Some of us followed events of the NBA All-Star weekend in New Orleans. Those were held in New Orleans rather than in Charlotte, as originally scheduled, because of Norah Carolina’s Republican legislature, which declined to overturn the bathroom hate law (the infamous HB2) they passed to discriminate against and victimize transgendered citizens.
More below.
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The public outcry against that indefensible measure reminded me of the debate about the Confederate flag on Statehouse grounds in my own state, a travesty only overturned following the murders committed by white supremacist, Dylann Roof, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston.
For many of you, I am certain this came across (for all the years South Carolina was under NAACP boycott) as being an incomprehensible issue, stupid to its core. I live here, and I agree. But for me the debate isn’t abstract, it isn’t ‘way over there.’ It’s here.
I thought of it today as I saw a car with a Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate. Every so often I encounter defiant defenders of the Confederacy, talking about the cherished legacy of their ancestors, about the importance of honoring THAT flag as a symbol of their ‘sacrifice.’
Perhaps it won’t surprise you to learn that there are those who are honest and sincere about that, who truly believe that no hatred, bigotry and racism underlie their motivations. I believe that such people may exist. I have never encountered one.
However, I have had a few conversations about this. I asked them their ancestor’s name. Most of them could not answer that very simple question. So I asked, you are showing respect for an ancestor whose name you could not be bothered to learn? The look on their faces was all anyone would need to know to understand that their ‘honoring’ had to do with justifying racist expression, NOT honoring an ancestor. On the rare occasions when the person DID know a relative’s name (indeed, if they didn’t make it up), they did not know where their relative served, in what unit. They did not know whether their ‘ancestor’ died in battle or survived the war. They did not know how old their ancestor was when he joined up, did not know whether their ancestor had a family, children. They did not know how they were related, through which branch of their family.
Almost invariably their involvement with the ‘flag movement’ only came after great criticism of the flag in the media. Before it was called out as an overt racist symbol, they had no interest in it whatsoever. But then it became a rallying point. A racist one.
Now, as I say, there are probably some who have known the history of their ancestors and their ancestors’ service that pre-dates the larger flag controversy. I have never personally met one, but I am sure there are some. And it would not surprise me if those I ‘caught’ for not REALLY respecting those ancestors did some research so they could not be caught again, and solely for that reason (NOT to truly respect those ancestors).
I have also had dialogue with them about the flag itself. The flag proudly flown by so many of them NEVER flew over Confederate troops. None of them ever saw that flag, unless they lived for a long time after that war. There were three flags that got some appreciation DURING that era. NONE look like what is now regarded in many places in the South as ‘THE Confederate Flag.’ The closest approximation of what now is was used for a time by the Army of North Virginia. That flag does indeed resemble the current ‘Confederate flag,’ with a blue x with stars in it for the Confederate states. But the color of that blue was different from the blue in today’s flag. Moreover, that flag was square, and the x was square, not elongated and rectangularized as in the current flag. They are just not the same. The flag so ‘revered’ today by the Ku Klux Klan never flew over Confederate soldiers, none ever pledged loyalty to it. And NO ‘defender” I have ever spoken with knew (or believed!!!) that. But it’s true. (Histories of the ‘flag’ in that era may be found many places online, even in the LA Times.)
It may surprise some to learn that the great majority of soldiers in the Confederacy did not own slaves. Some defenders use that fact to contend that it is not racist. But a very high percentage of Southerners who actually TOOK the South to war DID own slaves, and, for them, it was a MAJOR reason why the South went to war.
The wikipedia article on the flag describes it thus:
On April 23rd, 1863, the Savannah Morning News editor William Tappan Thompson, with assistance from William Ross Postell, a Confederate blockade runner, published an editorial championing a design featuring the battle flag on a white background he referred to later as "The White Man's Flag."[6] In explaining the white background, Thompson wrote, "As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause."[1][2][3][4][7][8][9][10] (Bold-facing from BeninSC.)
The racist sentiment was as clear in that day as it is in ours.
But even if it were true that ‘in and of itself’ that flag isn’t racist, its adoption by just about ALL white supremacist and racist groups would invalidate the claim. It isn’t racist because BeninSC says it is or because Barack Obama says it is. It’s racist because the Ku Klux Klan says it is. Because other white supremacists say it is, because it is a symbol of racism and bigotry for THEM. If one wishes to argue with those groups, I wish them luck! But life is short. Particularly in debate with people like that.
On to tonight’s comments! Formatted by brillig!
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