'I won't back down & I'm not a racist': Woman defends flying Confederate flag in black neighborhood

[ClarkUSA]

A South Carolina woman has said she will continue to fly the Confederate flag outside her home, despite heavy opposition from the predominantly black neighbourhood where she lives... Caddell has been criticised by neighbours who have protested outside her house and built a large wooden fence around her property in Summersville in an attempt to obstruct the flag.

But she said that she will not remove the flag because she is not a racist, but ‘loves her heritage’.



Earlier this year, two solid eight-foot high wooden fences were built on either side of Ms Caddell's modest brick house to shield the Southern banner from view.... Ms Caddell raised a flagpole higher than the fences to display the flag. Then a similar pole with an American flag was placed across the fence in the yard of neighbor Patterson James, who is black.


Flag war: Ms Caddell put up a new flag pole this summer that can be seen over the fence


One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War began about 20 miles away in Charleston Harbor...

http://tinyurl.com/racistdenial

Apparently, there are no racists in America anymore, anywhere. :sarcasm:

[bowens43]

1. The heritage she speaks of IS racism......

there is nothing dumber the the ' I'm not a racist, I love my heritage' argument....

[truebrit71]

3. ...unless she's just really proud of coming in second place in a war....

...you never know...:evilgrin:

[TheWraith]

9. Yeah, that's really the clincher.

If you're NOT glorifying racism, slavery, and brutality, then the ONLY other answer is that you're celebrating a devastating lost war that consisted of treason against the United States. It's not like there's a lot of other options.

[roguevalley]

15. she is also a bad neighbor. Everyone in the neighborhood should

fly nazi flags and see how she likes it. She might.

[yardwork]

2. If you have to say "I am not a racist" then....

And that Confederate flag has nothing to do with southern heritage. It was popularized during the 1950s - nearly 100 years after the Civil War ended - as a protest against desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement. So, yes, that flag is pointedly racist, as is this woman's insistence on flying it.

Plus she is the neighbor from hell.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. She Should Consider Flying The Stars And Bars Instead

Ms. Caddell seems to have had her political senses chloroformed. She may not know it, but the Confederate battle flag (The one she's flying) was not only the flag used by Confederate troops, but also by white racists and the KKK decades after the Confederacy went down to a well-deserved defeat.

I can understand white southerners wishing to show their pride. But the Confederate Battle Flag is a tainted symbol. Ms. Caddell should seriously consider respecting her neighbors' feelings about the Confederate Battle Flag and consider flying the Confederate Stars and Bars instead. I'm not saying that the Stars and Bars aren't tainted either (They are), but they're politically less obnoxious than the red flag with the star-studded St. Andrew's cross on it and they don't have the sachet off KKK that the latter drape possesses.

[14thColony]

28. Or the Bonnie Blue Flag, which far predates the other flags

...and has no visceral negativity associated with it. Of course she might get upset when she realises the Bonnie Blue looks like the flag of Somalia.

[jenmito]

5. She is definitely a racist. Her desire to wave that flag in the faces of her Black neighbors

proves it's NOT about her pride in her own (racist) heritage. She's looking for trouble.

[Ian David]

6. You lost, lady. Get over it.

[thereismore]

7. Because one US flag ain't'nuff. nt

[eShirl]

8. Sorry lady, but that's almost like flying a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood

and thinking it's okay because you have German heritage.

[Recursion]

10. That's the Confederate Navy Jack. The display is improper even by strictly formal standards

I do love explaining to my fellow southerners that it's improper to fly that flag from anything but the yard of a vessel underweigh.

[Hoyt]

11. I suppose she also believes the Civil War was not about slavery. Jerks like her live near me too.

They are clearly racists. Growing up, I remember members of the KKK running for office would say they weren't racists either. Still plenty like that where I live.

As Bill Maher says: There are two things right wingers can't stand. (1) being called a racist; (2) Black people.

[ileus]

12. What an idiot ass...

[Fresh_Start]

13. she's most likely GOP...which means she's most likely a liar

did anyone check her genealogy? After all if they lie about military service they may well be lying about their ancestors?

[JustAnotherGen]

14. Oh nooooooo

Another person who is proud to be part of the 'losing side'. Epic fail!

[GSLevel9]

16. Driving from Va to Gettysburg one summer I drove through a small town in Md

and ran across LOTS of Confederate flags in the small town... I mean like 10-15 flags in 5 minutes.

Being from Va I'm accustomed to the occasional flag sticker on a truck or flag in a yard but have never seen so many in such a short period of time.

[kelly1mm]

18. Was it Thurmont MD? About 10 miles from the PA border on US15?

That is a hotbed of klan activity. Up till very recently there was a diner named "Kross Kountry Kitchen" with a big sign you could see from the highway (and the 3 Ks were arranged so you could not miss the context). Very strange area.

[GSLevel9]

19. that's about right... near the Pa border. thanks for the info. nt

[yurbud]

17. judging from the size of her house, like conservatives today, her family was probably never rich

enough to benefit from slavery.

The Old South did little for poor whites like her, but just like now, they seemed to think they were one lottery ticket away from having their own plantation.

[WI_DEM]

20. I can't understand some southerners and their love of the confederate flag

Did they want the south to win? Do they really wish they were seperate from the US? I've heard many people say it's not about race but heritage! But the flag stood for an attempt by a region of the country to seperate from this country because they felt the federal government would infringe of their rights--one of those rights was to hold slaves.

[krawhitham]

21. Some still believe the South will rise again

[JoePhilly]

22. It is always helpful when the racists self-identify. Helps you avoid them.

[vaberella]

23. + Infinity. Best statement EVER! n/t

[JoePhilly]

24. I'm a white guy in NC, and when I see a confederate flag, I immediately

know more than enough about that person.

[valerief]

25. So she loves her racist heritage but she's not racist? One thing she is is stupid. nt

[rury]

26. Racist b..ch!!

[Arkana]

27. These people believe that you're not a racist

if you're not actually wearing the hood.

News flash: You do not need to burn crosses and use the n-word to be a racist. Racism has many forms, and the Confederate fucking flag (which, if you ask me, should be considered treason, since they lost) is a MAJOR one of those passive-aggressive forms of it.

[JoeyT]

29. It's rationalization.

They've absorbed that racism is a bad thing, but not why it's a bad thing or what it actually is, since that would require some effort at changing on their part. So instead of saying "I'll try my best to not be racist" they move the definition of racism to be a bit more racist than they are.

"I'm not a racist. Minorities make me uncomfortable, but I don't fly confederate flags."
"I'm not a racist. I fly a confederate flag, but I don't use racial slurs."
"I'm not a racist. I use racial slurs, but I don't really mean them."
"I'm not a racist. I mean the racial slurs, but I'm not in the Klan."
"I'm not a racist. I'm in the Klan, but we don't actually hate black people."

It's why the Klan claims they're about heritage rather than hate. Even the Klan has absorbed that racism is a bad thing. They just can't for the life of them figure out why or figure out how to not be racist. They just point at the skinheads and say "We're not racist, THOSE are racists." or go into a bunch of handwaving about reverse racism, which they've never personally experienced, but they either know a guy that knew a guy or are just pissed off because a non-white person or a woman was promoted or hired over them.

[JoeyT]

30. Her claims of not wanting to offend her neighbors fail when

they made an effort to not see it and she made sure they couldn't avoid it.

She stepped out of the highly questionable "Proud of heritage" that we all know is bullshit anyway right into "Openly being a petty asshole to people that are different".

[mcgarry50]

31. ms caddell

the problem with these people is the fact that they seem to forget that they LOST the civil war.

[Bad Thoughts]

32. Is there no symbol of their COMMON heritage?

After all, her black neighbors are Southerners as well. Though they may not have always eaten at the same tables or erected walls between each other, they have nonetheless been neighbors, ate the same foods, worshiped the same god, played the same tunes and songs (albeit in different manners). There are things this one woman could have done to elevate a common Southern consciousness that included her neighbors. But the symbol she chose was not only offensive, it was deliberately exclusionary.

[Cigar11]

33. She will learn the hard way ...

You know what, things like this have a way of working themselves out.

Remember a few years ago; there were some school kids that thought it was funny to hang Nooses from Trees … they too finally learned a valuable life lesion about Freedom of Expression.

[BR_Parkway]

34. Anyone else ever wonder if Lincoln did the right thing? (and I live in the

south)