There’s a Confederate Swastika?
It’s times like this when the credibility of black leaders really suffers:
In remarks to hundreds of cheering liberal activists Wednesday, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond singled out Republicans as enemies of black Americans and compared conservatives to the terrorist Taliban who once ruled Afghanistan.
“Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side,” Bond told a cheering audience. “They’ve written a new constitution for Iraq and ignore the Constitution here at home. They draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics. Now they want to write bigotry back into the Constitution.”
By evoking Godwin’s Law, I declare Mr. Bond officially irrelevant to the state of race relations in this country. While Julian Bond engages in meaningless, rhetorical attacks on evil Republicans, SayUncle estimates that in America today: 21 black people will commit murder; 22 black people will be murdered; 506 black people will be arrested for drug trafficking crimes; 1,000,000 black people are in prison; and 26,500,000 black people live in poverty.
June 3rd, 2004 at 10:29 am
*FWEE*
Inappropriate invocation of Godwin’s law.
The confederate flag, which conveys racist hatred, is well-suited for comparison to the Nazi flag, which conveys racist hatred.
5 yard penalty, repeat first down.
June 3rd, 2004 at 10:33 am
Guess i’d have to challenge. let’s see, are republicans advocating:
Slavery?
Genocide?
Forced Ghettos?
Nope. I stand by it.
June 3rd, 2004 at 10:40 am
His statement is indeed muddled. (What’s a confederate swastika?)
But I thought you were saying that the confederate flag doesn’t merit comparison to the swastika.
Certainly it doesn’t merit comparison to the American flag. I agree with that.
June 3rd, 2004 at 11:58 am
Perhaps you’ve never been to the south, but most southerners I know do not consider the confederate flag to be a symbol of racism. It has become a racist symbol to SOME people, but these are usually the same people who are convinced that the government is getting blacks hooked on crack so they can keep them in ghettos.
June 3rd, 2004 at 12:23 pm
Even if I agreed with Chris’s theory that the Confederate flag was intended to convey hate, it still wouldn’t warrant a comparsion to the Nazis.
15 yard penalty (plus an extra 5 yards for calling a penalty on the wrong side), no repeat first down.
June 3rd, 2004 at 1:28 pm
I want to challenge your challenge! (I think the fans have gone home by now)
I’ll just refer you to the page I linked to above, rather than get into it too in depth here and inundating uncle’s site. This is one of those issues like abortion, the existence of god, or the Yankees — people just never seem to agree.
In short, though:
OUGryphon: I am a southerner. So, there goes your theory.
Xrlq: It matters little what it’s “intended” to convey — only what it does. That’s the nature of a symbol.
The same goes for the swastika. I could fly the swastika and claim immunity because of my Hindu heritage, but I don’t. Why?
In any case, if you did agree hypothetically that it was a symbol of racist hatred, why would it not then merit comparison to the Nazi flag?
Godwin’s law was intended to refute pointless comparisons to hitler or the Nazis as a last ditch substitute for any real substance or argument, not any parallel whatsoever.
It bothers me that some would consider Hitler and the rise of Nazis to be such a monstrous exception that we wouldn’t dare to ever draw an analogy to them. Indeed, the most important lesson we can learn from WWII and the rise of the Nazis is that they were human, and not as exceptional as we might like to think.
The day we stop drawing parallels is the day we forget the lesson.
June 3rd, 2004 at 2:12 pm
Good for you, living in the south and all. Join the club. But notice that I said MOST southerners. Sure some southerners consider the confederate flag to be offensive. So what? Some people also consider a cross to be a symbol of hatred and indeed the klan use it as such.
Symbols can mean different things to different people – just because it means one thing to you doesn’t mean it is someone else’s meaning. For this reason the comparison between republicans and Nazis is invalid.
The only slightly valid comparison would be between the klan and nazis, but even then the klan has about as much in common with republicans as pond scum does with homo sapiens.
June 3rd, 2004 at 4:18 pm
You tell me. My guess is that you’d rather not have to explain to everyone what the swastika means to you vs. what it meant to the Nazis. Getting rid of it completely is a reasonable solution, but not the only one. The City of Glendale, CA does have swastikas on its lampposts, if I’m not mistaken.
Because all racist hate is not created equal. As evil as slavery was, it was not comparable to what Hitler did to the Jews. There’s a reason why 11% of today’s American population is black, while the Jewish percentage of Germany’s is … well, let’s just say it’s a wee bit lower than that. Show me a group that touts mass genocide as their “final solution” to the “black problem,” and I’ll agree that in their case, a Nazi comparison is warranted. Otherwise, it’s not.
Whatever the confederate flag is or isn’t, Julian Bond’s claim that Republicans want to fly it alongside the American one is just daft.
June 3rd, 2004 at 4:53 pm
OUGryphon: Perhaps you’ve never been to the south, but most southerners I know do not consider the confederate flag to be a symbol of racism.
I’m pretty sure you meant most white Southerners. Because if you talk to any black Southerners, I can assure you, they’re almost certain to disagree.
Anybody who asserts that the Confederate flag (technically, the “Confederate Naval Jack”) isn’t inseparably intertwined with racism is simply ignorant of the modern history of the American South. Almost everywhere (except Mississippi, to my knowledge) in the South, the Confederate flag had long been abandoned as an official symbol. It wasn’t until the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s that Southern states began re-adopting the flag as a protest against the “fed’rul guv’mint” dictating to them when and how they were allowed to discriminate. Georgia re-adopted the Confederate flag in 1956, incorporating it into their state flag (and finally dropped it just over a year ago). South Carolina took to flying it over the capital building in 1962, by vote of the then-all-white legislature, for the same reasons; they recently moved it to the front lawn of the capital, but still fly it today. Nope, no racism involved in the question in South Carolina:
More info.
Some people also consider a cross to be a symbol of hatred and indeed the klan use it as such.
True enough, but it’s not what’s primarily associated with that symbol. With the Confederate Flag, the first thing a black person is likely to think of when they see it is racism and oppression. The first thing most white southerners are likely to associate it with is “States’ Rights.” But virtually every time the “States’ Rights” argument has been used, it has been used to defend the state’s right to discriminate when and how they please. (The whole “States’ Rights” discussion went right out the window when Oregon passed a Euthanasia law, or when the Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gore, but that’s another discussion).
Uncle: It’s called “rhetoric,” and perhaps you’ve heard of it. Did you stop taking the Bush campaign seriously when they argued that Kerry is “wrong on defense” because he wanted to cut an intelligence program, on which the Bush administration cut by an even larger amount? Or when they accused Kerry of “not supporting money for the troops” when he voted against $87 billion for Iraq, even though Kerry supported a competing bill that would have sent more money and equipment to the troops, at a lower total price tag, which Bush threatened to veto?
Politics are full of such rhetoric. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s an unfortunate fact of life. That someone makes a thin comparison like that does indeed damage their credibility somewhat, but it doesn’t invalidate everything they have to say.
Chris: A Confederate flag/Swastika compairson does go a bit far, in my opinion. Not as much too far as some are saying, but still too far. Both are symbols of racial hatred and racial oppression. But the swastika is a symbol associated with genocide, and that goes beyond what the confederacy was guilty of.
June 3rd, 2004 at 4:59 pm
Chris,
The Confederate Battle Flag is only a symbol of racist hatred to those that take it to be one. What you are doing is saying that the value of an object has to be quantified by others rather than the person who owns & uses it. This is fine if you’re doing a bit of trading, but not so good when you’re speaking of an object not involved in any trade you are contemplating. Short story is if the Confederate Battle Flag offends you then ignore it.
I’ve read your post (linked above) & I find your arguments about the Confederate Battle Flag (as well as the War o’ Northe’n Aggression) to be trendy, but lacking merit.
It’s like this: let’s say you use a word – a specific word. You know what the meaning of that word is but others misinterpret it somehow. You can stop using that word, go on using it as is, or try to educate people about the word. The first option may be politically expedient but it shows a certain lack of courage. The second option is cool despite the probable consequences of being misunderstood. The last option is by far the best & by far the most difficult. The same options are applicable to symbols. They are a little more difficult because you can’t just flip open a dictionary to dispell ignorance but the principle is the same.
Slavery was a terrible thing, & some would pose legitimate arguments on why slavery is worse than being murdered. But Hitler’s thing was to conquer a people & then do with them as he wished. He implemented a prgram of slave labor & mass murder. That’s different enough from ther Confederacy to warrant an invocation of Godwin’s law. The Confederacy broke their political bonds with the federal government & fought a war over that. Slavery was an important issue to some if not most of the Confederacy but it wasn’t the motivation behind firing shots on either side. & Slavery, while being wrong in practice & principles, was the only mistake made by the Confederacy. The Confederacy fought a war to secure its borders from a foreign invader. Hitler fought a war to be a foreign invader. The Confederacy (wrongly) supported a system that had been in place for generatiosn that made some men the property of others. Hitler instituted a system where some men were not considered men & disposed of. The Confederacy had the moral & legal Right to secede from the Union. Hitler did not have any Right to invade any of the countries he invaded.
See the difference?
Where the Confederate Battle Flag got a bad wrap was in the civil rights fight that occured in the 50’s & 60’s. Southern states dusted it off to show solidatory with each other when the feds stepped into what they considered to be state affairs. I think the idea (originally at least) by some was to give the feds a not so subtle reminder that their attempted interference with the internal workings of the states could lead to very bad things.
That’s a probable reason why it’s viewed asa racist symbol. Add in various Klan rallies where they used the flag in their ceremonies & I can see how some people get the impression they have.
But the Confederate Battle Flag is not flown by the majority of people today to convey any racial ideas: rather to convey a sense of pride about their geographical & political heritage. Democrats supported slavery in the 1800’s & they opposed desegregation in the 1900’s, yet they don’t have the stigma of being an anti-minority party. Why? because instead of hiding their heads in shame they fought to overcome the stigma even though it was based on historically accurate facts about their party.
Oh, as for the Confederate Battle Flag not meriting comparison to the American Flag – that depends. If you want to get technical the Confederate Battle flag was flown aboard Navy vessels as opposed to being a natioanl standard. The Stars & Bars however was a national flag & as such deserves the same respect that one would give the original 13 star Old Glory or any state flag. You mght nto agree or understand about the Confederacy but the fact is we were a country of our own. Not for long, but we were a country.
Now personally I wouldn’t be bothered by flying the flags of both countries that existed in America side by side. But then again I’m so unreconstructed that I think state flags should fly over the national flag & I’m just not convinced that the south (& other regions like the southwest) wouldn’t be better off if they were regarded as seperate countries. It has nothing to do with racism but everythign to do with keeping a federal government of a manageable size.
95 yard penalty Chris – Uncle gets the ball on the 5 yard line. Repeat first down.
June 3rd, 2004 at 5:22 pm
Oddly I think this example makes my point. The point of using words is to communicate. It doesn’t matter a damn what you think a word means — it matters what the person you are trying to communicate with thinks it means.
If a majority of people think “automobile” means “a motor-driven device for transportation”, it doesn’t matter if you think it means “cow”. You can campaign to change the meaning, but you’ll also have to live with the consequences of people thinking you’re an idiot.
We can agree to disagree about the majority perception of the Confederate flag, and perhaps the reality lies somewhere in the middle.
Where we seem to disagree, though, is on the point of a symbol. Symbols, like words, are a form of communication, and as such, their meaning to other people is really the only thing that matters.
June 3rd, 2004 at 5:33 pm
This argument doesn’t hold any water.
The Democrats as a party stood for enough other things that the name of the party was disassociated with their segregationist policies easily enough.
The Confederate flag does not enjoy this luxury. (Obviously, or why else would we be having this conversation at all?)
The bottom line is that if you are trying to pick a symbol to communicate a sense of pride about “geographical and political heritage”, why would you choose one used almost exclusively to represent racism and hatred?
I’m sorry, but it’s either intentional or it’s poor communication skills. You can pick a new symbol, or you can spend a lifetime defending the one you chose .. for some reason. Seems silly to me, but hey. That’s what makes America great — people can fly whatever flag you want. But, they can’t act surprised when they are pinned as a racist.
June 3rd, 2004 at 5:43 pm
Chris:
The bottom line is that if you are trying to pick a symbol to communicate a sense of pride about “geographical and political heritage”, why would you choose one used almost exclusively to represent racism and hatred?
I’m sorry, but it’s either intentional or it’s poor communication skills. You can pick a new symbol, or you can spend a lifetime defending the one you chose .. for some reason. Seems silly to me, but hey. That’s what makes America great — people can fly whatever flag you want. But, they can’t act surprised when they are pinned as a racist.
tgirsch stands and applauds.
June 3rd, 2004 at 5:49 pm
Uncle:
Far from making him irrelevant, wouldn’t this make him a detriment to race relations?
June 4th, 2004 at 4:21 am
Chris,
The word niggardly was used recently by some politicain (I forget who) & all kind of hell was raised about it. (although a 9th circuit judge used it in an interview a little later & not a peep was said about it). Niggardly means: grudgingly mean about spending or granting, or: provided in meanly limited supply. Nothing racial whatsoever outside of a phonetic resemblance to a racial slur.
You seem to be saying that because of a misconception that peopel shouldn’t use the word niggardly. My view is that we shoudl educate people on what niggardly means instead of bowing to ignorance.
Now I’ll grant that what the person you’re trying to comunicate with thinks does matter, but not so much that you should feign ignorance to avoid trying to educate them.
After all, if the public thinks the book “to Serve man” is a treaty for the extraterristorials to wait on us I’d hope that someone would have the balls to go against the convention of going along with the crowd & mention that it’s a friggin’ cookbook.
But the difference lies in what the true meaning of the Confederate Battle Flag is: you think (or seem to) that it’s a symbol used to intimidate blacks during the 20th century whereas I see it as a military flag from a former country.
& as for the democrats… they actively opposed desegregation. Hell, the confederacy was mainly democrats at the time of secession & the Unpleasantness that followed. They got rid of the image they had by transferring it to the republicans somehow. But the thing is they got rid of the racist image. They didn’t accomplish this by not saying they were democrats, but by explaining that the democrat party had changed. They didn’t just bow to the popular conception, they fought to change that conception.
So the argument is relevant to the Confederate Battle Flag. The answer isn’t in hushing it up, but trying to educate the people as to what it means & stands for. Course certain unpopular idas will always be associated with the Confederate Battle Flag: ideas like federalism & a limited central government. SLavery will get thrown in the mix as well, but odds are the ones who scream “racism” the loudest are also the ones just as opposed to the other ideas. Amazing how the “R” word can take the focus off the relevant subjects isn’t it?
I never was surprised that people thought the Confederate Battle Flag was racist. I was never surprised that people think a socialized medical system is a good thing. Never surprised that people think all guns should be outlawed. Never surpised when someone says they didn’t pay taxes this year cause the government owed them $2. I’m not even surprised when a kid says 4+4=44. But my lack of surprise doesn’t generally keep me from trying to correct erros in fact or logic.
But for me personally I’d rather fly the Stars & Bars. Not as trendy as the Navy Jack but a bit more historically accurate. & I’d get the added benfit of explaining to people that it’s the proper flag of the C.S.A as opposed to the battle standard they associate with it. But I do understand why people fly the other confederate flag & despite the misconceptions about it most of the people I know that have it flying aren’t racist. Some are, but most aren’t.
June 4th, 2004 at 12:14 pm
Publicola:
After all, if the public thinks the book “to Serve man” is a treaty for the extraterristorials to wait on us I’d hope that someone would have the balls to go against the convention of going along with the crowd & mention that it’s a friggin’ cookbook.
I don’t agree with you, and I don’t think that this analogy holds any water at all, but two points for the reference.
But the difference lies in what the true meaning of the Confederate Battle Flag is: you think (or seem to) that it’s a symbol used to intimidate blacks during the 20th century whereas I see it as a military flag from a former country.
That’s all well and good. But not everyone sees it that way (in fact, most don’t), so don’t piss and moan when people don’t share your interpretation. Thanks it its sordid history, the Confederate Flag will always be a highly divisive symbol. The comparison to the swastika is valid insofar as the history of each symbol has been mostly bad, so much so that they symbol itself has become inextricably linked with that bad history.
You saying “but the Confederate flag also stands for blah blah blah, which is what I think of when I see it,” is markedly similar to asking “Well, apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?”
& as for the democrats… they actively opposed desegregation.
Yeah, and the Republicans of 50 years ago were tax-and-spend. What’s your point? Never mind the fact that most of the “Southern Democrats” wound up switching to the Republican party when the Democratic party changed its party line.
The answer isn’t in hushing it up, but trying to educate the people as to what it means & stands for.
Something nobody has yet done a good job of, in my estimation. Nobody has yet explained to me what it stands for, in terms any more specific than “my Southern heritage.” Mostly they say “All that negative stuff that virtually everyone who doesn’t display the flag universally thinks of when the see it? It doesn’t really stand for that stuff.”
Like it or not, the Confederate Flag was the symbol of a civil war that was fought first and foremost over African-American slavery, in the words of the people who voted to secede. It returned to prominence as a protest to civil rights laws that required African-Americans to be treated approximately like people.
Of all the symbols you could select to represent Southern pride, your Southern heritage, and the things you like about the South, one would think the Confederate flag would be the last one you’d pick. Unless, of course, you really liked some of those connotations you say it doesn’t stand for; or unless you’re ignorant about the history of the flag.
June 4th, 2004 at 12:22 pm
Chris, I am awaiting your rebuttal of:
After all, you claimed:
Some idiots misinterpreted (i.e., took it to mean something) it as a racist slur. By your rational, that in fact makes it a racist slur, no?
June 4th, 2004 at 12:32 pm
Oh, one thing people frequently think the flag means that I missed: “I don’t wanna be part of the US.”
June 4th, 2004 at 1:25 pm
Uncle:
Re: Niggardly, I’ll take this one. The word has fallen out of use for two reasons. First, of course, is that it bears a striking resemblance to a racial slur. Second is that most people have no idea what it means.
Based on those two things, does that makes someone who uses the word a racist? Of course not. But that same would have to be extremely naïve to be surprised that someone might misunderstand him.
Of course, the gigantic, gaping flaw in the logic is that while there is no history of “niggardly” having any relationship with “nigger” other than the phonetic similarity, the Confederate flag has a long and well-documented history of assocation with slavery, discrimination, and racial hate.
In other words, apples are not buicks.
June 4th, 2004 at 1:28 pm
Oh, and in the case of “niggardly,” they could pick a word like “stingy” or “miserly,” and have people be FAR more likely to understand what they meant.
June 4th, 2004 at 2:26 pm
Re: niggardly. What Tom said.
But allow me to elaborate a little. There seems to be a tone to this argument that we are discussing what is right and what is wrong, or what should be allowed and what should be forbidden.
This isn’t the case. The 1st amendment covers that. What I refer to consistently is perception. It’s what really matters. What does your choice of symbol mean and what does it communicate.
Now, what happened when this guy used the word “niggardly”:
1) Did he deliberate on the use of the word and the anticipated reaction of his audience? Presumably not.
2) Did he, in the context of his familiarity with the word in his lexicon, have any real anticipation of it being associated with the word “nigger”? Presumably not.
3) Had he known it would elicit that reaction would he still have used it? Probably not.
4) What is at the root of him being percieved as a racist? Ignorance of the meaning of the word “niggardly”.
How is this situation different from flying a confederate flag:
1) Does one deliberate on flying the confederate flag and what it means? Presumably. And if not, this is where you can draw the line between “genuine racism” and “ignorance and poor communication skills”.
2) Does one, in the context of American culture, have any real anticipation of the Confederate flag being interpreted as a racist symbol? Unless you live under a rock, absolutely. Again, this doesn’t always mean it doesn’t happen. I am sure there are some dumb m’er f’ers out there who genuinely have no clue. Sucks to be them.
3) What is at the root of someone being regarded as racist for flying the Confederate flag? Either their ignorance, or their willful disregard or lack of concern for the racist symbolism.
So what does this all mean? The difference is that in the context of using the word “niggardly”, you are percieved as a racist because of their ignorance. That’s probably no skin off your teeth. However, honestly, if you kept using it, after knowing that people think it has racist connotations, even if it’s because they are morons, really, you’re just asking for it. I mean, come on. It was retarded that this guy was fired for what was, essentially, a mistake, and that’s why he eventually got his job back.
When you fly the confederate flag, however, there is no misconception about its meaning. A disagreement, perhaps — but not a misconception.
This is why the whole argument for flying the confederate flag as a symbol of “heritage and pride” or “state’s rights” falls flat — because everyone knows damn well what it also represents, and by flying the flag you are communicating that you either don’t know, or you don’t care.
Now you may not care because you’re a genuine racist or because you just obstinately cling to this symbol to represent heritage and pride. And that’s fine, but the difference between flying the Confederate flag and using the word “niggardly” is that it’s a choice and not a mistake or a misinterpretation.
This is the difference between a word and a symbol. Both are forms of communication, but you deliberate on the meaning of a symbol much more, and it’s much more difficult to write off its perception as other people’s ignorance. The whole point is what other people think about it.
If you think you’re being “tough” by displaying a confederate flag to represent your heritage even though most people associate it with racism, you’re wrong. That’s not tough. That’s stupid, and it makes you either a poor communicator, or a racist. Period.
June 4th, 2004 at 3:01 pm
Man, this post has gotten out of hand. You all can believe what you want to believe (including that the south is still a hotbed of racism, at least according to tgirsch), but neither Julian Bond, nor anyone else, has the right to tell me what my symbol means and frankly that is what this whole flag business is all about.
Why do southerners hang on to the confederate flag? To tgirsch it’s because we’re all racist (especially Texans). To the southerners I know (even the ones like me who wouldn’t chose to display the confederate flag) it’s not just a symbol of their heritage, but is a symbol of defiance against those who self-righteously stick their nose in our business and try to tell us we’re backwards and would all be so much better off if we were like New York or LA. To quote a great american, “You can all go to hell, I’m going to Texas.”
June 4th, 2004 at 5:14 pm
OUGryphon:
Good God, you’ve cornered the market on straw, haven’t you? Show me where I said that the South has an exclusive monopoly on racism, or where I said anything about Texans being racists? Racism is everywhere pal, and I’ll thank you not to intentionally mischaracterize my arguments.
neither Julian Bond, nor anyone else, has the right to tell me what my symbol means and frankly that is what this whole flag business is all about.
So if I decide that, to me, a swastika represents pretty flowers, and decide to play it as such, I’m completely within my rights to be angry when other people think of the Nazi connotations and complain about them? It’s the exact same argument, no matter how you try to spin it.
Why do southerners hang on to the confederate flag?
That’s a great question, and one that I think Chris just answered quite effectively.
it’s not just a symbol of their heritage, but is a symbol of defiance against those who self-righteously stick their nose in our business and try to tell us we’re backwards
So, in other words, when they accuse you of being backwards, you “defy” them by underscoring their point? That’s neat!
To quote a great american, “You can all go to hell, I’m going to Texas.”
Frankly, I don’t want to go to Texas or Orlando…
June 4th, 2004 at 5:16 pm
“but neither Julian Bond, nor anyone else, has the right to tell me what my symbol means and frankly that is what this whole flag business is all about.”
Sorry, mate, but the KKK, and the segregationists, and the people who fought to keep slaves, and the ones who fought to keep blacks out of the schools and on the back of the bus under its banner have already decided what the flag means. If you choose to fly it knowing the history, knowing that it has stood for racial oppression for its entire history, then don’t expect people to refrain from criticizing you. Because, you see, that flag is a symbol to others too. It is a symbol of an evil defeated to the descendants of Union soldiers; it is a symbol of fear and death in the night to those who lived through the Jim Crow era; it is a symbol of opportunity wrestled from bigots to those who lived through and worked for civil rights. You can try to hide behind “heritage” and “pride” all you want, but don’t expect me to absolve you of deliberately hiding from all the other things that flag means. The weight of the flag’s symbolism throughout history has been overwhelmingly vile. If you fly it, you honor all that symbolism — not just that which you claim to honor.
July 16th, 2004 at 2:35 am
Kevin commented: “The weight of the flag’s symbolism throughout history has been overwhelmingly vile. If you fly it, you honor all that symbolism – not just that which you claim to honor.”
I’m certain that any upstanding citizen of England will allow the same for the Union Jack, then. Certainly, fewer flags in the West are as pregnant with dual meanings than the Confederate Flag and the Union Jack. One is associated with slavery; the other is associate with imperialism. Indeed, as the former suggests the latter in its patterns, so slavery and imperialism suggest themselves.
Why don’t the English disregard the Union Jack? It’s a symbol to many non-Western countries of Western cruelty. I think that the reasons that the Union Jack isn’t dropped in the interest of what other people think are very close to the reasons that Southerners (such as myself) use to argue for the Confederate Flag’s validity as more than just a symbol of hatred.
July 17th, 2004 at 4:15 am
FIGURE THIS TO SOUTHERNERS THE REBEL (SWASTIKA AKA BY KERRY) FLAG REPRESENTS “HERITAGE NOT HATE” AND ALSO “PRIDE NOT PREDUJICE” HAD A THOUGHT OF VOTING FOR HIM UNTIL NOW. WHY DOES HE HAVE A SOUTHERN RUNNING MATE IF HE FEELS THE SOUTHERN HERITAGE HAS THIS KIND OF A “TRADITION” OF BEING A SWASTIKA BEARING PEOPLE???? LOST 1 VOTE FROM THE SOUTH AS OF THAT RACIAL COMMENT
July 17th, 2004 at 4:30 am
I am neither african-american or white I am a denounced race and undefined from the Applachian Mountains described as Melungeon, or a FPC as defined in history a “Free Person of Color” as described. We had no rights, however our people fought both in the south and the north for both sides, we are still FPC but still believe both sides had thier rights and still do, the right to freedom, including all races, mine included, Kerry is only going for votes, his running mate’s people flew the Confederate Flag I am sure if he is a ‘TRUE’ southerner, guess that does not count when trying to get votes, I think he really disgraced himself by making comments about the Civil War Flag such as he did.
Why are the African Americans Free if this flag had not been flown? Some of us still can not claim thier heritage, my Cherokee is ignored and actually who had the first rights to this country???
I still have one vote and will campaign for others in my community to vote for BUSH as I did not intend to before but do now, this was not a “cool” thing to say for any one running for PRESIDENT does he think only the northern people have votes. Rebels can mean rebel against the system not against what he represented it as.
DOWN WITH KERRY!!!!!!
THANK U FOR YOUR TIME, A NOW BUSH VOTE
July 17th, 2004 at 4:49 am
can not understand why Kerry wants to downgrade the Rebel Flag, being rebellious meant a lot of things in times when the flag was flown besides just the conflict about slavery, slavery was a bad thing I agree but when the flag was flown history shows some african-americans fought on the side of the south. Some of the Southerners gave thier last names to the african americans and gave them thier freedom and they chose to stay where they were, it was a conflict that began with slavery but ended up being a lot more.
The flag should represent freedom for the people who became free because of it, not a racial thing, it became racial when the klan pushed it into a thing that it was never meant to represent. NOT HATRED AND MURDER it represented differences of opinions and people gaining freedom, it should prove that freedom can be achieved and also that a flag can represent victory over the supression that was overcome, not hatred, if the flag had not flew and freedom was not gained where would we be now?
Something to consider, I think.
July 17th, 2004 at 4:21 pm
This conversation seems mostly finished, in this specific forum, but it’s a conversation that I hope will continue in other fora. Given that, I’d like to respond to what has been written. Most of the preceding posts represent the breadth of arguments and argumentative tacks usually employed in the public (and private) conversations over the Confederate Flag. This will be a good exercise.
Chris Wage has frequently asserted that the Confederate Flag “conveys racist hatred.” Given the popular history of the Civil War, his conclusion is quite reasonably reached. The popular history, though, often ignores truths about the lives of those who experienced historical events when they were too new to be considered “history.” I think that Publicola has conveyed the strongest arguments with respect to what is ignored by popular history. Chris Wage has given some of the best examples of popular history, and he has given the best insight into how our popular history allows us to understand the multifaceted reality of the past.
Chris Wage wrote: “When you fly the confederate flag, however, there is no misconception about its meaning. A disagreement, perhaps—but not a misconception.
“This is why the whole argument for flying the confederate flag as a symbol of ‘heritage and pride’ or ‘state’s rights’ falls flat—because everyone knows damn well what it also represents, and by flying the flag you are communicating that you either don’t know, or you don’t care.”
Southerners claim that the Confederate Flag is a symbol of heritage and pride. Dissenters from this opinion claim that “heritage and pride” really means “hatred.” People who believe in the popular history are very eager to get to the moral of the story. You know the drill: we want our history to be easy and affirming, like one of Aesop’s fables. The popular American culture is so hell-bent on “not being racist,” it treats the Civil War, the Confederacy, and the Confederate Flag as the setting, character, and theme of its morality tale that concludes: “And that’s why racism is wrong.”
Anyone who has matured into adult literature, however, knows that such an unambiguous simplicity is the province of children’s tales. We cannot read Faulkner with the same naivete that we knew the world through when we heard Aesop’s fables. Despite the fact that a mature, literary adult would understand this, the same mature, literary adult may not apply the gained maturity toward those issues that would make him unpopular, as a questioner. When you say that everything on the South’s end of the Civil War was merely a ploy or a rhetorical trick that distracted people away from slavery, you are turning real human history into a morality tale.
Conclusions like “by flying the flag you are communicating that you either don’t know, or you don’t care” are only able to be reached when you’re dealing with the binary, black-or-white epistemology of a fable. These are the conclusions of a child; they are not the conclusions of an adult.
Most of the people who fought for the Confederacy weren’t plantation owners. Most of the men who were plantation owners—and who contributed most directly to the decision to go to war—either paid someone else to serve in their places, or allowed themselves to be represented in uniform by their children. The property holders with political clout were the same men who decisively influenced the South’s decision to secede. Many Southerners were just “along for the ride,” in a very gruesome sense. My family, in Alabama, petitioned the Alabaman capital against secession. Yet, these same people who resisted their peers’ decision to secede also stood up in defense of the created nation.
When somebody disagrees with the decision to secede, yet defends the created nation anyhow, something interesting is happening. Interesting things get skipped during a morality tale, because they create ambiguity. People seem to think that they are not able to have their moral without consigning the players in the morality tale to their roles. We, the white Southerners, have been consigned to the roles forged for us by a national culture that needs our ancestors to have been “bad guys,” in the interest of preserving the efficacy of the morality tale.
As the Confederate Flag was our ancestors’ symbol for their rebellion, so it is our symbol for our rebellion. We are not stock characters; neither were our ancestors. Our rage against being culturally typecast is the human insistence on dignity.
Most of the soldiers in the Civil War were not slave owners. They lived in an environment largely shaped by an economic system that required slavery for its continuation, yes. However, which do you think a person is more likely to fight for: a rich man’s right to keep the means that keep him rich, or the honor and preservation of one’s literal home and family?
The Civil War was foremost war. Most adults knew what that meant. It meant death by consequence of association with one’s home. It meant being forced to endure occupation if the invaders succeeded. It meant risking your wife’s sanctity and your young daughters’ virginity, because rape has always been attendant with invasion. It meant the destruction of your world. Particularly in the South, masculinity is defined according to a man’s ability to protect and provide for one’s family. Also particularly in the South, “family” is not a nuclear unit comprised of a wife and two kids. Family means cousins and uncles and aunts and nephews and nieces and grandparents and parents. There is, in other words, someone to protect even if you are a bachelor.
The “heritage and pride” represented by the Confederate Flag is the inherited honor of one’s ancestors’ fulfillment of one’s culture’s requirements for familial dignity. White Southerners are deeply ancestral. The worst of us worship our ancestors’ errors along with our ancestors. The best of us love the identity we have inherited from our ancestors, and bear the guilt of their sins. The only way in which the comparison between the Confederate Flag and the swastika is even remotely valid is in the guilt inherited by Southerners and post-Third Reich Germans for their parents’ sins.
The difference between post-Third Reich Germans and Southerners, though, is enough to make the complete comparison between the Confederate Flag and the swastika invalid. Southerners fought for what they wanted to save—home, family—whereas Germans made genocide possible through their desire to avoid persecution at the hands of their own government. Unenlisted Germans supported the Third Reich because the Third Reich would exterminate them for their rebellion; unenlisted and enlisted Southerners supported the Confederacy because they risked extermination and humiliation at the hands of invaders. The scenarios are not wholly compatible for the purposes of pure analogy, so any fleeting reference to the Confederate Flag as a swastika implies similarities between the Confederacy and the Third Reich which do not exist.
Since the experience of most Southern whites serving under the Confederate Flag is frequently ignored—popularity makes your sufferings valid, in the public eye, and we are not popular—the hostile denial of “heritage and pride” as a meaning of the Flag IS a misunderstanding.
“State’s Rights” is mostly political rhetoric. As a defense for the South’s decision to secede and wage war, it is an implicit support of slavery. It also bears merit in the study of political theory as a statement against federal control of the state governments. The Confederacy’s defeat also told the Union states that their freedom to conduct their local governments as they desired was limited, if the federal government really didn’t want them to act as they pleased. In this aspect, the Civil War was where a political question that had been debated intellectually for generations in America was violently answered. With its defeat of the South, the federal government told all the States: “Theorize all you want. This is the way we’re enforcing the country.”
“State’s Rights” is a political defense of the Confederate Flag. “Heritage and pride” is a cultural defense. The cultural defense is the defense that is most compatible with an unhateful perspective, because it refers back to real experience and culturally influenced motivations for supporting the Confederacy. Culturally, the South was racist. However, there is a different between “racism” and “hatred” that is often ignored, because we like our public morality to be simple. As I have illustrated, simplicity is achieved at the expense of truth. It is childishness gained at the expense of maturity.
“Hatred” is the willful persecution of someone because they are blindly ordained as sufferers of one’s own need for violence. The fuel for hatred is irrational and passionate. It only concludes in destruction. “Racism” is a perspective that regards anyone with a few characteristics that cohere with one’s general idea of associated characteristics as having a certain character. People everywhere are racist. Even the most enlightened person has a cache of definitions applied to someone who appears black, or who has a hooked nose and tan skin, or who is lily white with red hair. A weakness in our current public discourse is our inability to separate these two ideas. If everyone who is racist were also hateful, no one would be alive.
The Confederate Flag is foremost a symbol of white Southerners. I do not mean that black Southerners lack a symbolic association with it—however, because of their different relationship with the Confederacy, their symbolic association is very different. The Confederate Flag is racist, because it clearly refers to people who are ethnically white and culturally Southern American. This is as vile a suggestion as people who have Irish flags on their bumpers, or people who have a red-green-yellow flag sewn on their bookbags to associate themselves with black culture. We define ourselves ethnically, and this self-definition creates racism.
Attacking racism because it’s often the name under which hatred is practiced is like killing the body for its infection. Religious and political motivations have been espoused as “just rationale” for practicing hatred. Being racist is part of the human condition. When we attack part of human nature for the fact that it’s used as an excuse to enact a real human neurosis, we’re failing to treat the real problem.
The debate over the public display of the Confederate Flag is an example of our current political impotence in dealing with hatred.
Chris Wage noted that “[of] all the symbols you could select to represent Southern pride, your Southern heritage, and the things that you like about the South, one would think that the Confederate flag would be the last one you’d pick.” His rationale for this claim is explained earlier in the same post, where he writes that “[thanks to] its sordid history, the Confederate Flag will always be a highly divisive symbol.”
The heart of his argument boils down to an abstract premise. “Symbols, like words, are a form of communication, and as such, their meaning to other people is really the only thing that matter.” His premise becomes somewhat confused in a later post, when he explained that “[this] is the difference between a word and a symbol. Both are forms of communication, but you deliberate on the meaning of a symbol much more, and it’s much more difficult to write off its misperception as other people’s ignorance. The whole point is what other people think about it.” This rigid, limited definition of a symbol allows him to get away with his conclusion that “[if] you think you’re being ‘tough’ by displaying a confederate flag to represent your heritage even though most people associate it with racism, you’re wrong. That’s not tough. That’s stupid, and it makes you either a poor communicator, or a racist. Period.”
It’s worth noting that words are not symbols. Letters are symbols. The meaning of a letter—its sound and sense—changes according to its context. Look at vowels. The letter “e” changes its sound-meaning when it is used in the words “vowel” and “eat.” Words are the constructs built from symbols. They are not symbols themselves.
Any real interest in human beings will reveal that few understandings are absolutely conclusive. “Period” is more often a statement of a pre-conceived conclusion, rather than a real conclusion reached at the end of an experience of wrestling with the contradictions and ambiguities residing in the human condition. As such, I am skeptical of his approach.
What makes one “tough” in the act of displaying the Confederate Flag? Knowing that one will be harassed for claiming both the grime and glory of one’s ancestral inheritance of identity. Accepting the past is like accepting one’s immediate family: you don’t isolate the good from the bad and only enjoy the good. You accept both. No other symbol is so pregnant with dual meaning—so loaded that it will really give us a symbol of identity—as the Confederate Flag.
If anyone can five a reasonable alternative that calmly, uncontroversably communicates the history of Southern whites, then I’d like to hear it. Truth and honesty are controversial. It is better to defend that truth than act like the coward in the face of unpopularity.
Non-linguistic symbols only serve communication accidentally. Symbols, foremost, are pictures that convey meaning. The Confederate Flag justifiably conveys racism and heritage as its meaning, and both expressions are equally valid. Real understanding of each other will not be discovered through mimed sympathy. We will have a better chance of reaching solidarity, through our diversity, by accepting each others’ meanings as valid, rather than immediately cowering before political superstition, of which the NAACP is the current holy church. When you tell Southern whites that the only meaning of the Confederate Flag that matters is the meaning that is perceived, you are telling them that they do not matter. This, in itself, is fashionable bigotry.
We live under the sway of the Geography of Nowhere. Interstates bring us to towns that have the same licensed McDonalds, Sleep Inns, and Amocos as their beacons. We are deprived of the chance to understand that no place in America is exactly like any other place. Our deprivation that resulted as a consequence of our economy has become our culture, and culture perpetuates itself. We think that everywhere in America must be like everywhere else. The South is demanded to become like New York City or Washington, D. C.
Read “I’ll Take My Stand,” published under the authorship of Twelve Southerners. In those essays, you will understand the Southern tendency towards localization, towards the preservation of local individuality against corporatizing domination. That same impulse and turn of mind influences the Southern resistance against being denied the Confederate Flag. We want to tell Washington, D. C., exactly what the political theory of the Confederacy claimed: “We are not you.”
July 23rd, 2004 at 11:24 pm
Most African Americans often wonder about the mental health of most white Americans. The confederate flag represents the worst kind of violent, ignorance and hatred. Pride? What pride? Pride in whippings? Pride is systematic rape? Pride in murder? Pride in exploitation? Pride in almost 500,000 dead in the Civil War and countless more in the Ku Klux Klan, White Citizen’s Councils, 100 years of segregation and lynchings afterwards?
Can’t you find something else to be proud of?
Every time an African American sees the confederate flag it’s like being stabbed in the heart.
It essentially says, “Nigger, you don’t belong in America. This is a white man’s country. You have no value. Your ancestors had no value.
Nigger, get out of American if you can’t stay in your place.”
I guess that’s the message that you proponents of the display of this
flag want to convey in 2004.
What utter atavistic stupidity and stubborness.
Stop being such rebellious juvenile delinquents and join the 21st century!
July 24th, 2004 at 4:17 am
Anyone who flat-handedly refuses to view another’s perspective on a symbol is ignorant. Just because a certain variety of ignorance is fashionable doesn’t change the fact that it’s ignorance.