The person who is getting offended is assigning a meaning that
] the people who are speaking do not intend.
]
] It reminds me of a school play I was in high school. The
] students wrote the script. The word "sucks" was in the script.
] We said "sucks" all the time. It means "not good." We did the
] play and a bunch of parents got angry and went after the
] principal on it. It didn't even really occur to us that it
] could be taken as a reference to oral sex. My opinion was that
] it was the parents that had the problem, and not us. We
] weren't talking about oral sex. They were thinking it. Its
] wasn't our fault. Its a problem in their heads and not our
] speech. This situation is similar I think.

meh. i had a response all written, but it looks like no one else really cares, besides the other dems. Jesse Jackson is about to announce his support for dean, so if Jesse doesn't care, i guess i don't either.

still strikes me as an imprecise statement for a presidential candidate. he had to know that was going to raise some hackles. maybe that's the point though... to make kerry and gep and lieberman look like yankee intellectuals who won't appeal to southern voters. which is almost certainly true, of course...

RE: Dean Is Criticized Over Remark on Confederate Flag (washingtonpost.com)