Posted on 06/21/2015 2:02:50 PM PDT by Kaslin
When I went off to college in 1972, leaving Texas for New England, I took something to remind me of home: a large Confederate flag. With my roommates' indulgence, it hung on the wall of my freshman dorm suite the entire academic year.
It seemed harmless at the time. I didn't intend any racial message, and I didn't feel any sympathy for racial bigotry. Although I had attended segregated public schools all my life, when my high school integrated my senior year, I co-chaired a student human relations committee to address racial conflicts.
Like a lot of people below the Mason-Dixon Line -- white people, anyway -- I saw the emblem as a token of regional pride. I didn't revere slavery and Jim Crow. But I thought there was much about the South to love.
And if the flag annoyed the Yankees a little, that was OK. They were not as noble and blameless as they pretended to be. They were not going to make me repudiate my native region.
But when I recently ran across a photo of me and a friend hanging that flag out the dorm window, I winced. The banner, the familiar red rectangle with a blue X, hadn't changed. But my understanding of what it signified had.
In 2015, anyone displaying that flag knows what it means to viewers, particularly black ones. It's an expression of hostility, not only toward black people, but to broader ideals of how the nation should come to terms with the legacy of racism.
It's a gesture of defiance by many whites who feel victimized by the growing visibility and influence of minorities. It's a giant middle finger, aimed at anyone who would find it offensive.
In a free society, expression of that sort is protected. So it's not surprising to know that the flag can be seen in many places in the South. But it is jarring to be reminded that it still flies at the state Capitol of South Carolina. There, it's justified as a tribute to the state's Civil War heritage and history.
Except it's not, really. The flag didn't fly over the state Capitol until the early 1960s, and it was revived in direct reaction to the civil rights movement. It was a token of whites' attachment to segregation.
South Carolina's impulse was not unique in the South. In 1956, Georgia changed its state flag to incorporate the Confederate flag. In Texas, at least, there was a fad of naming schools after Robert E. Lee, another coded message.
Dylann Roof, the accused shooter in Wednesday's massacre of nine parishioners at a black church in Charleston, had a car with a Confederate flag license plate. It's not hard to guess why: He was a white supremacist, flaunting a symbol of white supremacy.
South Carolinians and others have been arguing over this flag for years. In 1999, the NAACP mounted a campaign to boycott the state as a protest of the state Capitol display. The city's mayor urged its removal. The legislature agreed that instead of flying over the building, it would hang at a monument to Confederate soldiers on the grounds.
But that mild concession was not enough to satisfy the NAACP. And Gov. Nikki Haley has refused to reopen the issue.
It arose in the 2000 GOP presidential primary, when George W. Bush and John McCain refused to utter a bad word about the Capitol flag, insisting it was something for South Carolinians to decide.
But there is no way to justify its continued place of honor in Columbia. Getting rid of it would be a step toward acknowledging that the history many South Carolinians revere was oppressive, brutal and unconscionable. Its enduring fallout is a burden on whites as well as blacks.
After losing the 2000 primary, McCain admitted he was dishonest in defending the flag. But he didn't just reverse the position he had taken to win votes in South Carolina.
The Arizona senator said his Confederate ancestors "'fought on the wrong side of American history. I don't believe their service, however distinguished, needs to be commemorated in a way that offends, that deeply hurts, people whose ancestors were once denied their freedom by my ancestors."
McCain didn't force South Carolina's defenders of the flag to admit the obvious. Maybe Dylann Roof will.
Using this tragedy to promote their agenda. They are sick bastards.
The flag is a battle flag, I suggest these idiots look at our own flag which flew on slave ships, and went out west proudly while we killed, raped, robbed and removed the Native Americans.
Sick of these people claiming to be holier than thou and still wage war on the south and Southerners.
Cognitive dissonance. A flag didn’t kill those people, a drug-addled nutjob did.
Exactly. The flag had nothing to do with it.
Anyone calling it “the Confederate Flag” deserves to be ignored. That flag was never the “Confederate Flag.” It was but one of the battle flags of the C.S.A. The most common rectangular flag with the St Andrews Cross is actually a Navy flag. Regardless, the Battle Flag and Naval Flag always flew inferior to the actual national flag of the Confederacy.
My guess is that these types of idiots are completely clueless as to the large number of southern States that actually have parts of Confederate flags (not the Battle Flag) in their State flags. They would be shocked and no doubt greatly offended. Instead, they take offense toward something that is now what they think it is.
Personally, I prefer the 2nd National Flag of the Confederacy - but my ancestors fought and died under the Battle Flag. If it “represents hate” it is the hate that Yankee carpet-baggers have for anything southern.
Excellent point. The gun did not kill those those victim by itself either. The drug-addled nutjob did
oh come on get over it
Another “Southerner” who has become enlightened and wiser. Tell me, now that you have taken the shades off your eyes, how often do you recoil and tremble when you see an American flag after yet another mass slaughter outside the South?
That's where the focus should be. All of these homicidal maniacs have a soulless look in their eyes. It seems that everyone of them had been prescribed mind-altering legal pharmaceuticals.
The media has trivialized the real anger and hurt we all feel for those victims in this horrific shooting. It's not about a flag, it's about people who were slaughtered in a church.
More room to destroy.
Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings served as a Democratic United States Senator from South Carolina from 1966 to 2005, as well as the 106th Governor of South Carolina and the 77th Lieutenant Governor. Wikipedia
I guess it’s time to take CBF/SS licence plate off the front of my truck. I’m endangering my family from some wacho.
A sad day in America.
Also got a free pass due to the D.
Yeah, I suspect every newspaper in the country will ‘miss’ that fact... Hey Washington Post - the Confederate Flag was brought back by DEMOCRAT FRITZ HOLLINGS...
Never mentioned in any way except for Limbaugh and may be a few others on AM.
Odd how the liberals in the MSM missed that? Do you think they’re dem handlers didn’t highlight it for them?
You nailed it.
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