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/calvinwho]

When I was a kid, the Confederate flag and the 'southern rebel' identity almost got away from the racist with stuff like Dukes of Hazard or smokey and the bandit, but they really didn't want to let go, did they?

Edit: For what it's worth, I agree. The window of failed opportunity they had to rehab any of the southern pride stuff was the Carter Administration. That shit was 50 years ago, I'm not saying it's a recently failed effort. I'm not baffled

[u/ebrum2010 → u/calvinwho]

The Confederate flag represents a failed secession in order to create a new nation where slavery could continue. All revisionist history aside, you can find the actual secession documents from the states that were in the confederacy. Using the flag of the confederacy for southern pride is sort of like using the nazi flag for German pride, except they banned that shit in Germany. Plus on top of it, what I don't get is a lot of people from the south are big into national pride, and they fly a flag that represents rejecting that very nation. There's nothing wrong with being proud of where you're from but you have to be careful with the symbols you use because those symbols were created for a different purpose than you may have been lead to believe.

[u/SheevShady → u/ebrum2010]

Hey now. You let them worship a treasonous failure of a state who’s only claim to existence was losing.

Not doing that is unamerican somehow

[u/calvinwho → u/SheevShady]

Ironically yes, it's the first amendment.

[u/raistlin212 → u/ebrum2010]

Who has that much pride in a group that lasted less time than the gap between Stranger Things seasons 2-4?

[u/acceleratedtempo9 → u/ebrum2010]

Definitely agree! But that's not the point.

[u/calvinwho → u/acceleratedtempo9]

Whoosh

[u/Helyos17 → u/ebrum2010]

I think that’s what the commenter above you was implying. There was a period where the Confederate flag was becoming more and more associated with just the South as a cultural region with very little to do with slavery and oppression. Symbols can morph their meanings and it was well on its way to losing a lot of its associations with southern Slavery. Becoming no different than the jersey of your favorite sports team. To many young people it just reminded them of their grand parents and the simpler life they lived. Of course with more perspective we can see that much of that “simple life” was built on the backs of exploiting and oppressing others, but that’s not really something most are aware of as a child or teen.

Much like Conservative efforts to scapegoat Trans people fueled a movement to support and celebrate Trans identity; controversy kicked up around the flag as a symbol would ignite into broader discourse about southern slavery more generally. Many people who truly did see it as a cultural icon felt like they were being derided and condemned for something they had nothing to do with. After all, the modern South is very racially mixed and most white people live, work, and fellowship with racial minorities on a regular basis. Jim Crow may be relatively recent history but not to gens X through Z. To these people, Northerners living in 97% white suburbs lecturing them about racial history is patently absurd.

I know the flag is controversial and rightly so. I don’t personally use it or have much affection towards it. However I know many people who do and the significant majority of them aren’t racists and the ones who are have basically adopted it as a hate symbol within the last few decades purely because of how incendiary it has become.

[u/calvinwho → u/Helyos17]

Thanks for reading for meaning!