I see we still have a bunch of reality-challenged conservatives in this country who think the Confederate flag only symbolizes proud Southern heritage and honors Confederate veterans. This must explain why yesterday, here in Wisconsin, I saw a car with Wisconsin plates and a pink Confederate flag bumper sticker. Didn't Wisconsin fight on the side of the Union? And were there women Confederate veterans who had their own pink flag? Needing to assure myself that I wasn't misremembering my history lessons, I decided to learn about the history of that flag. Off to Wikipedia land I went.
William Porcher Miles. He's the guy who actually designed the Confederate battle flag. And he was a Fire Eater.
First, I recommend you go to Wikipedia and read the articles on the Confederate flags and William Miles. Easy enough to do without me taking 10 minutes to add the links here. And I can't figure out how to embed pictures of the flags in this diary. Sorry.
In a nutshell, Miles was a white supremacist who thought slavery was a "Divine institution" and that, "Men are created neither Free nor Equal." He was a Fire Eater, a group of extreme secessionists who not only supported slavery but wished to resume the slave trade with Africa. It is absolutely clear that his secessionist ideas were rooted in the idea of white superiority and anti-abolition beliefs.
He headed up the committee that designed the Confederate flags. Although his own design - that of what we now consider to be the Confederate flag - was not chosen at first, it later became the Battle Flag and was subsequently incorporated into the Confederate flag itself. The Confederate flag fist looked similar to the U.S. flag: a circle of stars in a blue field in the corner, with three large bars, red, white and red.
Thinking this looked too much like the U.S. flag, it was later changed to something that resembles what we now recognize: Miles's "southern cross" in the corner against a totally white background. W.T. Thompson, another member of the committee who designed this flag, chose the white background to represent the dominance and superiority of the white race. Enough said.
There was so much white on the flag that officers began to complain that it looked too much like a flag of surrender. So a vertical red bar was added to the side opposite the southern cross design.
There you have it. The Confederate flags were designed by two of the most racist, slavery-loving men that ever lived. Their designs were meant to NOT resemble the pro-abollition U.S. flag and to very intentionally promote white supremacy.
The failed nation for which they created these flags lasted only four years, much shorter than Nazi-controlled Germany. And yet these four years out of the entire history of the United States somehow now represent all of Southern pride and heritage? And for some strange reason, people all over the country have adopted it during the past 50 years as a symbol of...heritage? Rebellion? Pride?
So from now on, please spare me the convoluted, pretzel-twisting explanations of how the Confederate flag is not a symbol of white supremacy. If Miles and Thompson, the two guys who designed it, could speak once again, they would tell you - proudly - that it absolutely was just that.