Thursday, June 25, 2015

Apple pulling Civil War Apps?

Seemingly apple is (or has) removed all Civil War games from app stores for displaying the confederate flag. Say what?

 http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/25/apple-removes-civil-war-games-confederate-flag/

It's a boggling move, the losing flag of the CSA has a proper place in a game set in the Civil War, it isn't out of place by it sheer existence, it isn't promoting hate and racism, it is the symbol originally selected by the losing side of that war.

It's a sad, cowardly, move from Apple to not offend and show support and it is ridiculous. I don't do issues here on a gaming blog much but the issue has stepped into gaming. I've been all over the internet for days telling chowder-heads that "yes the civil war was about slavery", "yes it is a symbol of division and racism" and "it has no place on a public building having been the flag of the losing side of a war in which traitors marched against the federal government under". But the issue at hand is the place of the flag on public buildings and in public parks not private ownership or in art or literature that involves the actual history instead of sometimes bogus affectations of history and heritage.  Companies such as Apple and Amazon are taking this a step too far, private ownership of the symbol is not the issue on hand and denying the existence of symbols entirely will not remove the underlying issues they are tied to.

Confederate flags have a place in games about the Civil War just as the Nazi Flag has a place in games about World War 2. Banning the use of those symbols from the games or books doesn't wash stains of racism and hate away.  I hope Apple gets it's head back on straight and retailers come to grips with their place in history  which is not in reshaping it but in education through the products they sell.




4 comments:

  1. I agree completely and I hope common sense prevails. When companies overreact in this manner it only trivializes the real issues.

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  2. Sadly, the Left is using political correctness to whitewash history now. Free Speech is dying in America, and it's because of the wingnuts in charge of the Democratic Party.

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  3. I never liked Apple for stuff like this! And this goes beyond just displaying the Confederate battle flag: they limit costumer options for a wide range of things.

    Micromanaging what apps customers are allowed to use and making it difficult to use unapproved apps is a poor business decision. You should not have to "jailbreak" an iOS to make it more accommodating for individual users. The policies are such a lead weight to what you can truly do with the devices, that if you don't jailbreak your device, you are not using it correctly.

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  4. I wouldn't worry about this too much. Apple is just in panic mode because they weren't doing what they should have been doing all along ... monitoring the apps being sold in their store for inappropriate content. The ancestors of my wife, my brothers-in-law, my niece & nephew didn't come here as immigrants but as commodities to be sold so the idea that some contemporary white guys that like to play Civil War "what if" on their smartphones were inconvenienced while Apple vets these apps doesn't fill me with a lot of sympathy. I had ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War and the ones who were Confederates were wrong ... not noble or admirable for fighting a lost cause ... just wrong.

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