Do you guys see these around a fair bit still.

At my last job people would come in wearing hats with confederate flags etc and I'd fairly often see them on the front of semi trucks. Just wondering if this is common? I mean if I see them in canada that much, how much of that shit is there out in the USA?

also

Black skeleton found hanging from flagpole; 2 charged
By THE CANADIAN PRESS

GEORGINA, Ont. - Two men are facing hate-crime charges after a black skeleton was found hanging from a flagpole flying a Confederate flag in an Ontario town.

York Regional Police say the plastic, life-sized skeleton had been painted black and was found outside an officer's home in Georgina last November.

Police say the skeleton was dangling by its neck from a hangman's noose.

Luke Granados, 25, of Georgina, and Russell Granados, 21, of Markham, Ont., were charged with wilful promotion of hate.

Laying a hate-crime charge under a section in the Criminal Code requires consent from the attorney general of Ontario, which was granted on May 14.

Both of the accused are scheduled to appear in court in Newmarket, Ont., on June 17.

"York Regional Police will not tolerate hate crime in any form," said Chief Armand La Barge.

"These kinds of crimes not only hurt the community that has been targeted, it hurts us all."

Why are people in Canada pimping confederate flags? Awfully strange.

I know it doesn't make any sense but we do have the same percentage of mental defect as anywhere else. So many common misconceptions about Canada. The Prairies are our red states pretty much.

That's just so far away from the south, it doesn't make any sense.

This speaks to the ridiculous notion that confederate flags are about southern pride or heritage, and not symbols of hate and racism. Obviously Canadian dumb asses flying the confederate flag aren't super proud to be from South Carolina, and the hanging of a black effigy does seems to maybe, I don't know, imply racism...

But then again maybe misguided Canucks have stolen a harmless American symbol of southern pride and used it for terrible, hateful purposes

Also, I see people rocking out Confederate flags all the time in south west Ohio.

There is that, I suppose.

If one is to support independence and the thumbing of the nose at the federal government, I would think a "Don't Tread On Me" flag would be much more appropriate. I prefer it myself, as I am not of southern heritage anyway, and I find the snake and the motto to be most pleasing.

I'd cede to deathbyflannel if he still posted here, but in lieu of that, I'll cede to George Carlin:

I always assume the worst of someone sporting the stars and bars, but it's not fair to say that no one considers it a symbol of southern pride just because some lame canucks used it for racism.

Rednecks are everywhere guys.

There's a choice moment on the 3rd Pantera home video where they're over in Japan and this Japanese dude pulls up beside them in a car rocking a huge rebel flag. It's pretty hilarious.

No other section of the country has a flag; some people do fly it as a display of regional pride. I don't see the flag nearly as often as I did growing up but it really does mean different things to different people. Redneck and racist aren't necessarily synonyms.

I remember that, funny ass shit.

Anyway, I guess some people in the south do it out of heritage but it really does seem outdated and retarded IMO. Especially in Canada.

I don't think someone displaying the Confederate flag automatically means he/she is racist, but....

I would put people displaying that flag into one of 4 categories:

1. Person is anti-establishment
2. Person is racist
3. Person is well versed in history and has serious issues with the North invading the South during the Civil War (for whatever reason)

And probably the most common:

4. Person doesn't know or understand what the flag really means.

Then again, I'm from Connecticut and it's pretty rare to see it up here. When you do, it's almost always assumed the person falls into the above 4th category.

The rattlesnake was a symbol used in my fraternity, and I always liked the "warn before you strike" metaphor. "Don't tread on me" is also a cool-as-shit saying.

Other early American flag ideas:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=je3ZD02DU40

Well, yes and no.

It was weird for me moving to Florida and marrying into a "southern" family. My mother-in-law still refers to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression. My father in law bitches about all the Yankees moving down to Florida, which I find to be really interesting as he is from New York, like half of the rest of Central Florida.

My brother in law sings in a local "Southern Rock" band and they routinely fly the Confederate Flag at their shows.

Then there's my wife who can't wait to get the hell out of the south, lol.

So I don't know, when I first got to Florida it was difficult for me to see that flag as anything but racist, but I think there are a lot of people that fly it out of a sense of "Southern Pride," whether we find that misguided or not.

I will say after living in Florida for a year, that if you don't think racism is alive and well in America, you should probably reconsider. I grew up in as much of a white bread culture as you can have in Utah, but I was very unprepared for a lot of the racial language and tension that exists just below the surface around here.

But I digress, my in laws certainly aren't racist folks, so I believe there are people who look at it as a historical southern pride thing, whether anybody else agrees with them or not.

Wow Brandon, a lot has changed since we've last chatted. That's likely my fault for not paying attention. You now join AS amongst the Western RMers that have migrated to the South. (it's weird that our region would be considered "Yankees", btw.)

Let me ask you this question, then--I've long believed that despite the lack of diversity in the West, the degree of racism in that area isn't nearly on the level that it is in other regions, because of the simple lack of history of tension between races. My latest attempt to demonstrate evidence for this is the fact that Obama has utterly destroyed Clinton in pretty much every Western state without a large Latino population (which opens up another can of worms). You've now lived in both regions--do you think the argument has any merit? Or is there just less of a stigma to openly express it down there?

Hey GH, no worries, if it makes you feel any better my wife and are coming back west because the economy totally sucks here. (Actually I'm in Utah even at the moment).

As to your question, I think it's a little bit of both. Honestly, I would suspect Florida might be a little different than say Alabama or Mississippi. Depending on who you ask on the street, A Floridian may or may not say that Florida is part of the "South." However, once you get away from the cities and nice suburbs and get into a lot of the residential core, I think it's a very southern place, at least in Central Florida, which isn't quite as cosmopolitan as Southern Florida.

I definitely think that in a lot of circles it is ok to express those racist leanings and comments. However, it's usually confined to private gatherings, you don't see it rear it's head much in public, but it's right there under the surface.

We actually had a horrible situation where my wife's aunt was murdered this past January. First thing almost all of them jumped to was that they bet it was black man who did it. Turns out it was, but I honestly don't think race played apart in the crime at all, it was just a wrong place wrong time deal. But I was amazed by the fact that after that any gathering of my in-laws and their friends turned into something that could pretty much be on par with a KKK rally. I'd never heard that language outside of a movie about 1960's Mississippi. I think it's probably a case of a horrible situation bringing out the worst in people. Unfortunately, they never considered that the first people on the scene were the victim's African-American neighbors. They were the ones that called the police and 911.

There really is a cultural disconnect.

As to your argument. I think you do have some merit. Nobody would ever say the Utah Mormons are a particularly tolerant bunch, but I never heard an African American actually refered to as the N-word (outside of a movie or rap song) until I moved to Florida. I thought about it and kind of came to the same conclusion. There really isn't a deep black-white history in the west. Plus I know an awful lot of western redneck types who would not usually stoop to the level of a "southern" style racism. Unless it comes to the growing Hispanic population. A quick browse of the comments on many stories on local news sites will show that there is a growing conflict there, but there is now starting to be a history built up there too.

All I know is after working for awhile in the Criminal Justice establishment in Utah, it's becoming the new mecca for White Supremacists thinking that they will find some sympathy for their views in the "white and delightsome" Mormon population. I'm not real sure they're finding it yet though, because ultimately I don't think most Mormons will agree with the methods these thugs use. It's gonna be interesting to watch over the next few years though.

Just so everyone who reads this knows, I certainly don't mean to overgeneralize the entire south or all southerners as racists, because I don't believe that's the case.