Teen Sues Over Confederate Flag Prom Dress

[rmcrobertson]

Beyond the fact that slavery--while not the immediate and precipitating cause of the War--was assuredly one of its two or three most-vital causes (folks are forgetting that "slavery," at the time, covered not only the present condition of black people in the South, but the extension of the institution of slavery elsewhere), there're these statements from the VP of the Confederacy and one of its leading lights, John C. Calhoun:

Home » * Writings » *
Defending the Cause of Human Freedom
By Harry V. Jaffa

Posted April 15, 1994

The Spring 1994 Intercollegiate Review featured a section entitled "Not In Memoriam, But in Affirmation: M.E. Bradford." I welcome this, or any tribute, to my departed friend. As many readers of Intercollegiate Review know, my eulogy of Bradford was published in National Review, and was well received by his Confederate friends as well as by others who, like myself, are devoted to the cause of the Union.

Mel and I debated the character of Abraham Lincoln, and the issues of the Civil War generally. Although we were on opposite sides, our conviction that the Civil War was the central event in American — and possibly in world — history, was a bond between us. Neither of us ever made the smallest concession to the other in the course of argument, and Mel would consider it a false sentimentality were I to do so now....

Lincoln, Bradford persuasively demonstrated, was more than simply wrong headed; he was a "dishonest" and "duplicitous" "pseudo-Puritan," and a disingenuous "opportunist" guilty of "calculated posturing," "historical distortions," and "high crimes"; he was indeed "the American Caesar of his age." "It is at our peril," cautioned Bradford, "that we continue to reverence his name...."

Bradford's thesis that Lincoln waged a "Cromwellian" war of aggression against the South is without any foundation. He and I debated this a number of times, and he would never acknowledge the following facts. The "real" secession of the South from the Union came at the Democratic convention in Charleston, in April 1860. The seven states of the deep South walked out, when the majority — who came to nominate Stephen A. Douglas — refused to accept a plank in the party platform calling for a federal guarantee of slave property in every United States Territory.

Douglas, who had defended the right of slave owners to migrate to the Territories — and who had in 1854 legislated the repeal of the Missouri Compromise restriction upon such migration — insisted that it was up to the settlers in the territories to decide for themselves what their "domestic institutions" would be. He himself, Douglas had said, didn't care whether slavery "was voted up or voted down." He believed only in the "sacred right" of the people to decide all such questions for themselves...

It cannot be too often repeated that the South seceded because of its demand for a federal guarantee of slavery in every United States Territory, then or thereafter existing. This demand was rejected by Douglas no less than by Lincoln. In fact, no one who endorsed it could have been elected dog-catcher in any free state.

Contrary to a common mistaken opinion, this demand of the South, made in the name of states' rights, represented a demand for an unprecedented extension of federal power. It meant that federal troops, if necessary, would be sent to any Territory to protect a slaveholder's property, in the same way that President Pierce sent federal troops to Boston to recover a runaway slave in 1854. Or in much the same way that President Eisenhower would one day send federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the desegregation order of a federal court. This meant using federal police power to enforce slavery on a community that did not want it.

So much for the vaunted claim that the South was defending self-government against the tyranny of federal centralism. The South did not therefore secede in 1860 and 1861 in order to defend self-rule within their own boundaries. That was never threatened. They seceded in order to be able to spread slavery beyond the boundaries of the slave states themselves into any American territory, present or future....

McClellan mentions Alexander Hamilton Stephens' Constitutional View of the War Between the States, which was and remains probably the best defense of the Confederate cause. It is all about states' rights, and the defense of the minority against the tyranny of the numerical majority, although the "silent minority," the four million slaves, are never counted. It is substantially the book that Calhoun would have written had he been alive to do so. Stephens, who was Vice President of the Confederacy, had also been widely known — North and South — as one of the intellectual luminaries of his time.

On March 21, 1861, in Savannah, Georgia, Stephens gave an address that has come down to us as the "cornerstone" speech. It is remarkable, not least because of how markedly it differs from Constitutional View, written after the war. It was delivered after Lincoln's inauguration, and before Fort Sumter, during that "deadly hiatus" when it was possible to think the Confederacy was destined for a peaceful and permanent future.

What then, according to its learned and scholarly Vice President, was the essential and fundamental distinction between the "old" Constitution of 1787, and the new Confederate Constitution? Since Bradford was tireless in abusing Lincoln for clothing his language in biblical phrases, it is noteworthy that the cornerstone speech is built upon a theme from Psalms 118:22.

The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.

This verse is repeated at least three times in the New Testament, once by Jesus himself. In every case, it is Jesus who is the "cornerstone." Here are some leading excerpts:

"The new [i.e. Confederate] Constitution has put to rest forever all agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our forms of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. [Italics in the original.] …

Stephens continued.

"The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantee thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day."

"Those ideas [viz., of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the Constitution] however were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a government built upon it; when the 'storm came and the wind blew, it fell.'"

We pause to note that the parable of the house built upon sand comes from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:28. Lincoln was never more "biblical" in his rhetoric than Stephens. According to Stephens, the doctrine of human equality was the sandy foundation upon which the "old" Constitution was built. What then is the cornerstone of a house, or constitution, that can last?

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not the equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world, based upon this great physical and moral truth..."

Hence slavery is to true government what the Gospel is to true religion! However, it is not religion, but science, upon which Stephens relies.

"This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science...It was so with the principles of Galileo — it was so with Adam Smith...it was so with Harvey and his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is stated that not a single one of the medical profession, living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him, admitted them. Now they are universally acknowledged.

May we not therefore look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon principles of strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society…. The negro, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system…."

We note that Stephens, in passing, mentions that it may also be "by the curse against Canaan," that the Negro is destined to servitude. While an alleged progress in science is the main basis for Stephens' convictions with respect to Negro slavery, it was not "reason" but "revelation" that led Jefferson Davis to the same conclusion.

I commend as a comprehensive account of {Jefferson} Davis' convictions concerning slavery, his speech before the Democratic state Convention, at Jackson, Mississippi, July 6, 1859. It is fascinating, but too long for extended quotation here. Suffice it that it is in the story of Noah and his sons (Genesis 9:20-27) that Davis finds complete and sufficient justification of Negro slavery. Never did Lincoln draw on the Bible for support of any position of his own as Davis does. It is important here that we recall precisely the story Davis draws upon.

'Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japeth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father's nakedness.

When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan; a slave of slave shall he be to his brothers." He also said, "Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem; and let Canaan be his slave. God enlarge Japeth and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave..."

Jefferson Davis is categorical in pronouncing four million Americans, and all their descendants for all future time, to be "the degenerate sons of Ham," fit only to be slaves...

John C. Calhoun was the philosopher-king of the old South, the spiritual mentor of Stephens, Davis, and most of the political leaders of the Confederacy. Bradford and McClellan (following Willmoore Kendall) are obsessed with the utterly false notion that Lincoln was somehow responsible for the permissive egalitarianism of the contemporary welfare state. But equality as such was no less important to Calhoun than to Lincoln. It was just a different kind of equality. Consider:

'I am a Southern man and a slaveholder — a kind and merciful one, I trust — and none the worse for being a slaveholder. I say, for one, I would rather meet any extremity upon earth than give up one inch of our equality—one inch of what belongs to us as members of this republic! What! Acknowledged inferiority! The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledged inferiority!' (In the Senate, February 19, 1847.)

It never occurs to Calhoun that black human beings might also resent, with equal—or much greater — reason, "acknowledged inferiority." That is because he does not think of them as human. Calhoun simply assumes that blacks have neither the reason nor the passions that are characteristically human. They are chattels, that is, cattle, for all intents and purposes. Once again, Calhoun:

'With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious; and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.' (In the Senate, August 12, 1849.)

We see here the essence of the Southern understanding of equality, why it was so highly prized, and why so resolutely defended. Every white man can be proud of himself — can consider himself an aristocrat — not because of his virtues or accomplishments, but simply because he is not black! By rejecting the principle that all men are created equal, by keeping "the degenerate sons of Ham" under foot (and under the lash), one need never do anything to become important, like members of the royal family. It is not without reason that Lincoln compared slavery to the divine right of kings! Calhoun demanded equality no less than Lincoln. But his equality required a "cornerstone" of slavery."

The above excerpts can be found through the Claremont Scholars' website. I've excerpted some of his commentary, to focus upon the comments of the President and VP of the South, together with John C. Calhoun.

Lincoln may have screwed up; Lincoln may have planned to ship freed slaves back to Africa. Lincoln also wrote this:

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."---Abraham Lincoln

 

[rmcrobertson]

And while we're on the topic of the saintly South, its freedom from the corruption and profiteering of the North, and saintly Jefferson Davis:

American History
Richmond Bread Riot

"The women who marched through the streets of Richmond, Virginia, in April 1863 demanded food. Facing them, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was equally adamant: If the protesters did not disperse, they would be shot.

By Alan Pell Crawford for American History Magazine

On the pleasant spring morning of April 2, 1863, a pretty young woman sat down on a bench at Capitol Square in Richmond, Virginia. Another woman on the bench later recalled that the girl had “delicate features” and “large eyes” and wore a clean, skillfully stitched calico gown that indicated she might have been a dressmaker’s apprentice. When the girl reached up to remove her sunbonnet, her sleeve slipped, revealing “the mere skeleton of an arm.”

As the two women sat together, several hundred people gathered on the grounds of the Confederate Capitol. The older woman, the wife of a former U.S. congressman who was then serving in the Confederate Army, wondered what was happening. “Is there some celebration?” she asked.

“There is,” the girl said with great dignity. “We celebrate our right to live. We are starving. As soon as enough of us get together, we are going to the bakeries and each of us will take a loaf of bread. That is little enough for the government to give us after it has taken all our men.”

The girl then made her way to the Capitol, where she disappeared into the crowd and from history. Within minutes, the crowd she had joined became a mob and moved noisily down Ninth Street toward the shops on Main Street. No one is sure of everything that happened during the next few hours, but the so-called Bread Riot resulted in dozens of arrests and numerous convictions, further demoralizing an already suffering city....
*
That conditions had become so dire in the Confederate capital was somewhat ironic. Ever since agricultural Virginia had been a state, and for many years before that, Richmond had been its commercial, if not industrial, center. Many Richmonders were lawyers, merchants, and tradesmen who tended to be Federalists and then Whigs, and therefore Unionists. Governor John Letcher, who took office in 1860, was a Unionist. Richmonders even organized a failed February 1861 “peace conference” at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., and Virginia did not leave the Union until April 17, 1861, four months after South Carolina seceded and two days after President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the “insurrection” in the Southern states.

When General Robert E. Lee came to the city to accept command of the state’s forces a week after Virginia joined the Confederacy, recruits from all over the South followed. With them, as Virginius Dabney wrote in Richmond: The Story of a City, came “adventurers, speculators, gamblers, prostitutes and every other type of person” who gravitates to the center of activity in wartime. After the engagement at First Manassas in July 1861, when Southern troops drove Union General Irvin McDowell’s Yankees back to Washington, Richmond’s population—38,000 before the war—doubled, then tripled. It would reach 128,000 in 1864. Food that otherwise would be feeding the city’s residents was by then being commandeered by the military. Almost constant warfare on Virginia’s once-fertile farmland soon disrupted agricultural production. Before long, the military took over the railroads, further interrupting the transport of goods.

The momentum of early Southern victories at Manassas and at Ball’s Bluff could not be sustained. In the late spring of 1862, Federal forces took Yorktown and Williamsburg in the Peninsular Campaign and then advanced to the outskirts of Richmond. There, spirits were sinking—and prices were rising. As soldiers on leave took advantage of the availability of alcohol and prostitutes, clogging the streets and dining in the gambling “hells” that cropped up near Capitol Square, the nature of the once-genteel city changed. Brawls had to be broken up, and in March, the Confederate Congress imposed martial law on Richmond and for an area 10 miles around the city. The new laws suspended habeas corpus, required passports for anyone leaving town, banned liquor sales without a physician’s prescription, and ordered the closing of saloons and distilleries, although many continued to operate. The value of Confederate money declined, and corruption ran rampant.

In June 1862, after the Battle of Seven Pines, nearly 5,000 wounded soldiers came into Richmond, further straining the city’s meager resources. A month later Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had driven the Federals away from Richmond and back to Washington, and at least 10,000 more bloodied men, plus thousands of Federal prisoners, poured into the city. And with them came still more prostitutes, who took over an entire block near Capitol Square, “promenading up and down the shady walks,” Mayor Joseph Mayo complained, “jostling respectable ladies in the gutter.” Venereal disease swept through the city. An outbreak of smallpox, from late 1862 to February 1863, contributed to anxieties against which even the staunchest of residents struggled.

“We are in a half-starving condition,” John B. Jones, a clerk in the Confederate War Department, wrote in his diary. “I lost twenty pounds and my wife and children are emaciated to some extent. Still I hear no murmuring.” Rats ran amok. “Epicures sometimes manage to entrap them and secure a nice broil for supper, declaring that their flesh was superior to squirrel meat,” reported Phoebe Yates Pember, a diarist who was the chief matron at one of the city’s hospitals.

Food speculators, meanwhile, hoarded vast stores of flour, sugar, bacon, and salt, withholding them from market while prices soared. These speculators, President Jefferson Davis declared, were “worse enemies of the Confederacy than if found in arms among the invading forces.” Governor Letcher said such profiteering “embraces to a greater or less extent all interests—agricultural, mercantile and professional.” Military officials were also said to be hoarding food or, viewed in the most favorable light, making a botch of their commissary duties."

Hm. Seems kinda unpleasant for white folks, too.

 

[rmcrobertson]

It seems pointless to argue military strategy. However, a study of Grant's campaigns in the West, Sherman's fighting through Georgia, and Chamberlain's small-unit tactics might prove instructive in dispelling the myth that the South always outgeneraled.

(Additionally, it remains disturbing to note that these claims about Southern generalship and superiority for the individual soldier have their parallels in a fair amount of the military buff talk about the Third Reich--despite their getting whupped at Kursk, at El Alamein, and in the Battle of the Bulge by the Rooskies, the brits, and the Yanks.)

It also seems odd to have to argue with folks who are insisting that some of us don't know things we've known for thirty years or so....here! I'll say it!!! John Brown was absolutely right about slavery, but a complete nutcase!!!

However, we can agree that: a) Marx's points about the superiority of capitalism to feudalism, and the extent to which wage-slavery vs. slavery is a bad way to set up one's options; b) that silly girl has every right to wear whatever imagery she likes; c) it's doubtful she came up with this all on her very own.

We can also agree that whitewashing the past is bad. It is offensive to pretend that slavery was altogether a white institution--though one point to raise is that slavery became something different, something new and uglier than ever in the South--that the North was innocent, that there is no Northern racism.

It is equally offensive to pretend that a) the South simply got pushed into the War by the greedy North, b) the South was not fundamentally racist in an old-fashioned sense, and fought its war in large part to defend slavery, c) the Southern government was squeaky clean, d) the myth of the South was not used to justify the founding of the Klan, the Jim Crow laws, the proliferation of lynching between 1890 and 1920, the imposition of segregation, the refusal to allow civil rights for black people, today's attempt to roll back the clock.

Sorry, Mr. Hubbard. But in these arguments you're making appears legitimation for not only a fundamental rejection of democracy and its history, but for horror.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

"It is equally offensive to pretend that a) the South simply got pushed into the War by the greedy North,"

I never said that.
"b) the South was not fundamentally racist in an old-fashioned sense, and fought its war in large part to defend slavery,"

I never said that either.

"c) the Southern government was squeaky clean, "

I certainly never said that.

"d) the myth of the South was not used to justify the founding of the Klan, the Jim Crow laws, the proliferation of lynching between 1890 and 1920, the imposition of segregation, the refusal to allow civil rights for black people, today's attempt to roll back the clock."

The Klan was founded in part to combat the stripping away of the rights of those who fought against the Union, and the awarding of those rights, and the resultant "vote Republican, or else" push to the former slaves. It was also a vehicle for racism and violence, 2 facts I have never disputed. Given the 'terms' of the peace imposed by military force, and military occupation of the conquered South, the targeting of the black population as a convenient scapegoat was inevitable, much as the Jews were scapegoated by the Germans after WWI. I do not attempt to "Roll back the Clock", however I do see a too often repeated pattern, one I expect to see reoccur in Iraq within the next few years.

"Sorry, Mr. Hubbard. But in these arguments you're making appears legitimation for not only a fundamental rejection of democracy and its history, but for horror."

I reject a great deal....

 

[rmcrobertson]

Please show me where you've written anything in any way negative about the Confederacy. Maybe I missed it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I didn't realize that was a requirement.

 

[Hand Sword]

All in All, it still took a lot nerve to show up in that dress, she could've been killed, or at least pummeled, so for the moxie she showed, my hat's off to her!

Also let's not bash the "red necks" and her trying to make a "statement". So what? It is her right, whether anyone agrees with it or not, to wear what she wants to wear. Should we ban middle eastern people from wearing their garb because it's a "distraction" like the french did, or are trying to. And all groups at one time or another make a statement, from Black Panther shirts, Malcom X hats, Protest marches, sit ins against Thanksgiving, etc...

These are our rights, they apply to all of us, maybe one day those who want to bash her will have to protest something and make a statement. You'll have the same constitutional protections, even though you'll be getting attacked from some direction or group that you've offended.

 

[Hand Sword]

I would also say, read writings of those that were actually doing the fighting for the confederacy. Originally the rich 5% of the southern population, that owned slaves ultimately took actions that caused the war. But, as usual, what the war starts out for, isn't usually what it ends for. Those that caused the war and their loved ones were exempt from doing the actual fighting. Ultimately, the war was fought by the 95% of poor white males (and females, as was found out when they were being burried, about a few regiments worth, on both sides) that had nothing to do with slavery, could care less about it, and sorry not to be pc, but bluntly, wouldn't fight a war for the "darkies" as they would put it. They fought because "your down here!" Think about it, armies of non- southerners are down there burning, looting, pillaging, raping (yes this too, a union general even passed an ordinance that if the southern women were "rude" they could be hanged), and one would wonder why they fought so hard and for so long? In that situation, If we were experiencing it, with a foreign army here doing that to us and our loved ones, we would do the same thing!

Wars occur for more reasons than just 1, Hell, even the opinion of the union troops was to fight to restore the Union, not to free the slaves.

 

[Bammx2]

Just one view from a "redneck".....

I was born and raised in north carolina and I am proud of most of my heritage.
I have traced my family tree going waaaaay back for many,many years and found out I did have relatives fight in the civil war on BOTH sides.
BUT....none of MY family ever owned or condoned slavery. EVER.
As a matter of fact....I am descendant of "slaves" to a certain extent.
and no...it was NOT a matter of white supremacist rape.
The war was not only about slavery...but giving that label was an easy out and most people have no idea that anything else was involved to fuel that fire.
I happen to like the confederate flag...and the US flag.
Neither stands for "slavery" in my mind or anyone else I know in the south.
Don't misinterperate what I am saying...there are "racist" in the south...and the north...and west....blahblah.
And while we are on the subject....I am damn tired of the term "racist" as well!
Think about it....how can we be racist?! There is only 1 race on this planet...the HUMAN race! If you are "racist" then you hate ALL humans.
Wouldn't "culturist" be more "pc"?!
It's actually what we don't like about other people...thier "culture".
(MESSAGE!)
And for Malcom X.......
When he attended his 1st mecca...he was greeted by a WHITE person, which threw him for a loop.
But as it went on he realised a very important thing on the matter and I quote:"Its not a black thing or a white thing, its a HUMAN thing".
And for that epiphany...he was killed.
I have never met a 400yr old black man or white man for that matter.
Its over!
Poor is poor and rich is rich...both are totally colour blind.
Concentrate on the future!!!!!
Eat the rich!

 

[expressdog01]

So Whats Wrong With Redneck

 

[expressdog01]

That Would Be Her Right

 

[expressdog01]

Malcolm X Was A Racist *******PUNK

 

[kenpo tiger]

The term 'redneck' has taken on a negative connotation. The image conjured up by the word is: pick-up truck, dog(s) in the cab and in the cargo bed, gun rack with more than a few in it, tobacco-chaw in the cheek, gimme-cap with a heavy equipment dealer's name emblazoned on it, etc.

What's your version of a white, liberal easterner, you *good ole* boys?

eye of the beholder.

 

[TonyM.]

Funny how the massacre and removal of my people from the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee rarely comes up in these discussions of the south.

 

[rmcrobertson]

OK, please show where--anywhere in your posts on the Civil War--you've discussed (or even admitted) what slavery actually was, what the South's part in starting the War was, the extent of the corruption surrounding Jefferson Davis, an example of the South's getting outgeneraled and outfought, or the extent to which mythology fed directly into the subsequent century of lynching and segregation.

Or, discuss this recurrent fantasy that the ONLY reason the South lost--so very like the recurrent fantasy that the only reason the Wehrmacht lost--was that they were economically beaten. They lost in part because Grant, Sherman and their bummers kicked their asses, much as Germany lost because Eisenhower, Patton and GI Joe (together with the Rooskies and the Brits) kicked their asses. Enough with this "Lee the genius," and "Rommel the Desert Fox."

They got beat. They're on the ash can of history, good riddance--and even if they couldn't figure out alternatives between slavery and wage-slavery, we can.

 

[raedyn]

It is her right, whether anyone agrees with it or not, to wear what she wants to wear.

That point is still up for debate. The constitution does not promise that evreyone will be allowed to wear whatever they want in every situation. As cited earlier in the thread, there are situations that the supreme court has already decided that someone's clothing can be censored. Like in an educational setting, the school has the authority to assign a dress code in order to facilitate an environment for learning.

Remove the specifics of WHAT she wore that the school would not allow. The debate here shouldn't be about what that flag stands for. The question really is: should she be allowed to wear whatever she wants to her senior prom? The school says no because it is disruptive. Regardless of your personal feelings towards the confederate flag, you must know there are legions of people that find it offensive, and that dress certainly has the potential to be very disruptive. But she wasn't wearing it to school, per se. The senior prom isn't exactly a learning event. So she says she should have the right to wear whatever she wants in that situation.

Ignore the specifics of what she wore, and your arguements about that - that is secondary to the question of should the shcool be able to censor her or not.

 

[rmcrobertson]

And as a final post-script--if folks are always demanding that Muslims apologize for 9/11, that they publicly renounce the violent in Islam---perhaps folks should be asked to apologize, to publicly renounce the violence that the Southern Cause employed to preserve, protect and defend slavery.

Especially given the extent to which the ideas, imagery and pseudo-history of the South continues to be used to legitimate violence and racism in the present day.

Instead, we get:

"Thanks to the Alabama division, Jacqueline was invited to their Jefferson Davis Ball in the Cradle of the Confederacy. Jacqueline was honored and had a great time. This spring has seen several school systems in Kentucky and elsewhere seek to challenge the Castorina case law, but this is, in my opinion, the most disgusting. I have spoken with the Duty family and several attorneys about proceeding with a suit. Every effort is being made by the Kentucky division to get this lawsuit filed sooner rather than later."

The "Jefferson Davis," ball? In an attempt to keep the heat low, it may be best to refrain from suggesting naming dances after other violent racists. But it does seem odd that in the past year, all sorts of these little cases-n'-suits suddenly seem to be popping up...

Has one objections to people exercising their right to fly whatever flag they choose? Nope, and one also supports the right to burn whatever flag you choose. In fact there is one place in LA that always has a Confed flag up--I eat there all the time; it's Johnny Reb's, best chain barbecue around, and--unlike the Jefferson Davis Ball--thouroughly integrated.

Funny how Jeff Foxworthy seems to get by without the Stars-and-Bars.

 

[shesulsa]

'Scuse me, but I thought this was a thread about a teen wearing a dress patterned from the confederate flag. Seems to be a free speech issue, not a civil war issue, to be argued here.

Who cares what someone's opinions of rednecks are? Who cares what a redneck is? Let's talk about it on another thread, if y'all do.

Those of you who wish to engage in debate on the Civil War, perhaps you could start a thread on that.

My friend was at a school dance when a group of "punks" (they were called punks because they dressed in punk rock style) were wearing huge swaztikas on their chests. They were kicked out because the image was upsetting to most of the school. Another time, a girl who wore an enormous cross on her chest was also asked to leave, until they found her partner who wore a huge Star of David on his, one of their friends who had an atom on his and his date who had a question mark on hers. They were all pale blue T-shirts worn over their dance clothes and their point was that it's easy to make a point, but there is a time and place to do so and when they were asked to remove the shirts, they did so - as a group. The teachers were impressed by this and asked to keep the shirts, which (he says) were on display for a while with the word "Unity" above them.

We should leave flag and banner prints off of clothing, since that's just the right thing to do in honor of a patriotic banner, IMHO. Going to the prom in a dress with a pattern designed to upset certain members of the population is just plain wrong. When she's not at a school function, let her wear whatever she pleases. Who knows? Maybe she'll get lucky.

 

[Cryozombie]

Going to the prom in a dress with a pattern designed to upset certain members of the population is just plain wrong. When she's not at a school function, let her wear whatever she pleases. Who knows? Maybe she'll get lucky.

But was the pattern designed to "Upset" people, or was she proud of her heritage? What would you say If I told you my Prom Tux was Bright Green and had a Shamrock on the back?

 

[PeachMonkey]

But was the pattern designed to "Upset" people, or was she proud of her heritage? What would you say If I told you my Prom Tux was Bright Green and had a Shamrock on the back?

Since those symbols aren't about a heritage of enslaving an entire racial group, I'd say it's pretty hard to argue that your prom tux was in bad taste.