{"id":135,"date":"2003-11-06T02:12:24","date_gmt":"2003-11-06T07:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2003\/11\/waving_the_stars_and_bars\/"},"modified":"2003-11-06T02:12:24","modified_gmt":"2003-11-06T07:12:24","slug":"waving_the_stars_and_bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2003\/11\/waving_the_stars_and_bars\/","title":{"rendered":"Waving the Stars and Bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s been a notable amount of hubbub in<\/a> the<\/a> blogosphere<\/a> and in last night’s debate<\/a> regarding Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s recent references to the Confederate flag<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

“White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us, and not [Republicans], because their kids don’t have health insurance either, and their kids need better schools too.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Feeling the heat, today Dean issued an apology of sorts<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Many people in the African-American community have supported what I said in the past few days because they understand what this is about,” the former Vermont governor said. “But some have not, and to those I deeply regret the pain that I may have caused.”
\nSpeaking at New York’s Cooper Union, Dean stopped short of apologizing and vowed not to shirk from “difficult and painful” discussions about race relations. “Feelings will be hurt,” Dean said.
\nLater, he called the AP to clarify the comments in his speech.
\n“That was an apology. You heard it from me,” Dean said. “It was a remark that inflicted a lot of pain on people for whom the flag of the Confederacy is a painful symbol of racism and slavery.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

People have different sensitivities for pain. The Confederate flag is a divisive symbol–one which in the eyes of many carries a racial charge, no matter what the context. But I don’t think anyone who reasonably examines what Dean said will interpret his comments as an appeal to racism. You can only reach that conclusion if you assume that a majority of Southerners brandishing the Confederate flag are racists–thus meaning Dean was seeking the vote of racists. Clearly, that’s not the case.
\nDean would have avoided himself this grief if he had simply said he was after voters with gun racks<\/i> in their pickup trucks. Though, as Senator Edwards noted, this still would have been somewhat stereotypical. But the real reason this statement has generated such a buzz is because it’s provided opponents an opportunity to take a shot at Dean. Months ago he made a similar statement and nothing was made of it. But now that he’s one of the Democratic front runners, everyone is aiming the buckshot at his rear end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s been a notable amount of hubbub in the blogosphere and in last night’s debate regarding Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s recent references to the Confederate flag: “I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.” and “White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}