Racism In Flags

Racism in Flags Racism can be represented in many forms. Flags are on of them.

Flags can be used to represent something. Many flags mean different things such as freedom, democracy and respect for something such as a country. However, some flags can been seen as something bad or something that they disprove of, but to another person it can be something they believe in.What I am talking about is racism and how it can be shown in flags.

The Confederate flag is a very controversial flag. Some people see it as a flag that represents the United States History. Other people do not like the flag because it reminds them of the time in the United States history where there was a lot of slavery, violence and hate. The flag was used by the Confederacy when fighting the Yankees in the Civil War. The flag is still used in some of the state flags of the USA.The states that use the confederate flag in their state flag are Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas, Texas, and Alabama.

The flag is used in the Army for ceremonies and for graduation. Some African American officers do not like to use the flag, and argue that it is stands for racism and hate. Other officers say that they use the flag just for the tradition and to keep the history. To some the flag may seem to be just a plain piece of history but to others it can be real painful just to look at because it may have caused some pain to the person personally or to their family in the past.

One reason why this flag, to some people, stands for racism is because there are some hate and racist groups that use the confederate flag.Some people just want to ban the confederate flag but other people say that would be going against the first amendment in the United States, which is freedom of speech. Banning the flag may not be bad but its the principal of keeping the flag to show that we can handle this flag by having the right to wave that flag but we can show that we dont need to. I think that just because we can do something does not mean we should do it. In World War II a man named Adolf Hitler introduced a flag that he used to represent a group he made up called Nazis. The flag has a real famous symbol in the middle of it, the symbol is called a swastika, it looks like a cross (mabey he thought of it like a religion) and the ends of the cross were bent in a clockwise direction.

The flag probably has the same impact it did then as it does today. When people see the swastika it almost every person will think of Nazis or the World War II and the bad things that happen in the war. The Nazi flag is still used today by hate and racist groups. The swastika used to mean the sun and good luck and many different things to other religions.

That shows how something can just change so easily from one meaning to another.The flag now would never be viewed as good unless someone stood for what the swastika stands for. The flag has been shown to other countries as a bad symbol and something they do not want in there country, so the following counties banned the Nazi flag, Germany, Israel, France, and Italy. That may have been a good idea to ban them but again we have the right of freedom of speech but that does not mean we should use that swastika for anything. But then again the swastika changed its meaning so fast mabey we can change it again to something good. The use of hate flags and symbols is still around but another problem is the creation of new flags and symbols.

There are also flags that are racist but not many people are familiar with them.There are flags out there people do not know what they stand for or represent. There is one flag with FAP written on it which is used by one of Germanys most violent racist groups. Since the swastika is was banned, the German Imperial War flag is now being used for a substitute by some Nazis. The USA flag, shield of the Aryan Nations is now used by Swedish nazi terrorists.

Two flags I really disprove of are the Movimento Sociale Italiano flag, used in Italy, and the Front National used in France.The reason I do not like these two impeticular flags more than others is because both flags look like there countries flags with a flame with the countries colors again in a flame inside the middle of the flag. So I think that it is bad because it looks like the countries flags and I dont like the idea of a flag that stands for racist views to look like a whole countys flag. Maybe if we did not know what any flag meant or stood for in the first place we may then we wouldnt have such a big problem with racist flags. Flags can be good or bad depending on your views.

Personally I think that a racist flag is a bad flag, but that does not mean I think that the people who like those flags are bad, I just dont agree with there views on racist flags. This shows that Flags do have meaning and weather it be racist, good, bad, religious, even flags of your country have meaning. I just hope that later most flags will be representing mostly good and all the racist flags will have stopped. Bibliography Encyclopedia Funk Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. Color-Daily.

P.351 (cross) Internet http://www.student.uit.no/~paalde/nazismexposed/Sc ripts/flags.

html http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/naz ban.html http://www.dailyeyptian.com/spring97/050597/flags.

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