US History disagrees. The "peculiar" institution that was African slavery was the root cause of the Civil War. Yes, Northern business interests, particularly New England maritime interests profited greatly from the slave trade until importation was banned. Then inbreeding began. It was the Confederacy that fired the first shots of the war at Fort Sumter and a great deal of documentation has proved that racism was at the foundation of Southern philosophy, such as the "white race is superior to the Negro." Racism is and will always be the original sin of the United States. It was enshrined in the Constitution (slaves were counted as 3/5 a person for census purposes) and it took the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to partially undo that. 100 years later, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were needed to reinforce the Constitutional Amendments passed a century earlier. The Confederate battle flag is seen in this country as fundamentally racist by more and more people. The South Carolina Governor, as Republican as it gets and the South Carolina State Legislature, as staunchly conservative and jealously guarded of their traditions as can be, voted themselves into special session and ordered the battle flag removed in near record time. This wasn't PC run amok. It was the revulsion they felt over the wanton murder of nine more people, including one of their own, due to racist extremism in their own backyard. It was Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1965, when three young civil rights workers were murdered on orders from the KKK to local law enforcement. It was the firebombing of an AME Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed several black youth worshipping there. Not for one minute do I think consigning that flag to a museum will change much. As far as the Union Flag is concerned, yes there have been some pretty rotten things done in its name. There have been some pretty rotten things done in the name of the Stars and Stripes, most recently the needless invasion of Iraq. There have also been some pretty good things done as well. The only thing the Confederate Battle Flag and the Stars and Bars (the official flag of the Confederacy) represent is a system where some considered themselves superior human beings to others based on their skin color. That is racist to its core and that is what the Confederacy was all about. To anyone who believes themselves to be a superior life form, let me remind them that we all put our trousers on the same way, one leg at a time. Before anyone says I sympathize with the North because I am a New Yorker, I should tell you that no member of my family lived in the United States before 1895 and that my father emigrated from Germany in October 1935, stayed in London for a time and arrived in the US aboard RMS Berengaria in February 1936. That makes me a first generation American on my father's side and third on my mother's. No member of my family had a stake in the United States from the founding of the first colonies until the last five years of the 19th Century. No member of my family was involved in the lead up to the Civil War, the actual war or the events that followed it known as Reconstruction.

Divorced...And LOVING it!
VJRAM Rev.
CPFC since Boxing Day 1989 CPFC 2-2 CFC
Gregg Berhalter, US International & USMNT Head Coach
Jill Ellis, England International & Retired USWNT Head Coach
Trevor Francis, International PRAT

to echo this, quite disturbing. lest anyone try to dissuade you, the civil war was about slavery. nothing more or less. of course some other things around that.

the flag has been hijacked by people who adhere to some sentimental notion that things were better in the past. they aren't all out and out racists; but they liked things better when minorities better "knew their place." and they had freedom to use racist words, and act like heathens, etc.

you'll never see anyone other than whites with this flag so what's that tell you? sadly, years on and we have to see this in society - the flag is massively disparaging to anyone non-white but singularly pointed to anyone african-american. sad that some can't understand that.

And that is frighteningly similar to my experience. So much so that the immigration official apologized.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Non U.S citizens(brits, Europeans) often use the conf. flag with no relation whatsoever its history.
Purely 'johnny rebel' as a nose thumbimg to whatever they care to er..stick to fingers up at.
Its merely used /seen as a statement of defiance, with no reference to the USA.

Kids,tired of being bothered by your pesky parents?
Then leave home, get a job & pay your own bills, while you still know everything.

you've misunderstood me, I think.

only my opinion on why others may use it.
I have no interest either way in that flag, (its yank.)
Not people waving it either, I've only ever seen it used in non political circumstances.
most recent was outside a fairground alongside a pirate skull n cross bones, rainbow flag etc.
Don't think its in the same league as the swastika, which was stolen from the Asian community and they regard the symbol as positive, which I suppose is an example of different perceptions.

Kids,tired of being bothered by your pesky parents?
Then leave home, get a job & pay your own bills, while you still know everything.

the pirate flag isn't red and blue. Why did they hold that one up? In support of the ref, linesmen and third official?