Every so often, we're reminded as Americans how little progress we've actually made since the days of slavery. Sure, we've come a long way in some areas, but these subtle and not-so-subtle reminders force us to face a very hard truth.
Last Saturday, for instance, an all-white crowd of more than 100 celebrated Confederate Flag Day in North Carolina. Gathering in the state capitol, the assembled sang "Dixie" in the House chamber, also standing to salute gray-clad re-enactors as they paraded the colors by.
And yet the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The Confederate flag (and I'm speaking of the
Rebel flag) stands for several things, none of which are good. It stands for slavery. It stands for racism. It stands for treason. It is a historical relic that belongs in a museum, not flying today. It's a symbol of everything we've tried to overcome in this country since the 19th Century. It isn't anything to be proud of, to be celebrated, to be revered. It represents a black mark on our nation's permanent record. Thinking otherwise embraces a dark past.
"You all know there's a vicious campaign against all things Southern," said history professor Clyde Wilson at the ceremony. "It's not really the flag they hate, it's not really the Confederacy - it's us, it's the South." Wrong. Clyde, I do hate the flag. I do hate the Confederacy. I do hate the thought that slavery should be legal and treason should be celebrated. And I do hate the idea that that legacy should be remembered with anything other than shame today.
I don't hate Southerners, Clyde. I just hate the notion that your peers rejoice in the subjugation of other Americans, be it blacks or homosexuals or women. Don't hide, either, behind the argument that what you're commemorating is something of the past. Look no further than the words of Rev. Herman White, who during his invocation Saturday said, "Eternal God, God of our Confederate ancestors. ... I ask you to give us the strength to go against all who would destroy our Confederate heritage." To some people, the war never ended.
Well, I hate to break it to all of you, but you did, in fact, lose. Your cause lost. Your way of thinking lost. Your vision for the future lost. And America, contrary to what many of you still think, is better for it. So get over it, move on and start living in the same century the rest of us are living in. Because the more you linger in the past, the more you hold the rest of our society back from true progress.
Don't you find it ironic that many who celebrate the Rebel flag and all that it stands for are the same people who call us traitors today? I, however, haven't quit. I haven't abandoned my country. I haven't committed treason. People like me would rather fight to change America for the better from within than secede and form our own country. And that, not a history of racism and lawlessness, is something to be proud of.
Something else I'm proud of is that America is a nation of second chances. Those states that fought against the United States during the Civil War made a grave mistake. They were wrong and yet they deserved another chance to join our union. But that doesn't mean we must continually honor their mistake and fight again the same battles we fought - and won - a long time ago. We wouldn't embrace a Holocaust Pride Day, so why should we celebrate Confederate Flag Day?
It's time to move on.