Via TNC comes the story of a painting so offensive to some folks that a campaign of intimidation was launched to censor the work and remove it from public view.
Here is the painting that offended the fragile sense of self-identity of the cowards who demanded its removal:
It is IMHO, a very accurate representation of the Rebel Flag and everything it has come to represent in its almost 150 years as a symbol of treason and terror. It is Confederate History Month distilled to a powerful image.
It was created by Stanley Bermudez, an art professor at Gainesville State College in Georgia. It was part of a faculty exhibit, but a campaign of intimidation (an echo of the images in the work) succeeded in getting the painting censored and removed.
The local paper tells the story:
“This is very much what I feel and think about when I see that flag. It’s just my personal feelings about it. It’s an accumulation of the things I’ve seen, studied and read over the years,” Bermudez said.
“When visiting the KKK website, the (Confederate) flag is used often. Recently, the KKK has had public meetings near (my home), which scares me because of their anti-Latino immigration sentiments.
Although the finished piece is how Bermudez sees the flag, not everyone agrees with his views. Public response to the piece was so strong that Gainesville State’s administration asked that the picture be removed from the faculty showing in the Roy C. Moore Art Gallery on the college’s Oakwood campus, Bermudez says. [snip]
The college declined to share with The Times any of the feedback that prompted the removal of the painting; however, at least one “Southern heritage” website described the painting as “despicable” and prompted visitors to contact Martha Nesbitt, the college’s president, about the picture. Site administrators even posted her e-mail address and telephone number.
In the article Bermudez comes across as a man of great grace and integrity. His students are lucky to have him as a teacher. It is a shame that a group of neo-Confederate thugs could have the art removed because hurt their delicate feelings, tweaked their fragile egos and intruded on their desire for a historical narrative free from the inconvenience of facts, reason, integrity and honesty. And yet, their response is also a fitting tribute to the power of Bermudez’s art. Their auto-response of hate, ignorance and intimidation is what the Confederacy was and is all about–and their reaction is just another iteration of the Confederacy depicted in the painting.
Their fear of the painting and their reaction to it speaks to its power of art and how art always terrifies cowards.
Cheers
J. Michael Neal
There really aren’t too many things more pathetic than a fascist with hurt feelings. Weren’t these the sort of people that once had the courage to fight communists in the streets? Or do they just make them tougher in Europe?
Ash Can
These people show over and over that they just can’t handle the truth.
lacp
That college prez ain’t exactly a profile in courage. I mean, this wasn’t a graphic depiction of Santa Claus butt-fucking Jesus or some such. And what’s with the unnamed “Southern heritage website?” I’m not particularly a fan of the SPLC, but they could certainly make life miserable for these heritagers.
kdaug
So this our (ETA: Latest) “Cartoons of Mohammad” moment?
Pitiful hypocrisy.
Allan
Just shared this on Facebook, ensuring that more eyes are forced to gaze upon the truth. Suggest you do the same wherever you blog or post online.
ruemara
There are people who, when they don’t like the reflection, blame the mirror. It ain’t the mirror showing all that ugly. I could say I’m out of outrage, particularly after the hole repeal of puppy mill regulation thing that was posted earlier, but I think, like joy, there may often be more than you thought out there to feel.
WereBear (itouch)
They can’t handle the truth!
Allan
@J. Michael Neal:
No, these were the despicable cowards who hid under sheets and cover of night to wage a campaign of state-supported terror against American citizens.
WyldPirate
Seems like the Gainesville State “administrators” might be the real cowards…
geg6
And once again, I am proven correct about these people. They are cowards, through and through. Just like every other bully on earth. They are contemptible.
And might I just say, has this college never heard of the concept of academic freedom? Jeebus.
gwangung
Hm. Seems like they’re treating this like someone desecrated some holy object.
That’s idolatry, isn’t it?
freelancer
@kdaug:
They do love their Fatwa Envy.
kdaug
@ruemara:
Stoled (with minor editing).
asiangrrlMN
When I saw this over at TNC’s place, I simply couldn’t fathom why it’s controversial. To be honest, I still can’t. But, it saddens and enrages me that something as truthful as this piece (and haunting in its own right) is treated so unjustly.
The people who object to this piece of art are big, fat hypocrites (freedom for me but not for thee; I have the right to be not offended, but you don’t, etc.) and fuckheads to boot.
hamletta
@asiangrrlMN:
Dude, you don’t live in the South: “The flag is about heritage, not hate.”
I get why people freaked right the fuck out, but damn the administrators for giving in.
scav
Clearly, anyone that doesn’t worship “our” self-image is skeery skeery skeery to some folks. “Land of the free, home of the brave” in my best mocking tone.
JordanRules
@gwangung: Precisely. They’re elevating the despicable symbol and not the art; backwards arses.
asiangrrlMN
@hamletta: I know. You would think with all I’ve read here and over at TNC’s place, I would understand this by now, but I just don’t. The deepness of that denial is something that still stops me cold.
andy
People who venerate the Flag of Treason hate it when they get their noses rubbed in it. It’s funny how their goddamn “peculiar institution” has from the beginning, and continues to this day, poison the country they parasitize…
Wile E. Quixote
There’s nothing wrong with the average person who flies the Confederate flag that couldn’t be cured with a tall tree and a stout piece of rope. It’s a real pity that the Union didn’t hang more of the bastards after the Civil War and ban the Confederate flag just as the Germans banned the swastika.
Bud
When art stirs up such passions, its done its job.
gwangung
I think I get that.
But WHOSE heritage? And isn’t it hate for those who don’t share that heritage?
Mark S.
@lacp:
Sorry, that made me laugh out loud. Yes, I’m twelve years old.
But, yeah, that’s pretty fucking lame by the college administration. I know it’s hard for honkies down South to realize, but a lot of people have very different views of the Confederacy and everything it stood for.
gwangung
And a lot of them lived in the South, hm?
hhex65
If it had a big caption on it like: “It Ain’t Over ’til We Say It’s Over” they’d probably like it better.
kdaug
@Bud:
Yurp.
jrg
Good. The more people see opposition to admitting that actual, documented, historical racism of the worst type occurred, the more likely they are to think twice the next time some hick tells them “I’m not a racist, but Obama is not an American citizen”!
…and by the way, I wonder where the “conservatives” that shit a pink freedom twinkie over removing the confederate flag from the South Carolina State House are on this issue.
JordanRules
@hhex65: Word
jeff
Totally wrong that his artwork got removed. I’m as southern as it gets and I realized what the goddamned flag meant to many people when I was 17 years old. There really were people that used to revere that flag without malice towards anyone, but I think that time is long gone: it is now a sign of hate for enough people that it should go away forever.
We used to use it in the South for other things that were absolutely not intended to hurt anyone…but I think that time is past. When we buried my great Grandmother in 1990, a bunch of people (we didn’t know any of them) came with Confederate flags and fake guns for some reason…it was nice. But, today, I think it’s inescapable that the flag is a signal for white supremacism and little else. I’m happy to be done with it. I don’t understand what’s wrong with the American flag for all purposes where they used to use the Confederate flag.
Svensker
@jrg:
That’s poetry, that is.
Frank
Lately i’ve been hearing this:”I’m just sayin”
Remember if you are “I’m just sayin” is you ARE being offensive or dog whistling an issue so “bless your heart”
Dennis G.
@hamletta:
I lived in the South for a long time and while I love so many things about Southern culture, the Confederacy fetish is not one of them.
The ‘heritage’ bit is dubious at best. It is not an argument that works for other failed States based on oppression, terror and hate and so I have a hard time finding a good reason why the Confederacy should get a pass. Celebrating Confederate heritage should be viewed by sane people as troublesome as the desire to celebrate Stalin, the Khmer Rouge, militaristic Japan, the European fascist regimes of the 1930-40s and the Spanish Inquisition (just to name a few). This is especially true as that flag has a deeper history with the KKK and domestic terrorism than it ever had or ever will have with the Civil War.
Cheers
danimal
That is a moving, powerful piece of art, and the fact that confederates are complaining is a testament to its power. I hope this gets a lot of attention; it hits ’em where it hurts.
JordanRules
@jeff: What other flag could he have used to send this message via art? I don’t think his intent was a benign use of the flag, I think it was used to spark discussions just like this.
Naw, we can’t forget. We can’t bury that flag and forget. Nope.
Jeanne ringland
@jeff: I visited the Find-A-Grave website not long ago and noticed that my great great grandfather’s online memorial had a Confederate flag on it and got more than a little bent out of shape with the idiot who put it there. GrGr Grandpa died in 1863; he was a Union soldier.
And the moron who put the flag had never been to the south nor was his family from the south; he lived his entire life in California. He took it down when I complained, and I was polite but I really wanted to flame him.
wobblybits
@Frank: (rubs eyes and scratches head) wut?
Polar Bear Squares
This reminds me of a conversation I had at a waterpark years ago.
Inside the park, I saw a man with a tattoo of a half-man, half-skeleton sodomizing a woman holding her hands behind her back. He also had a tattoo of the Confederate flag. (Yeah. This guy was definitely a keeper).
A friend of mine, who noticed all the children around, said that the tattoo was too offensive for him to display at the venue. I asked him which one.
He really didn’t get why as a black man both tattooes were equally as offensive to me. You can have southern pride and not celebrate the men and women who cheered as my ancestors were terrorized, raped and killed. You can also do it and not show a rather depraved show of sexual violence.
Anyways, this art just brought back that memory. I’m astounded how politically correct only means not criticizing things conservatives have a fondness for.
jeff
@JordanRules:
I don’t know what you meant to say, and it may be because I was unclear. My post was about how the Confed. Flag is always fraught with White Supremacism. I neither believe nor said anything like what your comment suggest. Perhaps you’d be better served by reading things before commenting on them.
JordanRules
@jeff: Sorry, I misread part of your comment. Read my initial reply as agreement with what you really said, not what my mind twisted it to say.
asiangrrlMN
@Polar Bear Squares: OK, those both are simply vile. But, at least one knows to avoid him. Were it so that other asshats were similarly identifiable.
jeff
@Jeanne ringland:
wow, several people have had the same experience where neo-Confederates have shown up at funerals (or online, after the fact) to brandish Confed. Flags.
JordanRules
@JordanRules: Funny we were replying at the same time. I feel stupid enough, it was a misread, not a non-read; I’m trying to do some work and comment in a few other spaces.
Ouch “Perhaps you’d be better served by reading things before commenting on them.”
hamletta
@Dennis G.:
Sorry the scare quotes weren’t clear. I don’t buy that argument, either. (Bless your heart, jeff.)
The history of its use in the ’60s by state governments is enough, for me, to put the lie to that bullshit.
Over Thanksgiving, I saw my baby brother, who recently moved to Charlotte after years living in Arizona and California. He thought he was above all this because we’re from Maryland.
I asked him to please check out the lyrics of our state song, “O, Maryland,” which is all about the bloody sacrifices of the glorious Confederate dead.
jeff
@JordanRules:
Hey, no problem. People have been merciless assholes to me here before. It sucks.
The Republic of Stupidity
This is the sort of ‘event’ that will undoubtedly result in drawing far more attention to Prof Bermudez’ painting than if those ‘Confederate’ pinheads had just shut up and ignored it…
Good for them…
Martin
Boy, it really speaks volumes that a picture of someone being lynched is more offensive to the white folks than the black ones.
JordanRules
@Martin: FTdub
jeff
@hamletta:
I don’t think I made an argument at all, and I know I did not make that argument. I made statements of fact about events I observed. Please don’t make strawmen out of real people like me, or at least be kinder about it.
suzanne
@asiangrrlMN:
I still don’t get it, either. I am fundamentally unable to comprehend why these people are such fuckwits and hypocrites.
I was explaining the concept of morality to my seven-year-old last night. She is already orders of magnitude more empathetic and integrous than these people could ever hope to be.
cthulhu
@jeff: I think this is exactly right. It is not like the South has a lock on racism but flying the Confederate flag and continued to promote the Myth of the Lost Cause has long since passed its prime as self-esteem therapy for whites living in the former rebel states. Promotion of such things now has a very different goal, a rather sick one at that. IMHO, even without the “original sin,” the plantations were more akin to old-school feudalism and not exactly in line with what is typically promoted as the American model of democracy and economic opportunity (not that they could have been as successful without the slavery).
But I don’t think this case is about hurt feelings as much as it is standard (and centuries old) intimidation.
kdaug
@jeff:
Welcome to the funhouse.
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: Yes, this. I have a twelve-year-old niece who exhibits more compassion than these folks. I suppose if I just look at the “heritage, not hate” story as any other fairy story that people need to believe in order to get through their day, I can at least intellectually get why they simply cannot let go of it. If they do, what do they have left?
Arundel
I admire the guy’s convictions, and I agree with him- it really is a flag of treason that recurs and bedevils us to this day. (Nullification! again.) I admire his balls exhibiting it in Georgia.
But as art, it’s a terrible piece of dreck. I’m an artist myself, and in my humble opinion, this painting is as subtle as a sledgehammer, its intention is to shout its point as unsubtly as possible. I think “controversy” is what the artist was courting. Which is fine, but this is like an editorial illustration, about a centimeter deep. Art can be a powerful and complex thing addressing human affairs; but this is not the case here. This is a bumper sticker.
scav
@asiangrrlMN:
still, building one’s self-esteem based on fantasies (aka lies) about what once was instead of even failed attempts at what could be is a sad statement as to who they are.
JordanRules
@jeff: All good. Damn, I almost did it again and read ‘mercenary assholes’. Somehow I think merciless assholes = welcome mat at BJ. I feel welcome. *giggle*
hamletta
@jeff: I’m sorry. I know “bless your heart” is a loaded phrase, and I wasn’t clear.
I just meant that it was nice that you saw the people at your grandmother’s funeral as benign, knowing what you know.
My grandmother worked at DC General Hospital all through the ’60s, so if anyone had showed up at her funeral with a Confederate flag, it would have been taken as a sign of hostility.
hamletta
@Arundel: I’m with ya there. As art, it’s not really that good. Or shocking.
I would have been more interested in his perspective as a Hispanic; the KKK didn’t limit itself to one hatred. Maybe he’s not observant (not that it matters, he’s not African-American, either), but did he explore their antagonism toward Catholics? Immigrants? Jews?
The story of the lynching of Leo Frank in Atlanta was a huge story in the ’80s when Alonzo Mann, who had been the office “boy” came forward with testimony he’d been too afraid to give in 1915.
That news broke huge here in Nashville, back when The Tennessean was still a great paper.
Anyway, I agree that it’s kinda lame as art.
Mike in NC
I look at that image and easily see the scumbags Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich. Squint and you’ll also see Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.
Xenos
The whole point of the battle flag is to intimidate – it is astonishing that these fascists are afraid to show what they must know lies behind their own symbols.
A true attempt to insult those hiding behind that rag would find a way to depict the use of religion to promote racism, or to depict the systematic rape and incest that was an irreducible part of white male privilege. Droit de seignure was a big part of the appeal of being a slave owner, and let us not pretend otherwise.
Edit: sorry, moderator, about using the ‘I’ word and putting this in moderation. Next time I will find a workaround.
Martin
@suzanne:
Well, feeling shame over how blacks were treated in the south would suggest both that whites were wrong to do it and blacks were undeserving of it. Since they’re offended to have their faces shoved it in, it’s pretty clear that these folks disagree with one or both of those suggestions.
magurakurin
@Mark S.:
me too. I had a flash of the late, great Bernie Mack telling the late, great John Ritter, “Well, yeah, Santa fuckin’ somebody in the ass…”
and fuck the rebel South. I’m going to fly that artwork on Facebook right now.
Joey Maloney
@Arundel: Are you old enough to remember when a (black, poseur-radical) art student in Chicago exhibited a painting of then-recently-deceased Mayor Harold Washington in bra and garterbelt?
Attention whores predate the internet.
Villago Delenda Est
@hamletta:
The Confederate battle flag was deliberately and with malice aforethought added to the Georgia state flag as a “segregation forever” message. Those who did it were upfront and open about this.
That flag is indelibly linked to racist bigotry.
Calouste
@Wile E. Quixote:
That and they should have redrawn the state lines to kill the heritage and break up the upper class networks that dominate state politics. It’s not a coincedence that the parts of Germany that were created after the Allies put the scissors in Prussia have turned out quite ok, but that Bavaria, which was left untouched, is a reactionary shithole.
asiangrrlMN
@scav: No doubt about it. Which makes it even sadder and more enraging. As has been stated over at TNC’s place, there is richness in Southern history–why the fuck hang onto this shit?
@Xenos: I use insect, but then I have to explain that people should reverse the c and the s, so it’s not really a time savior. I’ve seen in-cest used.
Uriel
@Allan
Took your advice, tying it into kdaug’s ‘“Cartoons of Mohammad” moment’ observation.
Sure I’ll get all kinds of blow back- don’t care that much.
Jeanne ringland
@jeff: I am kind of shocked that they turned up at your great grandmother’s funeral, uninvited I assume. No place for that sort of thing, no sense of proportion.
pablo
Well, Professor, I as a fellow Georgian, I feel your pain, and my heart is warmed by my own personal piece of Confederate Battle Flag art for an event that never came off..
alwhite
“I’m not afraid of atom bombs, And they know it; I’m not afraid of anything, except, perhaps, a poet.
– Y.E. Harburg
In addition to the lyrics for “Over The Rainbow” Yip wrote a lot of great verse – short & pithy
aimai
@The Republic of Stupidity:
Yes, but symbols can be appropriated in both directions. I was thinking how great it would be if the Professor allowed his work to be issued *as* a flag that could be flown in opposition to the Confederate Flag and then realized that as soon as this hissy fit is over the neo-confederates themselves will happily adopt the Professor’s Flag (one they’ve forgotten its origin) as a form of threat against immigrants and non whites. The same people who want to burn crosses on people’s lawns and hang nooses in their offices to remember their period of greatest power over others will very quickly assimilate any new image if it is threatening enough.
aimai
bjacques
Man, they’re gonna hate “Piss Lee.”
DBrown
As the Confederates did in the past, and even today, so much of the white south (but not all) and as always, its Northern supporters are still the same cowards that use hate, fear and all other tools of these crusty ass lickers erform in order to serve their real masters of hate – the wealthy that fully and truly control amerika. So typical of amerika land of the free (to hate) and the way real amerika has always opperated.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
This very same crowd will wear pants with US flag imagery riding across their big twelve sandwich eating ass which is a violation of the US Flag Code. But, hey, the battle flag of the Confederacy in the War of Northern Aggression is sacred. That’s just how they roll.
brantl
He ought to gift this to a prominent southern museum, with an iron-clad understanding that if they don’t display it, he gets it back.
MattMinus
What a bonanza for the artist! Now someone will care about his ham handed work.
While I agree with the political statement, thats got all the subtlety and elegance of a 1st year undergrads piece.
4tehlulz
I look forward to Reason’s “Draw an anti-Confederate Cartoon Day” in solidarity with this artist.
Dennis G.
@Polar Bear Squares:
Thanks for the comment. The way that White Exceptionalism is used to define what can and can not be mentioned in polite society (AKA politically correct) is always a source of amazement.
@hamletta:
There are things that are distinctly Southern and really great. The ‘heritage’ in quotes was a nod to the fact that Confederate weasels have appropriated the good things as a shield to defend their mythology of hate whenever and wherever a bit of history or truth telling surfaces. They like folks to equate Southern and Confederate as the same thing. They are not.
The folks who were upset with the painting do so from a defense of the 150 year tradition of Confederate treason, terror and hate. This symbol of white supremacy is not a Southern thing, but they have no trouble pretending that it is when their mythology of lies is confronted with reality.
Chris
@J. Michael Neal:
and @ruemara:
So true. And yet that really is the Tea Party Movement in a nutshell. The amount of touchiness and sensitivity there is friggin extraordinary, and yes, really really pathetic especially in light of their “rugged individualist” self-image.
But as others have pointed out, being a coward is part and parcel of being a bully. It’s not really that surprising.
Cacti
I wonder how many “heritage” folks who found it “despicable” had no problem w/ “draw Mohammed day”.
Chris
@gwangung:
The nationalist obsession on the right (whether it’s the Confederate heritage thing or even American nationalism) is indeed something any Christian worth his salt would consider idolatry.
Then again, I think the word “Christian” for them is an identity label not unlike “American” or “Southern” or “white.” As a group identity that sets you apart from those filthy Mary-worshippers and Moses-worshippers and Mohammed-worshippers on the other side of the tracks, “Christianity” is hugely important. As an actual system of values, not so much.
Chris
@Dennis G.:
This also too.
Back in France, I don’t see movements to celebrate the Saint-Barthélémy massacre, or the Jacobins, or the OAS. All those things are part of the French heritage, but there’s a good reason why they’re not around anymore.
Chris
Also, too:
Can someone please explain to me why the symbol of the Southern cause is the Confederate naval ensign rather than the actual flag of the Confederate States of America? Does the actual flag just look too American?
A Writer At Balloon-Juice
Great post. Thanks for this.
kay
I just think it goes back to what are now entrenched conservative beliefs about political speech.
They’re deeply, deeply confused. They really believe “free speech” means they’re allowed to speak, and no one is allowed to respond, or the response is trampling on their “right” to completely dominate any discussion.
They’re really not up for this “robust” debate they’re always belligerently demanding.
The Koch brothers have an inalienable RIGHT to blanket the country with pure propaganda, but the 1,000 people who showed up to (obviously) make sure the Koch brothers are identified as “the speaker” behind the speech threw them for an absolute loop, and they started babbling incoherently about freedom of association.
arguingwithsignposts
@Chris:
Because they’re idiots?
ETA: I can’t say it’s the best piece of art I’ve seen, but it’s not bad, imho. It would be interesting as a poster print. Perhaps the SPLC or someone could arrange to offer some reprints.
Woodrowfan
I rather like the version of the stars n bars I saw that had been redone in the black/red/green African colors. I liked to image KKK heads exploding..
tesslibrarian
Sadly, this story isn’t a surprise. Gainesville State is such a small school, spread over two campuses, a full third go part-time, and most are older than average undergrad age. The kids who go there go because they live nearby and there’s a flexible class schedule, not because they wanted a Gainesville State experience. Such colleges have presidents who really just handle the administrative tasks, not rally for freedom of expression.
I’ve also noticed through my genealogy reference work lately that a lot of those who otherwise seem completely normal and reasonable are dreading the sesquicentennial because they think the north is going “to gloat.” They’d rather unpleasant facts like secession meetings or arrests for treason after the war be overlooked, rather than discussed, because “everyone suffered in that war.” And that’s before we get to anniversaries of events like lost battles and surrender. The next four years are going to suck.
ETA: the comment thread on the story in the Athens newspaper is actually pretty hopeful.
Ash Can
@Chris: Your question sparked my curiosity, so I looked this up. The Confederate flag we know today was a battle flag designed after the war had started, because the Confederacy’s Stars and Bars did in fact look too much like the US flag, and confusion on the battlefield was ensuing. And wouldn’t today’s Bible-thumping crackers be proud to know that the reason their precious Confederate symbol sports an X-shaped cross rather than an upright, more Christian-looking one is because the flag’s designer received a request from a Jewish Southerner who felt the upright cross was too exclusive, and the designer evidently was happy to comply?
DPirate
Pretty successful piece of art if it evoked such a reaction, though I can’t really tell from the picture what is going on in it.
Why do you name-call them as cowards, though? Wouldn’t cowards sit around and do nothing?
Gravie
The power of art is the reason that fascists and right-wingers come after artists so hard. Most artists have little respect for bull#$%@ or authority; they’re hard to control; and they deal in ideas.
lllphd
ho boy; so much for that first amendment thang.
next thing you know we’ll be bowing to all those neo-nazis who are offended by the comparisons of goebbels to glenn beck.
oh wait; that just happened, to rep. steve cohen, of memphis tn, no less.
tPirate
It’s my Facebook image for a while. I think I’ll bring it back for the next few years, whenever there is a major event anniversary from 150 years ago.
Southern Beale
Not cowards, but totalitarian/authoritarian types, for sure. I’ve mentioned this here before on other threads, but I always go back to Mark Slouka’s Harper’s article: “Dehumanized: When Math & Science Rule The School” — a subscription is required but I excerpted parts of it in a post last year.
Slouka’s basic point was that emphasizing math and science education at the expense of the humanities, arts, literature, music, etc. may be good for capitalism because it creates unthinking worker bees — drones. But it’s bad for the republic because the humanities is where one learns to question authority, and the arts is how that is so often expressed. It is why authoritarian regimes throughout history have tried to suppress the arts.
scav
@Ash Can: Let alone the head-‘splodings given they were sporting flags with the dreaded crescent moon in the early days (the Sovereignty or Secession Flag).
Chris
@Gravie:
Hence, the rage for “liberal Hollywood” and our degenerate pop culture. (Although they made an exception for South Park when they thought it was on their side).
Also, thanks to Ash Can for the explanation.
Southern Beale
@Gravie:
Egg-zackly. Which is why these are always the first programs in a school which are cut.
evinfuilt
I was on the train this morning, using the mobile site, so I couldn’t see this image. Now that I finally can, all I can say is.
Thats it?? It only took that little amount of truth to provoke them, and that the artist hid it in the background. Damn, talk about fatwah envy, its nowhere as brutal an image as I expected. Only a couple clansman, a slave and one lynching. That image is so understated of the brutality that flag stands for. There’s not even a single burning cross in it, no ditches full of nameless dead.
Neo-confederates are doing a very good job at mimicking their taliban brethren.
Charles
The confederate flag symbolizes white-supremicism and the bloody blacklash against civil rights for blacks.
If the “heritage” people didn’t want the confederate flag to symbolize those things, then maybe they shouldn’t have used it during their lynchings.
Just sayin’.
Brems Strahlung
@hamletta:
That and treason, treachery, sedition, and the “right” of some humans to own other humans as chattel. Of course, in sum that IS the heritage they claim.
Benjamin Cisco
@A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum):
That’s just, well, fracking awesome right there.
Jason
@Chris:
Can someone please explain to me why the symbol of the Southern cause is the Confederate naval ensign rather than the actual flag of the Confederate States of America? Does the actual flag just look too American?
I can indeed.
The original “stars and bars” so closely resembled the Union flag that it could be confused with it in the haze and smoke of the battlefield. Armies began using “battle flags” — the familiar St. Andrews cross design was the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Because of the fame and prestige of the AoNV under Lee, this became an icon of the confederacy, so much so that it eclipsed in the public mind the actual national flag. Recognising this, the national flag was redesigned to incorporate the square Army of Northern Virginia battle flag as a canton against an all white background.
This, however, looked like a flag of surrender when not lifted by a breeze, so a third redesign added a red vertical stripe on the edge. This was the design the Confederacy ended the war with.
The familiar “battle flag” is the naval flag and also the battle flag of the Army of Tenessee. It was selected as the symbol of the Dixiecrats in 1948, and from there became standardised as the symbol of revanchist southern racism. They selected it presumably because it’s the most aesthetically pleasing of all the hundreds of variants on the design available, certainly more so than the 1865 Confederate national flag which, let’s face it, looks pretty ugly with that white field and that awkward red stripe. It also looks better than the square AoNV battle flag, being the same shape as the stars and stripes it can be flown together with it on a mast (either above or below) without the asymmetry looking incongruous.
So short answer: it’s the most prestigious and recognised symbol of the confederacy, both during the confederacy’s actual existence, and in subsequent generations. In contrast, the national flag changed too many times to develop much of a following, and by the end was a merely a shout-out to the battle flag anyway.
sukabi
@Ash Can: that was pretty interesting… hadn’t thought much about the history of the confederate flag… strikes me as funny that the “original confederates” were as fickle in defining / choosing their symbols as their descendants are today…
also pretty funny, in a really sad way that today’s confederates don’t know squat about their own history.
jwest
The KKK is a shameful part in the history of the Democratic Party that should be put to rest. Now that there are no longer any Klan leaders serving in the Senate and most democrats now support civil rights, it is time to move on.
darms
@Arundel:
I agree with all of that except for the ‘dreck’ part. The people he is making a point about just don’t do subtle, they need the sledgehammer to notice it at all. BTW I’m a white Texas native in his 50’s and I’ve been cringing every time I see that damned battle flag since the late 1960’s. How many ‘patriots’ waving that sorry thing realize it’s a literal symbol of treason against the USA?
Cassidy
To add to the heritage flag fetish….a big part of southern heritage is ancestor reverance, almost worship really. Idolizing the battle flag gives southern men a tangible, yet shallow, connection to the “warriors” of those armies. The reality is that most southerners don’t know their history and have no connection. But it makes them feel better. This southerner’s relative got off the boat rom Ireland, went to war and died in Andersonville.
rikryah
so, to tell the truth through art is now wrong. nothing wrong with that art – it’s the people who couldn’t handle it that are wrong.
redoubt
@sukabi: I’ve been in Georgia twenty years; we’ve had three separate state flags. We even had a governor booted out of office because he wanted to change the flag to something more like the 20th century. So yeah, sensitive about flags down here.
Stefan
There are things that are distinctly Southern and really great.
Sure, such as Martin Luther King, Richard Wright,Samuel L. Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Blind Lemon Jefferson, W.C. Handy, Nina Simone, Son House, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Jelly Roll Morton, Morgan Freeman, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, etc.
Southerners all…and yet somehow I don’t think they’d have felt that honored with a Confederate flag as a symbol of their own “Southern heritage”….
MFA
“Heritage, not hate.”
Heritage of hate.
Well Traveled Old Man
The “Southern heritage…” angle?
The old go-to standard line: “The flag is about heritage, not hate.”
Half true and half false.
Yes the “stars and bars” flag is about heritage. Although, a distinct inseparable part of that heritage was, is and shall forever remain, treason, terror, hateful mayhem and murder.
And no… It’s not “hate” to notice. It’s simply recognition of the obvious.
My lineage goes back to my Great Grandfather in Alexandria, Louisiana. He was a member of Company I – 8th Louisiana Infantry The Rapides Invincibles – Rapides Parish. His son, my Grandfather couldn’t get the hell out of the racist South fast enough moving up river at the age of 19 to St. Louis and eventually relocating to Southern California in 1916 when the May Department Stores began the take-over of the A. Hamburger store to become May Company’s first store in Los Angeles in 1923.
Grandpa’s tales of the “heritage of the South” from his childhood experiences were not seen through rose-colored glasses, so to speak.
Bogeyman
What a pathetic collection of ignorance. Yall sit around in a circle and…pat each other on the back (keep those hands where we can see ’em fellas).
@Well Traveled Old man: Do you know what the “stars and bars” is? Not a rhetorical question, nimrod. Look it up. It’s the first national flag of the Confederacy (it had three horizonal bars, a blue field with seven stars. Duh! The so-called art about which yall are having your wet dream, the saint andrews cross…it’s known as the battle flag. Only ignorant people refer to the battle flag as “the stars and bars.” The military necessity of a distinctive flag should be obvious to anyone familiar with warfare in the 19th centtury. The St. Andrews cross was of Scottish and Christian origin. It is part of the UK’s Union Jack (two flags superimposed on one another). Look it up, morons.
TREASON – how many fools here used that word?
Did Poland and the other eastern block countries commit treason when they declared independence from the USSR?
Was it treason when the 13 American colonies seceded from Great Britain? When the war was over in 1783, the Brits signed a treaty recognizing what? It was the 13 colonies…all individually named, they were acknowledged as independent, sovereign states. Hint: That means individual NATIONS.
Those independent states each had the option to ratify the Constitution (join the federal republic) after 1787 — OR NOT. It was very much IN QUESTION whether the nine required states would ratify. The States were NOT individually listed in the final draft (preamble). WHY? Because they realized that some might NOT ratify. The votes were close in the various state conventions. If any state had not ratified, would the others have immediately invaded the reluctant but ‘treasonous traitor’? No, of course not. Rhode Island held out until May 1790 before it finally ratified.
NONE of those states would have ratified had they believed for one moment that they could not leave the voluntary union at will… or that their sister states would raise armies to invade them if and when they did.
Treason? Please. Read the Federalist papers. Read Madison’s notes on the Constitutional convention. Read the anti-federalist papers. The southern states sought Independence, not conquest or control of the other states.
Read your history and learn why the Northern states threatened and planned secession on a number of occasions. 1803, 1814, 1845. Were the planners of the Hartford Convention tried for treason? Did Jefferson call the New England states for treason in 1803? No. He wished them well if they wanted to leave.
Yes, I find this ‘art’ offensive because it is a lie — a distortion based on ignorance. I make no claim to any right not to be offended. I find your ignorance offensive…but acknowledge your right to stay ignorant.
If you search the WWW for images of the KKK, you’ll find the vast majority of KKK pics show the klansmen carrying U.S. flags and Christian crosses. Yet, no one here is railing about those as ‘symbols of hate’.
The U.S. flag flew over the genocide of the plains Indians and scores of other wrongs. And it would be just as wrong to depict as “art” the U.S. flag with slave ships in the ports of Boston and Philadelphia…or with slaughtered Indians. The U.S. flag stands for the Republic… the ideals and founding principles of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence…NOT for the wrongs committed under that flag.
Artists have the right to express their feelings, right or wrong. Universities have the right to decide what is displayed on their campus. Others have the right to criticize the ‘art.’ You have the right to remain ignorant of history and enjoy your online circle jerk. Or you could educate yourselves.
Benny Terry
“flag of treason” clearly you skipped history class. Secession was not treason, it was the right of the states that formed the union. The flag was a “battle flag” of the soldiers who fought under it. Because the kkk and the white supreicist highjacked it to add to the flag they were already using, the American flag, does not make it theirs. Slavery was an aboration and it still is today. What some people did to the blacks after the War Between the States and until the ’60s was no less an aboration. But, I and many others who honor their ancestors who fought and died for their rights, will never stop fighting to help others understand the TRUTH about the War and the Flag. What we need is communication and not reteric with some of the language I have seen on these blogs. I will be happy to speak to anyone who wants to listen to explain my point of view and where they can find the actual FACTS that support it. Member, Sons of Confederate Veterans
Robert M
WOW!!! Do you even hear yourselves? Can anyone spell maturity? Are you so intelligent that you have to resort to vicious namecalling to get your point across? You talk about being tolerant toward other people? Its okay to display this as art but students can’t wear the flag as clothing because it MIGHT OFFEND SOMEONE?? Grow up and respect other peoples’ opinions whether you agree or not and have an intelligent discussion about the truth and history and you might learn something.
Billy Bearden
Where was this “outrage” of censored artwork when the NAACP were censoring the statue of George Washington during King Day on SC Capitol? When the NAACP forced cancellation of a musical scheduled for the Cincinnati Pops, or when the Taliban destroyed the ancient Buddahs?
Well Traveled Old Man
As it was with the Erlking in Goethe’s famous poem, the maleficence of Big Scary Bogeyman’s bromides can sometimes be imperceptible. The purpose of this comment is therefore to expose the distasteful nature of Bogeyman’s rodomontades and let you draw your own conclusions about Bogeyman’s motives.
To begin with, it seems that the key to Bogeyman’s whole reason for being is his longing to gather followers who are irresponsible and who exhibit the automatic consciousness of an automaton. He dreads the necessity, the risk, and the responsibility of dealing with those with rational cognition. As a result, Bogeyman’s words simply revise and twist that which is not there. That’s why he’s dependent on elaborate artifices and explanatory stories to convince us that granting Bogeyman complete control over history is as important as breathing air.
Although, in the end, Big Scary Bogeyman clearly exhibits an implacable determination to satisfy his own ambitions and lusts at whatever cost to his coadjutors, his nation, and even to his own progeny. Basically, it appears that Big Scary Bogeyman’s livelihood depends on it. He apparently has made a cottage industry out of this whole Southern/Georgia Heritage line.
By the way… I wonder how much they’re charging for the “got a birth certificate?” sticker on that Georgia Heritage website there?
SGT Royal
@Ash Can: “Ash Can” An appropriate name, You stated “These people show over and over that they just can’t handle the truth.”
You are the one who can’t handle the truth, “EVERY” slave that was brought into this country was brought here on the ships owned by New England shipbuilders and they were operating under the United States of America flag, not any of the Confederate States of America flags. The “St Andrews” flag was only in use by the Army of Northern Virginia for a little over 1 year.
Jonathan V
This piece of art is not offensive in my honest opinion. Sure, it only shows a slight bit of the vast history of the south, but it makes it’s point clear. It’s time for people to move on. The very fact that there is call for censorship is proof of that. Hate, Bigotry and malice are what the groups of people who have “adopted” the confederate flag WANT associated with it. “THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN” mentality is old and worn down. It’s time to move on. this piece by Bermudez is brilliant. It did it’s job, it got people to think about the history that would rather be forgotten. Forgotten history tends to repeat itself…
Bogeyman
@Well Traveled Old Man — Your propensity to circumlocution and pedant grandiloquence clearly demonstrate your total lack of intellectual integrity. Simplicity and concision are always more persuavive; yet you use 50 cent words to the point of being laughable. Do you imagine that such pretentious language or literary allusion is intimidating? Does it really impress your correspondents? Are you the court jester here? What have you been smoking?
Where is the argument against my logic or the facts presented? I see none; you proceed directly to the ad hominem to impugn my motives and “distasteful nature.” My whole reason for being is to “gather followers”? From where do you make that leap? I want “complete control of history?” On the contrary, my point was that you and your fellow travelers should try reading more history to arrive at your own truth rather than regurgitating falsehoods.
I certainly don’t fear “rational cognition” if that is what you label yourself or your postings here. What do you know of my livelihood? Or my reason for being? Obviously nothing, but that doesn’t preclude your silly speculation. Logic…is “that which is not there” in your words. There is none to twist or revise.
FilthyDegenerates
Oh come on there has to be something that you would find offensive. Heres a few:
Imagine a giant oven with jews cooking inside and Hitler funny a funny one liner. Or how about a picture of a man raping a baby (they made a movie about it).
I suppose you would classify that filth as “art” and anyone found offensive was what puritans.