US retailers like Walmart, Kmart and Sears have pledged to stop selling Confederate flags and related paraphernalia, but major e-commerce platforms like Amazon and eBay have yet to pull products bearing the emblem.
A church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina that left nine black Americans dead has prompted a wave of protests over the presence of the flag, especially in the south where it is considered a symbol of southern pride for some and a potent reminder of the racism inherent in the regions history for others.
South Carolina has said it will take the red banner with a blue X and stars down from its state capitol building. Lawmakers and protesters are calling for similar measures in other states.
Amazon and eBay, though, have remained silent on the issue. Neither company responded to e-mailed questions from Quartz about whether they will join the ban.
A search for Confederate flag on Amazon yields over 30,000 resultsincluding bikinis, electronics, and home decor decorated with the flag. Theres a Confederate flag mink bedspread, antique-look flag iPhone covers, and even elaborate lampshades.
A search on eBay pulls up over 1,600 listings.
While these companies remain mum, Amazon customers have taken to the platforms question and answer sections to express their thoughts. Regarding a polyester Confederate Rebel Flag sold by Rhode Island Novelty for $5.05, shoppers recently asked:
(Amazon)
Some previous patrons of Rhode Island Noveltys Confederate flags offered helpful answers:
There is no end to the ignorance in this country,and it is purposeful. People tend to believe for life what they are taught as children,and children in this country have been taught lies about slavery and the Confederacy since the 1860's.
The teachers teaching it believe this nonsense,too. All they know is what they have been taught,and teaching is where students go who lack the ability to do anything else.
The teachers teaching it believe this nonsense,too. All they know is what they have been taught,and teaching is where students go who lack the ability to do anything else.
That's why it's important to establish national education standards in math, science and history.... To expunge these ignorant, outmoded and objectionable views from mainstream society. The rebellious Confederacy was a disgraceful blemish on our nation's history and should never be cast in a favorable light.
The rebellious Confederacy was a disgraceful blemish on our nation's history and should never be cast in a favorable light.
You are full of crap on this one,Willie. The states had a LEGAL RIGHT to secede from a VOLUNTARY union. In fact,there were pre-existing conditions that had to be met before they would all agree to join together.
It was the SOUTH that was objecting to changes made in the charter they had all agreed to that was the victim here.
You are the one who is full of crap, pete. I really don't give a rat's ass whether the southern states had the right to secede or not... in fact, I would've been happy to get rid of the ignorant racists & bigots... Lincoln was wrong... he should've booted them out of the Union on their good-for-nothing lazy butts.
I would've been happy to get rid of the ignorant racists & bigots...
What makes you elevate the North to sainthood? The Underground Railroad did not end there for a reason.
SOURCE: Population of the United States in 1860; Compiled from the Original Returns of the Eighth Census, under the Directgion of the Secretary of the Interior, by Joseph C. G. Kennedy, Superintendant of Census, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1864.
At vii:
Looking cursorily over the returns, it appears that the fifteen slaveholding States contain 12,240,000 inhabitants, of whom 8,039,000 are whites, 251,000 free colored persons, and 3,950,000 are slaves. The actua1 gain of the whole population in those States, from 1850 to 1860, was 2,627,000, equal to 27.33 per cent. The slaves advanced in numbers 749,931, or 23.44 per cent. This does not include the slaves of the District of Columbia, who decreased 502 in the course of the ten years. By a law of April 16, 1862, slavery has been abolished in the District of Columbia, the owners of slaves having been compensated out of the public treasury. The nineteen free States and seven Territories, together with the federal District, contained, according to the Eighth Census, 19,203,008 persons, of whom 18,920,771 were white, 237,283 free colored, and 41,725 civilized Indians.
It is historical fact that there were more free Blacks in the slave states than in the free states.
At xv:
MANUMISSION OF SLAVES.
With regard to manumission, it appears from the returns that during the census year, they numbered a little more than 3,000, being more than double the number who were liberated in 1850, or at the rate of one each to 1,388; whereas, during 1850, the manumissions were as one to every 2,181 slaves. Great irregularity, as might naturally be expected, appears to exist for the two periods whereof we have returns on this subject. By the Eighth Census, it appears that manumissions have greatly increased in number in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee, while they have decreased in Delaware and Florida, and varied but little in Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, and Virginia, and other slaveholding States not mentioned.
SOURCE: Preliminary Report on the Eigth Census 1860, by Jos. C. G. Kennedy, Superintendant, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1862.
Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census. Census Office, Department of the Interior, Washington, May 20, 1862.
At 6:
Thus, in Boston during the five years ending with 1859, the city registrar observes: "The number of colored births was one less than the number of marriages, and the deaths exceeded the births in the proportion of nearly two to one." In Providence, where a very correct registry has been in operation under the superintendence of Dr. Snow, the deaths are one in twenty-four of the colored; and in Philadelphia during the last six months of the census year, the new city registration gives 148 births against 306 deaths among the free colored.
[...]
Owing, among other causes, to the extremes of climate in the more northern States, and in other States to expulsive enactments of the legislatures, the free colored show a decrease of numbers during the past ten years according to the census, in the following ten States: Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Vermont.
"Gradual emancipation," a Northern euphemism, obviously did not result in hordes of free blacks in the North. It provided an economic impetus to sell to the South and create a lily white North.
Cast into life where slavery was already widely spread and deeply seated, he [Henry Clay] did not perceive, as I think no wise man has perceived, how it could be at once eradicated, without producing a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself.
Abraham Lincoln, Eulogy on Henry Clay, September 15, 1858, CW 2:130.
Whatever could it have been that threatened a greater evil than slavery?
Lincoln's very Northern idea of a lily white America.
I HAVE A WHITE DREAM by Abraham Lincoln, nolu chan editor
CW = The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln by Roy P. Basler
Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home---may find some spot where they can better their condition---where they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. [Great and continued cheering.] I am in favor of this not merely, (I must say it here as I have elsewhere,) for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over---in which Hans and Baptiste and Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find new homes and better their conditions in life."
-- Lincoln, October 15, 1858, Alton, Illinois, CW 3:312
When we shall get Mexico, I don't know whether the Judge will be in favor of the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for themselves and all others; because we know the Judge has a great horror for mongrels, [laughter,] and I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels.
-- Lincoln, October 7, 1858, Galesburg, Illinois, CW 3:235
Resolved, That the elective franchise should be kept pure from contamination by the admission of colored votes.
-- That got Lincoln's vote, January 5, 1836.
In our greedy chase to make profit of the Negro, let us beware, lest we 'cancel and tear to pieces' even the white man's charter of freedom" [the Declaration of Independence]
Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, Illinois, CW 2:276
Thenceforward, for sixty-one years, and until in 1848, the last scrap of this territory came into the Union as the State of Wisconsin, all parties acted in quiet obedience to this ordinance. It is now what Jefferson foresaw and intended---the happy home of teeming millions of free, white, prosperous people, and no slave amongst them."
Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, Illinois, CW 2:249
Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people.
Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, Illinois, CW 2:268
Have we no interest in the free Territories of the United States---that they should be kept open for the homes of free white people?
Lincoln, August 27, 1856, Kalamazoo, Michigan, CW 2:363
Sustain these men and negro equality will be abundant, as every white laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave n------.
Lincoln, August 31, 1858, Carlinville, Illinois, CW 3:78 [Lincoln uses the N-word without elision]
Is it not rather our duty [as White men] to make labor more respectable by preventing all black competition, especially in the territories?
Lincoln, August 31, 1858, Carlinville, Illinois, CW 3:79
As has been noted often before,it is the victors that write the history books,and they have a tendency to make themselves look virtuous and victorious,while making the defeated look like monsters and losers.
It's just the nature of things.
That doesn't excuse people in the modern day from discovering the truth,though. While it may have been very hard to discover facts decades ago,it is very easy to do so now and there is no excuse for not trying if you are interested in the truth.