[Raider Hanks]

The Confederate Flag, as well as General Robert E. Lee is an aspect of my culture. I grew up in rural Virginia. Through my father, grandfather, and community, I have heard stories of the Civil War. I am an American. I had family on both sides of the war. I refuse to throw down my ancestors as racist traitors who deserve to never be displayed. My family did not own slaves. That is a fact. I do not know if my family fought solely to preserve slavery, or because they were against the perceived threat of a tyrannical government. That is unknown to me and I do not want anyone making assumptions, because you do not know either.

In regards to the removal of the flag due to hate crimes involving it, why do we not remove the American flag? From atrocities against the Native Americans to war-crimes during Vietnam, not to mention contemporary atrocities, we still maintain the flag? In the 1920s, the KKK launched its largest march on Washington. The flag flown was not the Confederate flag. You know what it was? The American flag. Why is the Union Jack still flown in the United Kingdom? Their colonial empire lead to many atrocities in the name of imperialism. The Japanese flag still has similar elements of its prior flag during the Japanese Empire. Why don't they remove the sun symbolism completely from their flag?


I don't very much like your association with my heritage to be only of racism. It offends me deeply. You don't even try to view this through my eyes. You stamp it down as bigotry and move on in a high and mighty attitude. Do you support the American flag? The flag attributed to tyrants? Flown by the KKK? Used while invading countless nations around the globe?

[Damien]

Honestly who cares? It's just a profile picture and threads like this make people like Raider Hanks happy because the entire reason he has it is just to troll people who are over-sensitive. I do not like the person or the flag represented in his profile picture but I do not think he should be forced to remove it.

If he wasn't a staff member, I wouldn't be as upset. But he is a representative of the staff team and that profile picture is quite visible to anyone that joins our community. That's where the problem lies. There's also, of course, the problem in being an actual racist or pretending to be racist as a joke, but I'm only addressing problem one here today.

If there's actual proof of him being a racist, community ban him. This crumbling community does not need people like that.

[David]

So I have a question for you all. 
https://imgur.com/a/GxnqkqH
Is this profile pic fine or not in your eyes? I know I seen raider use similar profile pics before I think but I just wanted to know if you really thought it’s ok to have a profile pic like this since it probably can cause controversial issues. But again forgive me if it wasn’t necessary to make this post and ask it.

grab the popcorn boys, this one is going to be a wild ride.


Keep in mind this is a GMOD server, not a professional organization. Someone on this thread is trying to make it more of the latter than the former.

[Raider Hanks]

I am not denying the hated that some apply to the flag and man, but do not kid yourself in saying our nation's own flag is free of that own hated.

[David]

The Confederate Flag, as well as General Robert E. Lee is an aspect of my culture. I grew up in rural Virginia. Through my father, grandfather, and community, I have heard stories of the Civil War. I am an American. I had family on both sides of the war. I refuse to throw down my ancestors as racist traitors who deserve to never be displayed. My family did not own slaves. That is a fact. I do not know if my family fought solely to preserve slavery, or because they were against the perceived threat of a tyrannical government. That is unknown to me and I do not want anyone making assumptions, because you do not know either.

In regards to the removal of the flag due to hate crimes involving it, why do we not remove the American flag? From atrocities against the Native Americans to war-crimes during Vietnam, not to mention contemporary atrocities, we still maintain the flag? In the 1920s, the KKK launched its largest march on Washington. The flag flown was not the Confederate flag. You know what it was? The American flag. Why is the Union Jack still flown in the United Kingdom? Their colonial empire lead to many atrocities in the name of imperialism. The Japanese flag still has similar elements of its prior flag during the Japanese Empire. Why don't they remove the sun symbolism completely from their flag?


I don't very much like your association with my heritage to be only of racism. It offends me deeply. You don't even try to view this through my eyes. You stamp it down as bigotry and move on in a high and mighty attitude. Do you support the American flag? The flag attributed to tyrants? Flown by the KKK? Used while invading countless nations around the globe?

All I can remember when I read this is Nicol pinning a message of himself stating basically "don't talk about politics in this community" and this thread is a great indication of why. Personally, I believe you have solid points but people will say otherwise and label you. Nobody really should give a shit as long as you aren't screaming slurs in game. Once you do that, it'll cause an issue. I know that you're not doing that as I've played with you before, so just ignore this bullshit and move on! :D

[Deer-ly]

personally i have no problem with it, all i see is a man and his Sothern pride

[Raider Hanks]

Thank you, @David

[La Flama Blanca]

The Confederate Flag, as well as General Robert E. Lee is an aspect of my culture. I grew up in rural Virginia. Through my father, grandfather, and community, I have heard stories of the Civil War. I am an American. I had family on both sides of the war. I refuse to throw down my ancestors as racist traitors who deserve to never be displayed. My family did not own slaves. That is a fact. I do not know if my family fought solely to preserve slavery, or because they were against the perceived threat of a tyrannical government. That is unknown to me and I do not want anyone making assumptions, because you do not know either.

In regards to the removal of the flag due to hate crimes involving it, why do we not remove the American flag? From atrocities against the Native Americans to war-crimes during Vietnam, not to mention contemporary atrocities, we still maintain the flag? In the 1920s, the KKK launched its largest march on Washington. The flag flown was not the Confederate flag. You know what it was? The American flag. Why is the Union Jack still flown in the United Kingdom? Their colonial empire lead to many atrocities in the name of imperialism. The Japanese flag still has similar elements of its prior flag during the Japanese Empire. Why don't they remove the sun symbolism completely from their flag?


I don't very much like your association with my heritage to be only of racism. It offends me deeply. You don't even try to view this through my eyes. You stamp it down as bigotry and move on in a high and mighty attitude. Do you support the American flag? The flag attributed to tyrants? Flown by the KKK? Used while invading countless nations around the globe?

I'm not really interested in going into a debate about other flags because that's just a false equivalency argument, which I'm sure you'll learn about soon enough in college.

No one is asking you to "throw down my ancestors as racist traitors who deserve to never be displayed." You are fully aware that the flag and Lee are divisive symbols. You can put up as many statues of Lee or fly as many flags as you want in a private setting. But on this Discord, you represent the staff of this community. And that community includes more than a bunch of rural Virginians. It includes people of all races and ethnicities. And a majority of Americans find those symbols to represent hate and white supremacy. If you are going to represent this community, you need to be respectful of everyone.

[Mana]

I'll actually put in a statement later or continue to edit this one until the thread ends up being locked, but simply shortening it to keep my opinion in general:

Raider's profile pictures
Yes, They can be distasteful.
However, it is something I consider to be nonmalignant racism.
It is not evil in nature.
I have or you have laughed or appreciated dark humor at once in your life. You can make or enjoy plenty of jokes about the Nazi regime, human genocide, slavery, or other well known atrocities. But the type of racism that we should be solely focused on dealing with is racism is racism that is explicitly directed to players that are on the servers and communities or racism intended as a means of trolling or annoying our playerbase, which is in the end why we deal with racist trolls on the server.. This is in the end (parroting cactus and other staff and nonstaff) a gaming community centered on a cluster of gmod gamemodes intended for the enjoyment of multiple people. I'm actually gonna have to agree with Thunder and Damester and semi-agree with Raider. This is an issue that is being blown out of proportion and I believe that this is an overly sensitive reaction.
I honestly don't care if I'm being hypocritical, but this is how I feel on the matter.

We barely deal with actual honest to god racists that would harass playerbase, we deal with trolls that act racist to get a reaction or stir shit up and annoy players on the server, that's the type of people staff deal with.

[Raider Hanks]

In respecting everyone, you need to remember that you cannot force people to change their views or project your own perception of certain issues onto others