The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: delete. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 13:46, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User:Aerobird/CSA Citizen Userbox[edit]

User:Aerobird/CSA Citizen Userbox (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)​

This userbox associates its users not just with the Confederate Flag, but indeed with the historical entity of the Confederate States of America itself—an entity founded to prolong chattel slavery and promote white supremacy. Perhaps there are some people who (misguidedly) associate the flag with "Southern pride", but associating oneself with actual CSA is a per se endorsement of enslaving Black people. This serves no purpose but to offend and disrupt. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 04:00, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: This userbox is obviously disruptive. ―Susmuffin ^Talk 04:25, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per WP:UBCR. — csc^-1 02:03, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:01, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: This userbox is hardly "disruptive," as it is the primary emblem of a national region, and is also symbolic of the 10th Amendment Constitutional rights of American states. As a symbol with primarily historical significance, it is certainly far less divisive than the many userboxes which include the Palestinian flag, another non-nation. When I see the Palestinian flag, it elicits thoughts of overt antisemitism and repeated unprovoked attacks on Israel and the Jewish people, reminiscent of the swastika/Nazism. Besides being disruptive, I see their flag as very divisive on an ongoing basis and on a global scale, not only because the group is willingly under the control of a terrorist entity (Hamas), but also the fact that it is rightly unrecognized by the Free World and many other nations. And when I see the Saudi flag in a userbox, right or wrong, my first thoughts are of the oppression and subjugation of women, as well as blatant discrimination/hostility against religious minorities. Yet because of the freedom of editors' individual self-expression on userpages, I see no need to advocate for the removal/cancellation of such userboxes, simply on the basis of the perception of some who may construe offense where none is intended. The path of censorship is not a course that Wikipedia should follow. - JGabbard (talk) 01:38, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  It's good that you don't plan to file any MFDs based on your stereotyped, paranoid view of the Palestinian flag—a view that offends me as a Jew just as much as I imagine it offends any Palestinian reading this. The issue here, though, isn't that this userbox "elicits thoughts" of racism. It is that it is racist. By putting it on your userpage, you are saying, "I am a racist." You are saying, "I voluntarily associate myself with an entity founded on the premise that having black skin means you should live your life in chains." If you'd like to show your support for the Tenth Amendment, you can create a userbox saying that you support the Tenth Amendment. Someone's probably made one already. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 02:12, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Besides being patently untrue, that is a very ugly and offensive assumption, Tamzin. And it is one not even based on the facts of history, since slavery was by no means confined to either the Confederacy or even the U.S. And wealthy blacks owned slaves as well as whites, and whites were also kidnapped and enslaved by Africans. And slavery continues yet today in nations such as Libya, Mauritania and Pakistan. And then to have the audacity to call my claim stereotyped? Please, give me a break! How is my view stereotyped, and yours not? You are inconsistent at best. And if you are not offended by deaths on both sides deliberately caused by unprovoked Palestinian attacks, I find that cold, unconscionable and heartless. But it's not really about either of those issues per se. It's about userboxes with flags depicting nations engaged in horrific human rights abuses, even genocide, such as Red China with the Falun Gong and the Uighur people. Even if there was any truth at all in your claim about the symbolism of the Confederate flag, how would that in any way be commensurate with genocide and ethnic cleansing as represented by the flag of the Chinese Communist Party? The rank hypocrisy of this effort should be evident to any honest reader. Bottom line, shall we construe the worst about each userbox with a flag and launch campaigns against all of them equally, or allow individual expression and assume good intent and good faith? - JGabbard (talk) 03:08, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm making no assumptions. You're associating yourself with a racist entity. And, importantly, it's a racist entity that no longer exists. Saying "I live in the PRC" is true regardless of whether you support the PRC's crimes. Even "I like the PRC" and "I support the PRC" are statements that can be made independent of those crimes. If a userbox said, "This user supports the genocide of Uighurs," obviously I would support deleting that. But the CSA is inseparable from the institution of chattel slavery of Black people. It was founded explicitly to perpetuate that; it banned its member states from banning it (so much for states' rights); and its legacy ever since has been wholly tied to the notion that it ought to have won and continued to enslave people. The legacy that saw my great-great-grandfather, a Confederate officer, raise his children and grandchildren to believe that enslaved people had "liked being slaves" until the Yankees came and ruined everything. Lost Cause mythology and Neo-Confederate politics are offensive and have no place in a collaborative editing environment. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 03:20, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Tamzin, you are arrogantly judging both me and my motives, and you have absolutely no right to do so. Your opinion about the CSA is a myopic and overly simplistic view of history. The same could be said for the American colonial flag and the British Union Jack, both of which were established under the reprehensible institutionalization of chattel slavery. Slavery's days in the Free World were numbered, but had it already been abolished, Southern states had plenty of unrelated reasons for exercising their perpetual constitutional right of secession.

  I believe in the emancipation of all peoples from oppression and hegemony, including Tibet and Hong Kong from China, the poor from the uber-rich, and the weak from tyrants. The entirety of my userboxes clearly demonstrate this fact (unless you stopped looking once you found one to launch a tirade against). I encourage you to look for the good, instead of ways to criticize and find fault, unless you desire that your own motives be impugned and scrutinized in a similar manner. - JGabbard (talk) 13:37, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I have no problem with being judged based on the entities I associate myself with. If you do, perhaps you shouldn't associate yourself with entities that people tend to have strong negative feelings toward. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 14:03, 31 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, identifying oneself with the confederacy in any way, shape, or form is a clear WP:UBCR violation. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:41, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  My identification with the Confederacy is solely geographical, and should not be construed otherwise. I would again underscore the great and glaring hypocrisy of such a position, when userboxes of current flagrant human rights violators remain posted on WP:USERBOXES, such as North Korea: "This user is a proud resident native citizen of North Korea." If we're going to use such a fine tooth comb, how is that OK? And why is there a userbox promoting Mao and Maoism here [1]? Unacceptable! - JGabbard (talk) 03:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  But North Korea ... exists.
  If someone had a userbox to cosplay like they're a current citizen of Nazi Germany or Democratic Kampuchea or somesuch, then yes it would be a good analogy. Maybe in a hundred and fifty years when North Korea is a democracy and changes its official name while still trying to heal the damage done under the dear leaders it'll make a good analogy. Because maybe then there will be someone who wants to harken back to the good ol' totalitarian days and pretend they're a citizen of Kim Jong Un's North Korea ... then they'll create a userbox on Wikipedia about it and we can "per" the arguments presented here to delete it. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:28, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Point taken. Philosophy is the legitimate concern here, not geography. Yet to the left is a very close example of what you describe.

More importantly, however, you have conveniently sidestepped my point about Mao, which invalidates your argument as well as Tamzin's:

This user just does not understand why some people dispute the fact that Delaware and Maryland are Southern states.

The middle userbox, among others, clearly illustrates my innocuous use of the CSA flag as a geographical reference only. - JGabbard (talk) 12:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - There are no living citizens of the Confederate States of America, so any use of this box is an intent to glorify or otherwise self-identify with that particular era of the south. Do we really need to get into why that doesn't foster community (and of course isn't connected to building an encyclopedia -- the other purpose of a userbox)? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:34, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.