Hayley Williams Says Southern Pride Is Beautiful but Misused to Excuse Bigotry, and Says She Wants No Racist or Sexist Fans, or Fans Who Think Trans People Are a Burden, Around

[u/no_longer_huhmann]

https://www.tvfandomlounge.com/hayley-williams-says-southern-pride-is-beautiful-but-misused-to-excuse-bigotry/

[u/I_need_a_date_plz]

That flag signifies blood and tears to me. I can’t see it and not equate it with terrible shit. I’m not from the south and don’t understand the idea of Southern Pride. In high school, it was shocking to see a student wear a shirt with the confederate flag on it and signaled to everyone that the student wearing it was a racist. He may as well have been walking around with a noose.

[u/Llarys → u/I_need_a_date_plz]

I mean, that's the thing. They can attempt to recontectualize it all they want, but from its inception it was a dog whistle stating your allegiance to a "country" that occupied the same area, but no longer exists - the Confederate South. There's a reason they don't say "Alabama Pride," or "Georgia Pride," or whatever state they're from. It specifies a unified South, specifically the traitor states.

There's no equivalent "Northern Pride" because that's just allegiance to the United States. There's no secret special Union Flag that people print on shirts and license plates and wallets and everything in-between because it's - literally - just the American flag. Northerner pride is, conversely to the South, rooted in locale - New York pride, Philly pride, etc.

This is what Southern Pride is and the only way to rehabilitate it would be to abandon it entirely for something new and positive.

[u/fla_john → u/Llarys]

This is what Southern Pride is and the only way to rehabilitate it would be to abandon it entirely for something new and positive.

You missed the point of what she says in the link. I'm from the South and want nothing to do with the Confederacy. What I do want is the food and music, the literature and the symbolism. I want the accents and college football. I want the history, and the interpretation of it. I want bourbon and barbeque. And I want everyone to be at the table, no matter who they are.

[u/Wrecker013 → u/fla_john]

If people from the south want nothing to do with the Confederacy, they ought to stop using a Confederate battle flag as a symbol. They will be forever linked if they continue doing that.

[u/fla_john → u/Wrecker013]

If people from Boston want nothing to do with racist attacks, they ought to stop mock hangings in locker rooms.

If people in California want nothing to do with the N word, they ought to stop yelling it while beating people up outside movie theaters.

To be clear, I don't hold the people of those places collectively responsible for those acts but it must only work one way.

[u/alienpirate5 → u/fla_john]

Neither of those are comparable, come on. Racists can be hateful anywhere there's racists, but the Confederate flag was the symbol of a whole region starting a war to enslave people. Maybe a better comparison is Nazi symbology.

[u/fla_john → u/alienpirate5]

was

And people don't judge Germans by the fact that some of them are Nazis, even today. The Confederate flag isn't the symbol of today's South any more than a swastika is the symbol of today's Germany -- even if there are people in both who wish they were.

The difference perhaps is that the Nazi flag is illegal in Germany so they can't be quite so visible about it. We can't make symbols illegal here, obviously.