I offer this post as a blueprint for talking about the Confederate Flag. My purpose is to arm individuals with the persuasive power to argue that it is an antiquated, racist symbol whose time has passed, while still acknowledging nuances that make this flag so controversial. It is unlikely that this post will persuade a racist. But for those on the fence about the issue, I offer verbal arms to bring the Questioning into alignment with a growing educated majority.
To be clear, no one has argued that the Confederate Flag must somehow magically disappear. Just as the Nazi Swastika has endured since WWII, the US government has not and will not kick down anyone's door and take their flag. The fear that they will comes from the lingering ghost of anti-Northern sentiment that has endured since the Civil War: that the US government is an northern, elitist, and hypocritical monolith to moral depravity that oppresses southern white people by supporting only rich elites and the minorities that vote them into power. We need only to look at the election of Barack Obama to know this is so, as southern whites bought guns in record numbers and challenged everything from his citizenship to his stance on immigration to his efforts to save the economy and preserve women's health care and social safety nets. To a racist, the US Government and its northern aggression has never ceased, and this view permeates politics just as much now as it did then. See also, states and leaders who have threatened succession.
No. What is being argued is that the Confederate Flag has no place flying above public offices. Full stop. This of course won't bring racism to an end. But the flags of states and nations enshrine the ideals that give purpose to every law that exists. If we enshrine a symbol that stood for the preservation of slavery, then we permit racism as the foundational ideology that made slavery possible then and now and as an ideal that should direct current decisions regarding legislation.
The Confederate Flag is a Symbol of the South, Not a Symbol of the Confederacy!
We could hammer on the obvious truth that Googling "Confederate Flag" reveals the very flag that was flying above the South Carolina Statehouse, but proponents could easily retort that the term "Rebel Flag" reveals the same images. Instead, it's important to acknowledge that the symbol under discussion was the flag of a West Virginia company serving the confederacy during the Civil War. Proponents argue that this fact should be interpreted to mean that the "Rebel Flag" is a symbol that never stood for the Confederacy (a view which involves some mental gymnastics I won't discuss).
Despite this detail, however, we can dismiss this interpretation of fact by looking at the third flag adopted by the now defeated Confederate States of America, which includes the visage of the "Rebel Flag" in the same way as the former state flag of Mississippi. The flag is indeed a variant rather than the original or official flag, but the symbol was created and maintained by the confederacy, and endured as a symbol of Confederate sympathy to the present day. Consider the following parable: the official flag of the Nazi's had an eagle, but does that mean that the Swastika was not a Nazi symbol? Of course not.
The Civil War Was Fought Over State's Rights and Money, Not Slavery!
Right. The same rights that allowed them to keep and own slaves. The same money that the Confederate States earned through the slave trade, as all agricultural labor at the time was done either by slaves or indentured servants (the latter of which were MUCH more expensive and almost never preferred). Labor--the number one expense accrued for any economic activity--was often the professed reason for the war on both sides, but only because racism existed in both North and South. If you follow the money to its source, it was slavery pure and simple.
President Lincoln made the abolition of slavery his primary goal for the end of the Civil War. This view is enshrined in the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
While it's true that there were northern racists, there was no slavery. While it's true that there were those in the South who were freeing slaves and fighting for racial justice, the Confederate States never took unified action to abolish slavery, every action they took was to preserve someone's right to have it if they choose. Sound familiar? See also "state's rights" in regard to healthcare and the "rights of business owners" to deny services to LGBT people. Sound familiar? They're the mantras of the current Republican Party (which is the current iteration of the Dixiecrats --Historian).
But Look! Black People Wear The Confederate Flag Too!
This is easy to dismiss with one simple statement: black people can be racist against black people, and black people can adopt racist portrayals of themselves in order to achieve social mobility. This is the trope of the Uncle Tom that Malcolm X wrote about in great detail, where a slave would become the partner of a slave master by keeping the rest of the slaves in line--and calling them "n*ggers." When systemic racism exist, there will always be clever people who capitalize on racism even though it is specifically designed to oppress them. Such was the case with Madam C. J. Walker and others,
who became millionaires during the Civil War and the segregationist periods that followed. Their existence of course does not mean their wasn't the need for a Civil Rights Movement decades later--they're affirmation of racist institutions did not mean they were even complacent to the rights of black people. But such enterprise becomes the goal when racism exist. Today, such is the case of most commercialized black hip-hop and rap artist,
who done blackface characters of themselves--acting like fools, spending mountains of cash, debasing women and others--in order to make money on a album or two before abandoning music and investing in clothing or other industries. They do this because it
satisfies white people's racist views while making money that black artists use to attain social mobility. Sorry, white people. It's called "hustling." You make it necessary, and you fall for it every time.
Racism is being projected onto the Confederate Flag--It's Southern Pride!
You might also hear this as the "Dukes of Hazard" argument, where someone will say that the flag stood for the rebellious spirit of the south and not slavery and especially not racism. After all, the Dukes were good ole' boys, right? Good in the way they steal, cheat, womanize, and drink, but also good in the way they helped people with their good ole' youthful charms, and usually against "oppressive" authority figures.
This is where we are supposed to read "Rebel Flag" instead of Confederate Flag. Everyone in the Dukes of Hazzard was white, and when someone broke the law, it was because the laws and the people who informed them were stupid. But in this way, the "Rebel Flag" instead stands as a symbol of white privilege, a position possible because of racism. We see the double standard in full force when we recall the countless black men and women who "deserved to die at the hands of police" for stealing cigarillos, holding a BB gun, soliciting help for a broken down car, are selling hand-rolled cigarettes (someday in the past). When white people--particularly white men--commit crimes, it's good ole' fun. When black people do it, they die. And they certainly don't get a TV show celebrating their youthful rebellious spirit. The Dukes of Hazard never addressed racism. The Dukes' car was adorned in the Confederate Flag and was named "General Lee" after General Robert E. Lee, head of the Confederate Army. It embodied the racist ideal of the South: an all-white town where white men were free to do as they please so long as they helped others who looked like them, and at their whim.
Despite the pop-culture reverence, to label the Confederate Flag as a "Rebel Flag" is also a careless rewriting of history. Michael Tomasky and David Blight have written about this in great detail. The flag in question is an undeniable part of US history as a symbol of "southern pride" rooted in southern racist groups post civil war until today. Never has the flag been adopted by people combating racism, and groups such as the Anti-Defamation League have long recognized in as such. For racist southerners, their math is thus: North=government in all forms=bad because it functions as a system of social equity at the believed expense of white people. Even when those same white people benefit immensely from the US--not northern--US government, they are against it in all forms because of the way it acts to make lives better for everyone, and apart from the whims of white people. See also some church efforts to alleviate poverty while denouncing social welfare programs.
But It's Oppressive to Censor The Confederate Flag!
This can also be read as the "
If we take down the "Rebel Flag" then we should take down the Pride Flag" argument. The logic is that all identities and their associated viewpoints are equally valid, which is false. We assess viewpoints not on the simple criteria that they exist, but that they offer explanatory power for reality and they empower us to alleviate human suffering--the highest moral good. We've already discussed how the identity of the Confederate Flag is centered around elevating white people to a privileged state at the direct cost of imposing suffering on others. The Pride Flag, by contrast, exists in response to sexist and homophobic ideals, which seek to delegitimize someone's right to bring happiness to another. Also by contrast, nowhere is the Pride Flag waving above a state's capital. It is not oppressive to refuse to honor icons that are used to oppress others. It is not imposing on another's beliefs by demanding a country to provide liberty and justice for all by refusing to enshrine racism above its offices.
Where To Go From Here
You might ask a proponent of the Confederate Flag: Southern pride? What about this flag is there to be proud of? Maybe* not everyone who honors this flag is racist. I'm sure they truly believe it is something else and they may trip over themselves trying to make that case. A response might be to point out that while not all who honor this flag are consciously racist, all self-professed racists honor this flag. And that's something for everyone to think about when they choose their allegiances.
*Update: I originally argued that the Dukes of Hazzard never had a black cast member. The show actually had 20 black cast members during its run on television, though only four had a recurring role beyond a single episode.