Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 870 posts

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#781

Post by [deleted] »

timsally wrote: post #765
torstenvl wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't. They chose the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia because of widespread admiration of Lee, who, while no abolitionist, called slavery a political and moral evil; who insisted on reconciliation after the war and rejected Lost Cause mythology; and who called upon Southerners to vow loyalty to the United States. There's a reason they chose Lee's flag and not a CSA flag associated directly with a r…

It is the flag flown by an armed group that killed soldiers in the United States Army, is it not? [1] This fact gets lost in the debate. No American should fly the flag of any group that targeted and killed members of the United States Armed Forces. [1] https://history.army.mil/books/R&H/R&H-FM.htm , Section VI with Ulysses Simpson Grant as part of the unbroken chain of command.

[deleted]

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#782

Post by timsally »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #777
timsally wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the flag flown by an armed group that killed soldiers in the United States Army, is it not? [1] This fact gets lost in the debate. No American should fly the flag of any group that targeted and killed members of the United States Armed Forces. [1] https://history.army.mil/books/R&H/R&H-FM.htm , Section VI with Ulysses Simpson Grant as part of the unbroken chain of command.

They were defending themselves against invasion by the U.S. Army.

How can someone be "defending" themselves when they initiated hostilities? [1]

Unilateral succession is illegal. Those flying the confederate flag were not defending themselves, they were committing treason. Our Union is an indestructible one. It was safeguarded then by the U.S. Army who will continue to safeguard it as long as America endures.

It feels me with great sadness to think of the blood that was spilled, but at the end of the day Americans who take up arms against the U.S. Army are criminals and traitors. No American should fly the flag of those who have killed our soldiers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sumter

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#783

Post by Aerroon »

FireBeyond wrote: post #527
norswap wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you see the issue with that thought process right? You can imbue political meaning on anything that way, and ban arbitrary things. What if there is a (perhaps bogus) polemic, and your favorite singer is singled out as a racist/misogynist/communist/whatever, and the Bad People start blasting his songs at rallies? Are you supposed to stop listening to your favourite songs. Come to your own conclusions, but mine is:…

Your conclusion here is that these people were all making this sign for non-nefarious meanings. On the contrary, it is contextually highly/entirely likely that they were _actively_ choosing to use it in a political manner. They _themselves_ were choosing to imbue political meaning on it, as much as anyone was choosing to _take_ meaning from it.

>On the contrary, it is contextually highly/entirely likely that they were _actively_ choosing to use it in a political manner.

Based on what? If you go looking for things with a specific interpretation in mind you're going to find a lot of it even in places that it wasn't meant that way. The adage about malice and incompetence comes to mind.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#784

Post by [deleted] »

gamblor956 wrote: post #444
octocop wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choice is still present, is a person who is paralyzed and unable to speak by default non-racist?

There is a huge difference between thinking bad thoughts and expressing or acting on them. You can be as racist as you want in your own head. No one is stopping that. You can express those racist thoughts all you want on your own property. But you have absolutely no right to express or act on those racist thoughts on someone else's property.

[deleted]

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#785

Post by geronimoe »

Smoosh wrote: post #584
skinkestek wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bloke (and a less privileged bloke at that, 75% non white according to himself) was recently fired because someone had shot a photo of him resting his hand out the window of a company truck in what lpoked line an OK hand. It was discussed here a few days ago. Stop firing the innocent or something, from the Atlantic.

oh, come on. "resting his hand ... what looked like" ??? Wasn't the story that people in another car taunted him and urged him to make the symbol, and they recorded it when he did? He may have not known what the meaning was (I believe that is what he claimed) but that is an entirely different defense to make than "I wasn't doing it, it just looked a bit like it".

What are you talking about? You need to defend yourself for hand gestures now? You need to preface your arguments with "I'm not white" now?

The point is he didn't make a racist gesture, so why are we even talking about it.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#786

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

djsumdog wrote: post #553
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mainstream historians would argue that Soviet Communism was terrible - but it wasn't an ideology based on hate or subjugation. Displaying the Hammer and Sickle likely means you stand for unity with the working-class and seek an egalitarian society - or you have grievances with the current system of capitalism - and not that you hate on any particular group of people, and especially not for any of their immuta…

It's still entirely subjective. > "but it wasn't an ideology based on hate or subjugation" This is really stretching. I doubt may people who supported the Nazis early on would have thought their party was going to commit genocide. You don't see cognitive dissonance while you're in it. The Confederate Flag does represent Treason and many declarations of independence mention defense of slavery explicit in the first two…

> However, if the Confederates has succeeded, there’s a good chance they would have ended slavery

[citation needed] do you have some sort of source to back this claim up?

Why would a region willingly give up it’s main source of economic power a la slaves? The south was notorious for avoiding investment into public infrastructure like roads, rail, foundries, etc. Why would they enter into a civil war over slavery if they were “about to give it up” anyways? This take flies counter to everything I’ve read about the confederate south

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#787

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

winrid wrote: post #772

What if you are just being funny? Like you create a truck and put the Confederate flag on it. It could be intended as humor I suppose. Are we looking past intent and being too sensitive?

I would ask: what’s the joke?

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#788

Post by Shish2k »

FireBeyond wrote: post #519
donmcronald wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've heard of that. I can just imagine being somewhere loud and giving the ok / perfect symbol to a friend across the room and then being called a racist. Damn, that's scary.

If that's what you got out of this, I'm not sure what to say. I even used the SCUBA shop, which is next door, for reference. No-one that I've seen has advocated that the OK sign be abandoned for divers. I've been mid mouthful at a restaurant when a server has asked how my food is and I've made this sign and not been called a racist. However, should I and half a dozen of my buddies, armed an in full tactical gear, sta…

> a _reasonable person_ may choose to interpret this

Alas, it’s not up to reasonable people to interpret the rules, it’s up to those in power, who can and will interpret it in whatever way benefits them

(See also, the Shirley Exception - https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1004400861865488384 )

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#789

Post by odshoifsdhfs »

breakbread wrote: post #649
donmcronald wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've heard of that. I can just imagine being somewhere loud and giving the ok / perfect symbol to a friend across the room and then being called a racist. Damn, that's scary.

My wife is a high school teacher and, until we had our first child, was also the swim team coach. Early last year she made a kid run laps after he low key photo-bombed the team picture by making the "Ok" symbol on one of his thighs. Then she gets an angry text message from the kid's mother who believed her son was being punished specifically for making the "ok" symbol. This woman had found a picture of my wife on Fac…

I honestly don't know what the 'ok symbol' is in relation to racism/whatever. In my country I don't think it is a thing and I stopped following silly things on the internet. BUT even if it is a racist symbol/white supremacy/whatever, your wife is still in the wrong. (I am assuming the symbol is not illegal)

Your wife punished a kid for making a symbol she disagrees with, heck, you could even say by making a political statement. If that happened to my kid I would probably go after you as well (not in social media, but with a formal complain to the school to get you punished).

If he wore a MAGA hat would she made him run laps? What about a BLM tshirt? Rainbow pin?

It is not her job to punish someone she disagrees with. She can talk with him and explain what the symbol means and let the kid make his own conclusion, but she can't, and shouldn't punish a kid for disagreeing with him. (which I think is the reason we are now in this place in the world, where you either agree with everything I defend or you are a racist/fascist, or if you are from the other side, you are a communist hippie skyflower)

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#790

Post by naruvimama »

naruvimama wrote: post #308
thaumasiotes wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Swastika is a sacred symbol in Hinduism. The original inspiration for Hitler was hooked cross. No, the inspiration was the Indian swastika. Same reason he wanted to call himself "Aryan". (The swastika is also a sacred symbol in Buddhism, for reference. One day someone will petition to have 卐 removed from the relevant Chinese Unicode block.)

Why was it then called the hooked cross? Hitler appropriated a Hindu/Buddhist symbol that is more than 5000 years old, and as you say it would be erased out of the digital world. Isn't it time to return the original meanings and intent of these symbols.

https://www.facebook.com/upwordindia/videos/2662610620694569...
Post reply on HN