Saturday, January 23, 2016

Judged By The Color On His Skin

Arkansas teen turned away from joining the Marines when he revealed he had a Confederate flag tattoo

It's a safe bet that the new rules were imposed by men who never volunteered as teens.

22 comments:

deborah said...

I wouldn't be surprised if the recruiter also told him he could get in if he had it made over into something that would cover it up. There are a lot of blacks in the service, and a Confederate flag could affect feelings and unit cohesiveness.

As far as the young men in rural Virginia who lived within say, three miles of me, I personally know at least five or six who volunteered during the Afghanistan/Iraq era.

The interesting thing about the Southern military ethic is that it took a long time for Southerners to begin celebrating the Fourth of July again after the Civil War. Vicksburg didn't celebrate it until the end of WWII.

Meade said...

If it were up to me, I'd DQ the kid just for being a stupid little cry baby.
What is "Southern Pride" exactly? It's code for white supremacy. So is the rebel flag.
Want to not be DQ'ed from joining the Marines? Next time try a tattoo of the Arkansas state flag with "Arkansas Pride". Or "USA" if you want to express pride of country/nation.

chickelit said...

I knew you'd love what happened to the kid, Meade. I should have tagged this one "Meade-bate."

chickelit said...

Meade asked: What is "Southern Pride" exactly?

I created a tag a while ago to collect what it means to me. It means a lot of things, but I'd start there.

Anti-Southern Pride is what Titus so often expresses. There are numerous commenters on your wife's blog who chime in with the anti-Southern thing and a few of them even comment here.

Rabel said...

This explains it pretty well.

William said...

I recently saw a documentary on the Gore Vidal/William Buckley debates. In one of them, Vidal vehemently defended the protesters who were waving the Viet Cong flag. According to Vidal, the First Amendment protects this kind of speech. Why does the First Amendment cover Viet Cong flags but not Confederate ones.....,,..I acknowledge that Deborah's point about unit cohesion is valid. It does seem to me that the confederate flag is unfairly being singled out, however. Why can't "Southern Pride" be taken to signify what the wearer claims it to signify. If a recruit had an Egyptian flag with the words Egyptian Pride underneath, should women interpret it as a veiled threat of genital mutilation? Should the Rainbow Flag be construed as advocacy of anal sex in the shower room and prohibited? My guess is that there are a lot of tat flags that the ACLU would find compelling reasons to defend, but not this one.

Meade said...

"Why does the First Amendment cover Viet Cong flags but not Confederate ones"

But it does.

Were the first amendment rights of the DQed Arkansas teen violated? I don't think so.

edutcher said...

Used to be the Corps was dominated by rednecks. The Stars and Bars was a second flag.

deborah said...

I wouldn't be surprised if the recruiter also told him he could get in if he had it made over into something that would cover it up. There are a lot of blacks in the service, and a Confederate flag could affect feelings and unit cohesiveness

No offense, but isn't it likely that there would be stuff on black kids would be offensive to whites?

OK, dumb question, how 'bout Hispanics? Orientals?

Meade said...

What is "Southern Pride" exactly? It's code for white supremacy. So is the rebel flag.

My God, what nonsense. Somebody could have a Moslem image and that's OK, but some kid who's proud because his great-great grandfather fought at Antietam can't?

If showing a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood is free speech, so is showing a Confederate flag in front of blacks.

Ask the Mrs.

Adamsunderground said...

What is "Southern Pride" exactly? It's code for white supremacy. So is the rebel flag.

This strikes me as ignorant. Not that a kid should be versed on the heraldry of hate groups, but the paranoia that lends to such an easy, comforting conclusion that nicely dovetails into provincialism. What a cheap price for self satisfaction--it's not you drinking that hemlock, right?

Meade said...

The scope of your first amendment rights change when you join the military.

Ask the Blonde.

edutcher said...

How many gang-banger tats are disallowed?

How many people with Allah Akbar or other colorful Islamic phrases or images are disallowed?

Sounds like only one group is being discriminated against.

Meade said...

Tell it to the Marines, tough guy. http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/08/21/marine-corps-update-its-tattoo-policy-after-review/32055597/

chickelit said...

How many people with Allah Akbar or other colorful Islamic phrases or images are disallowed?

Has there ever been a case of anti-American, pro-Muslim sentiment allowed in the military? Ft. Hood (Hasan) doesn't count as that was "work place violence" according to the Obama Administration, despite evidence of Hasan's communication with terrorists.

I just learned that Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down. Too bad his mind wasn't paralyzed as well. He'll probably get a sympathy pardon from Obama.

And people like Meade wonder why Trump resonates.

Meade said...

"And people like Meade wonder why Trump resonates."

There are no "people like Meade". He a one-off.

Adamsunderground said...

in 12 Angry Men, once Henry Fonda had the majority on his side, he quickly dispensed of the very tool that kept it at bay after a few joined his side, didn't he? No admonitions to his fellow jurors as they pressured the lone holdout. What a role model. Just win, baby!

chickelit said...

Meade, believe it or not there are people simile to you.

edutcher said...

8/21/15, huh.

Wotta coinkydink, just 2 whole months after the Charleston shootings and all the Lefty push to ban the Confederate flag.

Actually, sounds like it may be about how much tat can show, if any, according to the article, but we'll assume the Corps got the word from the Choom Gang and is now discriminating against young white men from the South.

Guess they'll all go to the Army now.

RLTW

Meade said...

Ed, when you assume, you make an ass of you and chickelit.

edutcher said...

Only if the assumption is unwarranted.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So it seems the rebel poseurs here are in agreement that employers don't have rights when those employers are the U.S. military. Any other employers whom they think should have no rights to project the speech and image that they feel reflects the nature of their enterprise? Or just the U.S. military - integrated, as it was, so many years ago? I didn't realize that sectionalism and segregationist legacies were values that the U.S. military saw fit to project among its troops. But then, there's no amount of illogic that rebel poseur wanna-be's here will entertain when it comes to defending white-on-black racism as some kind of American value. Hey, it's in our heritage! Well, not in theirs. But then, it's so much easier to be anti-America when you identify with the secessionist South of 1860, no matter how far north these yankees really are.

They're as bad as Chalabi, Bremer, and the other neocons. Pretending to speak for countries and regions that have no interest in their claim to them.

Chip Ahoy said...

You know what really offends me?

*squeaky ventriloquist voice* "No, Chip, what?"

When the confederate flag is displayed upside down, that's what.

*squeaky ventriloquist voice* "tee-hee tee-hee"

Stop laughing, it's not funny.

*squeaky ventriloquist voice* "tee-hee tee-hee"

Well it hardly ever happens, in fact google images hasn't a single instance, but it does occur the occasional southern pride type sticks his flag on the stick the wrong way and it does stick out like a sore thumb with stars pointing down instead of up and that's offensive to Southern heritage.

At least get it right. It's bad as the British flags upside down as with the stars and bars on the Hawaiian flag. A Hawaiian guy in Maui explained it's a nautical thing indicating distress, in answer to my query why their flag is so gosh darn serious and Anglophile-ish instead of happy and gay rainbow and palm tree flag as you'd expect of a resort island.

chickelit said...

@Chip, the Confederate flag has D2h symmetry. I was trained to notice these things at a glance.