Thread: School bus driver fired over Confederate flag

Originally Posted by hawgballs

Well, again, the flag of Texas doesn't symbolize attempts to keep slavery legal. Whether you like it or not, a vast majority of people see the confederate flag in that light.

And of course america wouldn't see texas as traitors, they didn't attempt to secede from us. Whereas I am sure mexico at some point in time saw texas and its habitants as being traitorous. But we ain't mexico.

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According to the polls taken that is not an accurate statement.

"Apart from their feelings about flying the Confederate flag, only 28% of Americans say that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism, while 59% of Americans say the flag is more a symbol of Southern pride. "
Americans Divided on Southern States Flying Confederate Flag

The Fall 2000 Texas Poll© was conducted Oct. 9-31 by The Scripps Howard Data Center. The Poll surveyed 1,000 adult Texans

1. Do you see the Confederate Flag as a symbol of the history of the South or is it a symbol of slavery and racism?

Fall 2000 % (N=1,000)
History of the South 61
Slavery and Racism 15
Neither 12
Both 1
Don’t know/no answer 11

Confederate Flag - Fall 2000 Texas Poll by Scripps Howard Data Center

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

According to the polls taken that is not an accurate statement.

[...]

The Fall 2000 Texas Poll© was conducted Oct. 9-31 by The Scripps Howard Data Center. The Poll surveyed 1,000 adult Texans

1. Do you see the Confederate Flag as a symbol of the history of the South or is it a symbol of slavery and racism?

Huh. I wonder if those numbers might not change a bit if you polled in a state other than Texas.

Cheers,


AetheLove

Originally Posted by AetheLove

Huh. I wonder if those numbers might not change a bit if you polled in a state other than Texas.

Cheers,


AetheLove

Texas was the second poll. Check out the first link and quote. You will find the numbers did change but not much.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

Texas was the second poll. Check out the first link and quote. You will find the numbers did change but not much.

Ya, didn't check the first link at first. The numbers are different, though they hide the differences a bit.

The Texas poll shows (presumably) what Texans think. I thought their sample size could have been larger, but given the normal caveats for these sorts of phone surveys I don't have any reason to doubt them.

[telephone polls have a number of strong biases. Towards older people, for example. They used to have a bias towards rural people too, but I don't know if that's changed since 2000. Pollsters can't call mobile numbers]

[Also it'd be nice to have a link to the poll that wasn't in the site of a group whose tag lines are "Defending The Rights Of Southerners To Honor Their Culture And Heritage" and "Justice For Dixie" under the Stars and Bars. I know they didn't do the poll, but a casual glance at the page makes one wonder...]

The Gallup poll was nation-wide. Those numbers include Texas and the rest of the south (however you define it), so to some extent they hide or dilute the differences. To show contrast, it would have been nice if they'd broken things out by state or region. So, maybe responders from New York would be an interesting counterpart to Texas.

The numbers I found most interesting were in the "How much do you really care about all this" questions (apparently, for most people, not all that much); and even more so in the break-down over time. Nationwide, sentiment against the confederate flag, and belief that it is a symbol of racism, was growing.

Good links. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Kraker Jak

I'm sure the numbers would be different....in say like Vermont...

But why poll idiots?

I don't really understand what you mean. I can't find any way to read this that makes it funny. I've only read a handful of your posts, but I haven't yet come across anything that would make me think that someone from Vermont once made you cry.

wtf?

Cheers,


AetheLove

I have no idea who did the texas poll. I just put it in there because i was actually a little shocked that a poll was done on this much less multiple ones. As for the other i would say that you cant do a proper poll if you dont include every location and any other way could bias the poll. So putting the south and texas in there was the right course of action.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

I have no idea who did the texas poll.

It's hard to tell. The Justice for Dixie folks cite Scripps Howard Data Center, which doesn't seem to exist. I think they mean the Scripps Howard News Service.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

I just put it in there because i was actually a little shocked that a poll was done on this much less multiple ones.

Both that one, and the Gallup, were done in 2000. I'm pretty sure that was in response to the shitstorm in South Carolina at the time over the state flying the flag. I would guess there were other polls too, some done privately.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

As for the other i would say that you cant do a proper poll if you dont include every location and any other way could bias the poll. So putting the south and texas in there was the right course of action.

I agree. What I was saying was that it would have been nice if, in addition to the national numbers, they'd been able to break things out by state and/or region. Those things require more samples, and more care in sampling. But it's interesting to know if Americans generally feel the same way about the issue, or if sentiments vary greatly by region.

Whether South Carolina decides to fly the Stars and Bars is most likely going to be decided in South Carolina. So I'm sure someone did a poll in SC. But, at the time, the issue was all over the national news and a lot of people (on all sides) were using the attention to flog an agenda. If being assholes about the whole thing was going to help South Carolina republicans, that would have been interesting to the state committees in, say, Virginia and Georgia.

Another angle: in response to the controversy there was a movement to boycott SC - which would hurt tourism revenue if it was effective. So a state rep from a beach community might really want to know if people in the North East were as pissed off at the SC gov't as so many SCians were (looks like they weren't); but probably wouldn't care so much about people on the west coast (who are less likely to vacation in SC). The Gallup poll mentions the boycott, and also that the NCAA was considering moving a March Madness regional final from Greenville to somewhere outside SC if the state didn't stop flying the flag.

Anyway, I'm not all that heavily invested in this particular issue. I used to do a lot of work with sampling and statistics, and it's still interesting to me. The extent to which polling and statistics are abused and misused in the media makes me, quite honestly, both sad and pissed off.

Cheers,


AetheLove

I am half and half on this subject. I am from the South (Texas to be exact), so seeing a Confederate flag doesn't bother me. It's a daily thing. In one way, I see the Confederate flag as a symbol of pride for the South. And in another way, I see it as a negative logo. But I think it shouldn't matter, as SOME use it to show pride, while others may use it in a negative way. Just ask the bus driver to take it down and go on with your job. That simple.

Originally Posted by dreamix

I am half and half on this subject. I am from the South (Texas to be exact), so seeing a Confederate flag doesn't bother me. It's a daily thing. In one way, I see the Confederate flag as a symbol of pride for the South. And in another way, I see it as a negative logo. But I think it shouldn't matter, as SOME use it to show pride, while others may use it in a negative way. Just ask the bus driver to take it down and go on with your job. That simple.

That's pretty much what they did. And he refused, so they fired him.