Confederate Flags
Iwonder
1 Post
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 02-18-03 AT 08:56AM (CST)[/font][p]Any thoughts on one employee's right to display a small confederate flag, in the corner of their work space and another employee's right to feel free from racial harassment? Thank you.
Thank you for your responses. To those that wonder what happened to Iwonder, I am very appreciative of all the responses. I had originally done some legal research on the topic and found a lot of interesting caselaw, going both ways of course. This was my first posting on the web site, and your frankness in the responses has served me well. In my capacity as an HR advisor, I am even more confident,that my advice to the HR professionals will be well supported (due in large part to all of your input) and allow for them to make their best business decision.
Again, thank you for your thoughts.
Thank you for your responses. To those that wonder what happened to Iwonder, I am very appreciative of all the responses. I had originally done some legal research on the topic and found a lot of interesting caselaw, going both ways of course. This was my first posting on the web site, and your frankness in the responses has served me well. In my capacity as an HR advisor, I am even more confident,that my advice to the HR professionals will be well supported (due in large part to all of your input) and allow for them to make their best business decision.
Again, thank you for your thoughts.
Comments
Now unless the rebel flag is in my department I believe I would refer the issue to your counterpart manager. Do not get into the middle of a "cat fight" unless you are prepared to be there! Given it is in my department and there is not a counter racial issue coming from someone, directly involved, I would not allow the rebel flag to be displayed in an open bay, but if it is in a private office with no public viewing, I would be hard pressed to tell an employee of my department not to display the rebel flag.
One of my truck driver displays a rebel flag on his grill every winter and every winter we have to go through the process of getting it replaced with another less offensive winter shield. We do not want the public mad at us, we got enough public meaness without adding fuel to the fire. When the driver starts to driving his own tractor, as a contract hauler, then he can display the rebel flag, but until then it does not go on our tractors.
Texas, like Mississippi businesses, must be sensitive to the feelings of all employees. Racial issues, like violent issues, like harrassment issues must all be handled. We HRs can not turn away from the issues when it is brought to our attention. If you see any of these beginning to unfold, then get the managers together and inform them of the company policy and how it is to be handled. Good luck, Pork
EDIT: Now noticing that the question came from the State of Texas, let me provide a bit of history. The current flag of the State of Texas, partially bearing a single white star on a blue field, originated in 1861, following the Ordinance of Secession. At that time, a large blue flag bearing a single white star was adopted as "The Bonnie Blue Flag". A song by that name became the second most popular patriotic song in the Confederacy. The first use of this flag was in 1810 in the Spanish province of West Florida consisting of portions of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. This flag later became The Flag of The Confederacy, some time before the adoption of the Confederate Battle Flag, loosely referred to as the Confederate Flag and innacurately referred to as The Rebel Flag. This same flag became the Flag of the Republic of Texas in 1837. This was also The Civil Ensign of Texas in 1840. The current flag of The State of Texas contains this same Flag of The Confederacy. At the risk of offending Texas, which I certainly do not want to do, I would suggest that before you adopt negative notions of historical flags or symbols, you might do a bit of proper homework.
Unfortunately, the lawyers have taught us a new mantra and it's absolutely true: "Intent is meaningless. Perception is reality." And we are the worse off for it.
In this neck of the woods, this topic can get hotter than whether to go to war or not. While Don notes school cases have been reversed, there has been (recently) another local high school that has banned the wearing of clothing with the confederate flag on it. A lot of the debate seems to focus around what parabeagle notes as intent. Those who defend, note their heritage and ancestors who fought for the south, that it has less to do with race than politics, states rights etc. The perception, of course, is racism. In a perfect world it might be fine, but around here there are still a lot of very strong emotions/feelings. To me, parabeagle's quote at the end says it all, right or wrong.
To allow the display of a confederate flag on a company desk (even in a private office) brands an organization as an insensitive backwards looking company. And I would do the same if an employee displayed similarly offensive materials, such as Black Power posters, or Japanese bashing quotes.
If this person wants to display the confederate flag on their home desk -- I will defend their right to do so -- but I would not want to visit.
Thanks for your comments on this subject. I was starting to think I was the only one who felt as you do. It IS a sign of racism. I'm surprised more people don't see it that way. I live in Washington state and there is no way in heck that you would see one of these flags, and I'm glad of that.
Good Luck!!
If the employee works for the government, they have a first amendment right, which covers speaking out on issues of public concern and interest.
Good Luck!
It seems that with certain issues, there is no willingness to consider or be tolerant of opposing viewpoints. I am surprised and disappointed, regardless of where you are from. Some posters took care to state how far distant they lived from the South as if that matters when it comes time to accept different views. Some pretended to know history while displaying a dismal understanding of it instead.
In my dictionary, predudice means one thing...PRE-judging another or others. Taking the liberty of pre-judging someone's decisions based solely on the judger's personal viewpoint is no different today than it was in the 60s or 70s. There are membership organizations all over this country composed of kind and gentle people without a racist bone in their body who lost ancestors on both sides of that war and they have every right to peacefully assemble and celebrate or study the memories they have and hold without my judging any of the groups, regardless of their geography. Who am I to pre-judge any one of them?
Try this on for size; last month in the State of Mississippi, at Grand Gulf Military Park, on the very spot where northern gunboats and troops landed to begin their march up toward Vicksburg, Raymond and Jackson, The Sons Of Confederate Veterans began the task of shoring up and saving a rather tall hill embankment that was sliding away into a bottomless ravine leading to the Mississippi River. The organization, mostly caucasion but with a few black members, quietly took up thousands and thousands of dollars to take care of this monumental engineering task. What was at risk? The graves of three black union soldiers which were on the verge of washing away into oblivion at the ravine's bottom. These men and women carry, display and suport Confederate symbols and not for racial purposes. Their act could not have been more non-racist.
I will tell you again; behaviors and mindsets can be racist, inanimate objects cannot. One of the history experts might have mentioned the fact that roughly 7% of the population held slaves during the 1840s, 50s and 60s, while a percentage rivaling that number held slaves in northern states. All of it was wrong-headed. No one I ever knew held one. But, any person has a right to hold personal feelings and to display a symbol of his or her choice that has particular meaning to him. Unless I talk to that person about that meaning, I have no right to speculate as to the meaning. To do so would be nothing other than prejudice. Now friends, might we get back to H.R.?
And spirited debate over controversial issues exercises the brain -- most really good HR people I know can think around all sides of an issue and see everyone's point of view, at least in most circumstances.
>professionals to be devoid of opinion or emotion is unrealistic when
>you are dealing with an emotional topic.
Having no desire to prolong the debate or spar with you, I must ask you to look back through the posts and point out where you think I asked anyone to 'be devoid of opinion or emotion'. I merely point out that the discussion, if one can call it that, digressed rapidly to the irrational mentioning of their own personal prejudices, not opinions. Opinions are one thing. Lashing out with cries of racism are quite another, and were misdirected and ill-conceived. Emotional reactions to topics of debate, rather than careful consideration and the stating of opinions, is probably exactly what "IWonder", the original poster intended. It is interesting that she has not posted before or since. As you certainly know, HR is not a place for emotional decisions or emotion based opinion. And never should HR be the place where emotion based accusations run rampant or where others are allowed to run them rampant, unchallenged. Rather, it is our mission to ask others to consider the existent of differing opinions and genuine motiviations that differ from one's own.
I also challenge you to report to this forum your basis for assuming that The Supremes or any other court might rule that a single act of one displaying a small symbol in their work cubicle rises to the level of hostile environment. You will not be able to do that.
Perhaps we should have stuck to NASCAR.
I don't know why anyone should wish to request a thread deleted or why it should be deleted because one person does not like the direction that the thread has taken. I don't wish to spar either, but the original poster asked, "Any thoughts..." and that is exactly what people posted - their thoughts.
Elizabeth
Prevention is better than cure ~ a company has the right to set policies over
whether or not a Confederate flag , whatever the size, can be displayed in the workplace.Some may , others may not.
Chari
You didn't define the abortion poster; but, if it were one offering the procedure or proclaiming it's innocence, I would personally disagree with it. But, as strongly as I oppose what I consider to be the taking of life (in that instance), I would not shout it down. Nor would I exclaim that the exhibitor of the poster were trying to offend me because he knows I oppose abortion and my family consists of several preachers (perhaps). I would instead engage the displayer in a conversation about the poster and ask if we could calmly express our opinions about the subject.
The flag debate did not early on contain any mention of the display eliciting images or involving emotions. The responses, with some exceptions, seemed to be that "the display is racist", "the symbol itself is racist"; therefore the displayer is a scoundrel and a racist, and that there is no room for compromise on the subject and we must remove such symbols before the constabulary pounds upon our door.
Legitimate debate and willingness to understand and accept differences of opinion are critical to any debate. And at minimum, I would walk away after having had the conversation agreeing to disagree, not pouting and shouting. Debate should not include shouting down others or crying out so loudly that you remove your ability to critically entertain differences of opinion.
Your assertion that no state flag contained a semblance of one of the (many) Confederate Battle Flags before the recorded beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, establishes no ground in your theory that such a display must therefore be racist. Nor is your historical proposal accurate. The Texas flag, as I pointed out, is just one example. If your conclusion that such state flags did not exist until after the inception of the CRM were to be true, then automatically such symbols must be racist simply because you have established a connection, one with the other, in your own mind; therefore, others should accept your theory and all should find it offensive, without regard to motive.
But back to NASCAR, and utilizing your own brand of logic; it was not until the invention of the overhead cam engine that the modern machine was able to reach and consistently maintain speeds of 188 mph; therefore it must follow that the overhead cam engine is the reason such speeds are sustainable today. Flawed logic, even if the timeline were true.
I'll wager that there were not ten people on The Forum who had a clue as to the origin of the Bonnie Blue portion of the current Texas State Flag and its connection to Civil War history, until they read it here. So, shall we now rip it apart? Shall we similarly conclude that this symbol must be racist? Or shall we exempt it from the discussion? There are a few well known people whose bank accounts are dependent on continually stirring the racial relations pot. It was not until those persons started chanting the ills of Civil War symbols that most people even gave a hoot about their display at statehouses, on car tags, on state flags and on bumper stickers.
Isn't there a car somewhere in NASCAR with clenched raised fists painted on it's doors. And if so, should we jerk our sponsorship? What about my Coors stand at the third turn at Taledega?