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Would you play a gig with a Confederate Flag?

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Can't say one way or the other, but, fortunately, I doubt I'll ever be faced with the OP's scenario. It's certainly not a symbol I have any affection for.
 
I would, I have, and I am again on March 14. However, the bar has a Confederate flag hanging up more as an ironic-hipster piece than being serious. Someone painted "Ass Kickin' Southern Rock" and "Yeeehawww!!!" on it.

Outside of the US, the Confederate flag doesn't have much baggage attached with it. It's like when the Imperial Japanese flag is used as decoration on t-shirts, bandanas, and stickers in the US. Americans think it looks cool, but many Asians find that image and what it represents very offensive.
 
Absolutely would. Lynyrd Skynyrd plays NYC every year and every year they fly confederate colors at their shows. Some people are just way too sensitive these days.

Including the club owner in the case of the OP, who is far to sensitive about the flag to let the band cover it with their banner. What a sensitive little sissy, right?
 
Flags are not a big deal to me personally. The bar might just want to have a "rebel" vibe, but without a cause. But if I got an uneasy feeling I might be tempted to play "Strange Fruit" and "Down Rodeo" to see what kind of reaction they'd get.

An interesting related question would be: "Are there artists or bands that you would be philosophically or morally opposed to playing a bill with?"

Because if I looked at the bill and saw that I was booked with bands in the vein of the defunct Prussian Blue or RaHoWa I might have serious questions to ask about the gig!
 
No.

First, let me take race out of this for a minute (don't worry....I'll put it back...promise ;) )

The Stars and Bars are the flag of an entity that sought to destroy our country's standing government. In most countries, such a group would be considered to be treasonous. That alone should be reason enough to shun any establishment that takes pride in flying it (South Carolina State House, I'm talkin' to you)

Kanye West has "reclaimed" the symbol of late, as he put it.

So obviously, the symbol is STILL used as a provocation in many quarters.

Anybody who ascribes to WWKD (What Would Kanye Do) pretty much deserves whatever comes of that. Not sniping at you, Jah Wobble Fan.... Just the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the picture

I know that. But, facts are not always the basis of people's opinions and imagery. If you put up a Confederate flag and ask conservative/liberal or republican/democrat, I highly doubt that the majority will say liberal or democrat.

I think someone may have already pointed out that before the mid-40s, Republicans were seen as fairly moderate in terms of policy and Democrats were sort of bi-polar. Southern Democrats were very conservative and dogmatic. Probably most similar to today's Tea Party. By the way....was there a Democratic Party in the 1860s? I honestly do not know. I know Republicans were around, but it was a fairly new party then and is definitely older than the Democratic Party (GOP...)

OK...as promised...let's put race back into it...
Not at all similar, unless you think that the Conferates killed 6,000,000 people.
Depends on when and where you start counting. The Nazi machine was in place for 15-20 years. The institution of slavery in what is now the US was in place for over 300 years, pre-dating the birth of this nation. Even if you ignored all the slavery related deaths prior to the founding of the US of A and ignored the uncounted who died on the barbaric trips from Africa to the Americas, you'd still wind up with a number far in excess of 6 million. Flags tend to represent a way of thinking and a way of life. The Stars and Stripes mentality and way of life sucked for a whole lot of people.

This argument of which political party contributed more to the passing of the Civil Rights act is so petty and partisan it's ridiculous. Both sides here apparently agree that the act was a good thing, so they are in agreement on the moral issue. What they disagree on is the party that was primarily responsible for the act's passage.

I think this is a really trivial argument because:

1.) Both parties had substantial shares of members who supported the bill.

2.) The labels "Republican" and "Democrat" mean something completely different now than they did 50 years ago, 140 years ago.

Highlighted for emphasis.. Also consider that being a member of a particular party does not necessarily mean you blindly ascribe to all the positions taken by that party.


Sidebar....I used to play at a church in Detroit that was deeply politically connected. A certain former mayor of Detroit grew up in (but was no longer a member of ) that church. During the time I played there, his mother, a Representative in the US House was still a member. He was being indicted for a number of crimes (eventually convicted.....sentenced to 28 years). Early on in the legal proceedings against him, a support group held a rally of support for him at the church. They wanted the choirs to sing. They wanted the musicians (including me) to play. I never liked the mayor. Never trusted him, never voted for him. Tried VERY hard to extricate myself from the situation. Showed up at the church with my bass and my amp. Some security detail guy who apparently thought he was REALLY important, pointed to my amp and said "you can't take that in there". I was like "GREAT!!!" and went home. My only regret was that I didn't have balls enough when the subject first came up to say "I won't be there".
 
seems like people are forgetting that the north held and profited from slave trade too. right up to the eve of the civil war. even after they passed laws to keep the freed slaves from having any rights or any way to make a living at all. it can be argued that the emancipation was just a measure to entice the freed slaves to join the union army to make it bigger so they could win. one of the main reasons the slave population declined more rapidly in the north was a lack of any type of large scale agriculture industry like in the south, not through any sense of morality whatsoever. this and also because British soldiers freed the norther slaves during the revolutionary war, and the British spent more time up north than in the south. pre and post civil war the north had separate laws for whites and blacks. so, if Lincoln's north were also brutal slave owners and traders who only saw fit to abandon slavery because it was no longer economically feasible, not through a sense of morality and equal treatment of blacks, should we then also refuse to perform in front of lincoln's flag?
http://slavenorth.com/exclusion.htm
 
As a Yankee living in the South, I find the Stars and Bars problematical. On the one hand, the Confederate Flag is now, for many white people, the unofficial symbol of their regional culture. (It is worth mentioning that displaying the flag didn't really take off in the South until the Civil Rights era. You could look it up.)

On the other hand:
It is also the case that quite a few white Southerners insist that the flag has nothing to do with racism. With very, very few exceptions, these are the exact same people who will insist that the Civil War was about States Rights and had nothing to do with slavery. They also tend to call the Civil War "The War of Northern Aggression." In a way, this is not completely their fault. Where I live in North Carolina, this is what they teach in the schools. And if Mr. Smith in your 10th grade American History class said this was so, well, it must be.

The problem, of course, as has been referenced in other posts, is that the Vice President of the Confederacy gave a speech in 1861 making it explicit that the war was about slavery and the inferiority of the negro. So the States Rights argument really doesn't fly. And even in Charleston SC there is no getting around the fact that the Confederate Army fired the first shots of the war.

So...would I play a gig standing in front of the Stars & Bars? I would, except I have this problem, which is friends who are black. You may be surprised to hear that they don't buy any of this "symbol of regional culture" stuff.:D
 
I'm pretty sure the patrons of that establishment are used to that flag being up there and probably don't even see it when looking right at it. And as far as everyone questioning the club owners beliefs, hell, none of us would have gigs if we had to align ourselves with all club owners ideals, flag or no flag. I was born in the South and live here now, but have lived all across this large spinning rock and have never considered the flag as a symbol of racism or slavery. But to all you PC folk who live elsewhere, feel free to turn the gig down because you are offended, more gigs for the rest of us.
 
I'm pretty sure the patrons of that establishment are used to that flag being up there and probably don't even see it when looking right at it. And as far as everyone questioning the club owners beliefs, hell, none of us would have gigs if we had to align ourselves with all club owners ideals, flag or no flag. I was born in the South and live here now, but have lived all across this large spinning rock and have never considered the flag as a symbol of racism or slavery. But to all you PC folk who live elsewhere, feel free to turn the gig down because you are offended, more gigs for the rest of us.

You have "never considered the flag as a symbol of racism or slavery." Nice! Hey, if I were born in the South I might feel that way too. It is a hell of a lot easier than having to admit that the region you live in once attempted to leave the United States because it wanted to maintain the institution of slavery. Hey, did you see the film that won Best Picture at the Oscars the other night? No? Well, of course not.
 
I'm pretty sure the patrons of that establishment are used to that flag being up there and probably don't even see it when looking right at it. And as far as everyone questioning the club owners beliefs, hell, none of us would have gigs if we had to align ourselves with all club owners ideals, flag or no flag. I was born in the South and live here now, but have lived all across this large spinning rock and have never considered the flag as a symbol of racism or slavery. But to all you PC folk who live elsewhere, feel free to turn the gig down because you are offended, more gigs for the rest of us.
Well said.
 
I was born in the South and live here now, but have lived all across this large spinning rock and have never considered the flag as a symbol of racism or slavery.

I'm a southern white guy.

That flag came from the Civil War. We all know what the war was about.

I can't buy that line of jive that says that flag is a symbol of "southern heritage" or any other such bs.

Why?

Because that flag was nowhere to be seen before the Civil War. That flag stands for the CSA.

Why can't the South come up with another symbol for "southern heritage?" One that pre-dates the Civil War. The use of that flag to represent southern heritage pisses me off, and once again, I'm a southern white guy, and my great grandfather fought in the CW.

This was his.
 
No.



The Stars and Bars are the flag of an entity that sought to destroy our country's standing government. In most countries, such a group would be considered to be treasonous. That alone should be reason enough to shun any establishment that takes pride in flying it (South Carolina State House, I'm talkin' to you)



.

pretty sure that if they were allowed to leave peacefully they would have. as a matter of fact, when south carolina ratified their own constitution they expected that they had left peacefully and were their own sovereign nation who was attacked by an outside army. just saying you have to see both sides. its not like the north had any love for the freed blacks, see my previous post.
 
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