One afternoon a few years ago,
several members of my family and I, along with a dozen or so other pods of
people, were taking the gulf breezes on a beach in Florida when a group of five
or six youngsters, college age or thereabouts, came along and picked out a spot
not far from us. They staked out their
territory in the customary way, plopping down their coolers, laying out their
blankets, and deploying their beach umbrella.
But then, all of that done, they unfurled a sizable confederate battle
flag and planted its staff deep in the sand.
Our reaction to this was visceral and, I believe, normal: We were sort of dumbstruck by the effrontery of it and a little worried about the group’s intentions. Did they mean to make some political statement? Were they unilaterally designating this as a blacks-not-welcome place? Were they itchin’ for a fight? I don't know. Nothing happened, and we went our separate ways at the end of the day. Once again, though, the rebel flag proved itself to be a potent symbol, certain to elicit immediate reactions and strong feelings, most of them negative.
This all comes to mind as the confederate flag once again gets in the news, as it has from time to time over the years when reasonable people have voiced their objections to its being flown in various public places. Fortunately, in many quarters, public officials are now hearing those objections. Others are not, though, and there are still pockets of people who continue to argue not just in defense of the right to display the flag but also in defense of the appropriateness of displaying it. This is still predominantly (though not exclusively) a southern thing and my unsolicited advice to those southern folks as to whether they should continue to fight for the right to display the rebel flag: Sure -- assuming, of course, that they wish to portray themselves -- and reinforce and perpetuate an image of southerners in general -- as slack-jawed, back-woods racist.
Most Southerners, of course, are not that, and, presumably, neither are the self-described Missouri “rednecks” who get in such high dudgeon over criticism of their confederate flag flying. But they should realize that in associating themselves with this symbol, they’re risking labeling themselves, and by proximity and association, others, in exactly that way.
And let’s not be coy about what the rebel flag stands for. It stands for racism. It has, at various times, been used as the banner of the KKK. It was the banner of the Dixiecrat Party whose platform was overtly and unabashedly anti-civil rights. And it is widely if not universally understood, among both blacks and whites, to be associated with sensibilities ranging from intolerance to hate. Ask any black person if he or she, upon seeing a group of whites displaying the flag, would interpret it as a sign of welcome. And ask the displayers if they consider it to be one. The insistence by sons of the Confederacy types that the rebel flag is nothing more than a benign memorial to the Confederate movement and its fallen soldiers is, to put it cvharitably, disingenuous.
And as to that Confederate movement, its true believers (and the flags they wave) here in the early part of the twenty-first century represent at the very least an inexplicable fixation on, and homage to, an era now a hundred and fifty years and many generations distant. No matter how loudly these southern colonels rattle their sabers and eulogize their great-grandfathers, their connection to it all is tenuous. Still, blood ties to and reverence for their fallen Civil War ancestors of so long ago is a theme we hear much of from Southerners of this particular bent, but not nearly as much from the descendants of Union combatants who fought and died in the same war. The underlying suggestion is that the Confederate cause was in some way more worthy -- that it was one in which the South fought valiantly against overwhelming odds for something it believed in, and that it thus had a nobility that the North’s lacked
To put it not so charitably: Baloney. The South’s action was an insurrection. Whatever they believed and however they justified it, what they did was attack and attempt to tear apart a country, the United States, that had been formed a hundred or so years earlier at great cost in blood and treasure -- the “noble experiment” which, until the Civil War, had operated not perfectly but pretty successfully in terms of the liberty and prosperity enjoyed by its citizens -- and wage a war in which they killed some 365,000 of their fellow Americans from the North and in which about 165,000 of their own were killed, a war in which many of their cities and farms were ruined, their railroads destroyed, and their industry and trade brought to a standstill. And the high cause for which all of this was done -- for which the sons of the South spilled so many rivers of blood: the right to enslave, for their own ease and economic benefit, three and a half million of their fellow human beings.
That many if not most of the southern soldiers were apolitical and maybe only dimly aware if at all of the issues on whose behalf they waged war may be true; and that being the case, it’s certainly appropriate to lament, and memorialize, their suffering. Unfortunately, the rebel flag doesn’t do that. What it does instead is memorialize the repugnant cause they did the fighting and dying for.
A younger generation with a more clear-eyed view of the South’s role in the civil war appears to be in the majority now -- people who understand the incendiary nature of the rebel flag and are finally ready to disown it as a public symbol of who they are and what they believe. It’s good to see that they’re getting on with it.
Our reaction to this was visceral and, I believe, normal: We were sort of dumbstruck by the effrontery of it and a little worried about the group’s intentions. Did they mean to make some political statement? Were they unilaterally designating this as a blacks-not-welcome place? Were they itchin’ for a fight? I don't know. Nothing happened, and we went our separate ways at the end of the day. Once again, though, the rebel flag proved itself to be a potent symbol, certain to elicit immediate reactions and strong feelings, most of them negative.
This all comes to mind as the confederate flag once again gets in the news, as it has from time to time over the years when reasonable people have voiced their objections to its being flown in various public places. Fortunately, in many quarters, public officials are now hearing those objections. Others are not, though, and there are still pockets of people who continue to argue not just in defense of the right to display the flag but also in defense of the appropriateness of displaying it. This is still predominantly (though not exclusively) a southern thing and my unsolicited advice to those southern folks as to whether they should continue to fight for the right to display the rebel flag: Sure -- assuming, of course, that they wish to portray themselves -- and reinforce and perpetuate an image of southerners in general -- as slack-jawed, back-woods racist.
Most Southerners, of course, are not that, and, presumably, neither are the self-described Missouri “rednecks” who get in such high dudgeon over criticism of their confederate flag flying. But they should realize that in associating themselves with this symbol, they’re risking labeling themselves, and by proximity and association, others, in exactly that way.
And let’s not be coy about what the rebel flag stands for. It stands for racism. It has, at various times, been used as the banner of the KKK. It was the banner of the Dixiecrat Party whose platform was overtly and unabashedly anti-civil rights. And it is widely if not universally understood, among both blacks and whites, to be associated with sensibilities ranging from intolerance to hate. Ask any black person if he or she, upon seeing a group of whites displaying the flag, would interpret it as a sign of welcome. And ask the displayers if they consider it to be one. The insistence by sons of the Confederacy types that the rebel flag is nothing more than a benign memorial to the Confederate movement and its fallen soldiers is, to put it cvharitably, disingenuous.
And as to that Confederate movement, its true believers (and the flags they wave) here in the early part of the twenty-first century represent at the very least an inexplicable fixation on, and homage to, an era now a hundred and fifty years and many generations distant. No matter how loudly these southern colonels rattle their sabers and eulogize their great-grandfathers, their connection to it all is tenuous. Still, blood ties to and reverence for their fallen Civil War ancestors of so long ago is a theme we hear much of from Southerners of this particular bent, but not nearly as much from the descendants of Union combatants who fought and died in the same war. The underlying suggestion is that the Confederate cause was in some way more worthy -- that it was one in which the South fought valiantly against overwhelming odds for something it believed in, and that it thus had a nobility that the North’s lacked
To put it not so charitably: Baloney. The South’s action was an insurrection. Whatever they believed and however they justified it, what they did was attack and attempt to tear apart a country, the United States, that had been formed a hundred or so years earlier at great cost in blood and treasure -- the “noble experiment” which, until the Civil War, had operated not perfectly but pretty successfully in terms of the liberty and prosperity enjoyed by its citizens -- and wage a war in which they killed some 365,000 of their fellow Americans from the North and in which about 165,000 of their own were killed, a war in which many of their cities and farms were ruined, their railroads destroyed, and their industry and trade brought to a standstill. And the high cause for which all of this was done -- for which the sons of the South spilled so many rivers of blood: the right to enslave, for their own ease and economic benefit, three and a half million of their fellow human beings.
That many if not most of the southern soldiers were apolitical and maybe only dimly aware if at all of the issues on whose behalf they waged war may be true; and that being the case, it’s certainly appropriate to lament, and memorialize, their suffering. Unfortunately, the rebel flag doesn’t do that. What it does instead is memorialize the repugnant cause they did the fighting and dying for.
A younger generation with a more clear-eyed view of the South’s role in the civil war appears to be in the majority now -- people who understand the incendiary nature of the rebel flag and are finally ready to disown it as a public symbol of who they are and what they believe. It’s good to see that they’re getting on with it.
