is the title of this piece in Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It is subtitled "The flag that Dylann Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, endorses the violence he committed. " Like all of Coates' pieces, it is pointed, it is powerful, and you absolutely should read it.
In the opening paragraph he tells us
Visitors to Charleston have long been treated to South Carolina’s attempt to clean its history and depict its secession as something other than a war to guarantee the enslavement of the majority of its residents. This notion is belied by any serious interrogation of the Civil War and the primary documents of its instigators.
In his next paragraph he takes an interesting turn:
The Confederate flag’s defenders often claim it represents “heritage not hate.” I agree—the heritage of White Supremacy was not so much birthed by hate as by the impulse toward plunder. Dylann Roof plundered nine different bodies last night, plundered nine different families of an original member, plundered nine different communities of a singular member. An entire people are poorer for his action.
The notion of "plunder" caught my attention: after all, the justification for slavery was regardless of how it was phrased based on the economic benefits for those who profited from its existence, regardless of the costs it imposes.
Like others have done, he quotes from the statement of secession of South Carolina, which makes clear the action was about slavery, and the key phrase from his quoted material is great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man. This is of course the same notion that had appeared in the Dred Scott decision, and it is what motivates so much racism and stoking of racial fear and hatred today.
But there is much more in this brief but powerful piece, which is why you should read it, and which I will explore a bit more below the fold.
Coates reminds us of pieces of history some would rather not remember: in discussing reactions by Southern leaders to the assassination of Lincoln he notes
Robert E. Lee’s armies took special care to enslave free blacks during their Northern campaign. But Lee claimed the assassination of the Great Emancipator was “deplorable.”
And then he takes us to the words of the assassin himself, John Wilkes Booth. Allow me to quote one paragraph of what he quotes from Booth:
This country was formed for the white, not for the black man. And looking upon African Slavery from the same stand-point held by the noble framers of our constitution. I for one, have ever considered if one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us,) that God has ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Witness heretofore our wealth and power; witness their elevation and enlightenment above their race elsewhere. I have lived among it most of my life, and have seen less harsh treatment from master to man than I have beheld in the North from father to son. Yet, Heaven knows, no one would be willing to do more for the negro race than I, could I but see a way to still better their condition.
I read those words, and I cannot help but think of the words I hear today far too often about the supposed inferiority of Blacks, of the tendency to violence in the Black community etc., ignoring the fact that the patterns being described are those of economically deprived and discriminated against groups that are just easily seen in communities of poor White both in some inner city neighborhoods and in rural areas of this country that far too many ignore. It also ignore the notion that some Whites in power foment racial hatred among poorer Whites as a means of deflecting righteous anger towards themselves on a class basis that might well unify many Blacks and Whites who are excluded from much of the American Dream.
All of this is preface to the final three short paragraphs of the piece by Coates. I will preface my quoting of them by saying as I did when I posted about his piece on Facebook and on Twitter that "Coates is absolutely correct, but sadly it will not happen."
I'd love to be proven wrong on that assessment.
Here are those final words by Coates:
Moral cowardice requires choice and action. It demands that its adherents repeatedly look away, that they favor the fanciful over the plain, myth over history, the dream over the real. Here is another choice.
Take down the flag. Take it down now.
Put it in a museum. Inscribe beneath it the years 1861-2015. Move forward. Abandon this charlatanism. Drive out this cult of death and chains. Save your lovely souls. Move forward. Do it now.