Recently I went to the St. Patrick's Day festival in Church Hill in Richmond. Church Hill is an old an historical neighborhood in the East End of Richmond, home to St. John's Church, where Patrick Henry gave his "Liberty or Death" speech, and seems to be one of the few neighborhoods in Richmond not burned down during the Civil War (I'm not completely sure if that is true, it may have been burned and rebuilt). Anyway, they were selling lot's of flags, including various Irish Confederate flags, and I bought a stars and bars (the one that looks like the American flag with 3 bars) with an Irish harp on it. It was the flag of the 1st Georgia Irish volunteers. My family is from Georgia and I'm mostly of Scottish and Irish descent, so it seemed appropriate. It got me thinking about the Confederate flag. First, it is important to distinguish between the two main Flags. There is the stars and bars, and the one that everyone knows, the "battle flag". People more often display the battle flag, and this one tends to cause the most controversy, for two reasons. One is that people often don't recognize the stars and bars as the Confederate flag. The other is that the battle flag is the one that the KKK would often wave in their marches. So in one sense the Confederate flag should not be offensive. It is the only universally recognized symbol of the South, and it is reasonable to want to display my Southern heritage. However, the fact that it was used (and still is) as a symbol of hate makes it understandably offensive. Honestly, it pisses me off when northern whites start talking about it and telling me it's offensive, because it's really none of their business. Unfortunately, the hate that it is associated with (not necessarily slavery, as so few Confederate soldiers had slaves, and many northern states had slaves), makes it not worth it in many situations. Organizations like the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which used to be an apolitical organization dedicated to preserving Civil War memorials and historical sites, has been infiltrated and taken over by racist neo-Confederates. However, it's extremely offensive to me when I'm told that it is offensive for me to remember my ancestors.
The Confederate Flag
By donttreadonme - Posted on March 25th, 2009
The other is that the battle flag is the one that the KKK would often wave in their marches.
The incorporation of the battle flag in the 1956 Georgia State Flag was an explicit act of defiance by the Georgia Legislature aimed at resisting de-segregation. THAT act has essentially "poisoned the well" for those who wish (as you seem to) to use the flag as a symbol of cultural heritage in the South. It is also important to realized, however, that a significant portion of our heritage as Georgians (I am also a Georgia native) unfortunately included a support for slavery and a rejection of civil equality on the basis of race. That's not the totality of our heritage, to be sure, but it is understandable, I think, for those whose ancestors were subjected to that prejudice to find the symbol offensive.
TTFN,
Blackout
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See, I understand black people who are offended by it, or, at least in certain situations. What I get really angry at is white Northerners who get mad at it. It is absolutely none of their business. I've also heard Northerners say that the South should not only apologize for slavery (which I agree with in a way, though I don't see much use for it) but also for rebelling. Someone writing into the Richmond paper (I'm actually from Richmond, VA, and my family is all from Georgia, both of which are very Southern in a very different way) called Robert E. Lee a terrorist. Another guy once wrote that we should apologize for treason and killing their soldiers. My first thought was "Isn't a key part of terrorism violence against civilians? Which side was it that did that? Don't I remember something about burning down everything from Richmond to Savannah, including farms and crops and people?" There is a fairly unintelligent post about the Confederate flag on this site in which the author actually said "The North was nice enough to let you stay in the U.S. after you lost the war" to which I pointed out the obvious.
See, I understand black people who are offended by it, or, at least in certain situations. What I get really angry at is white Northerners who get mad at it. It is absolutely none of their business.
One doesn't have to be black in order to be offended by racism. And since the battle flag was raised against the North during the Civil War, that emblem is just a much of their history, as it is of ours. Seeing as non-Georgians really don't have any direct cultural connection to the positive aspects (such as they are) of the history of our State flags, they're judgment is guided by the only context in which we as a regional sub-culture have (in a meaningful, impacting way) presented it to them. As such, of course you are likely to see people who aren't from the South automatically view this emblem in what in the most negative way possible.
I also have to say that in my personal experience growing up in a small, rural, South Georgia town, the idea that the Confederate Battle Flag is still deeply connected to feelings of racism in the South is a true one. This is anecdotal, so take it for what it is worth, but the most racist people I have ever known from my home town ALL had little Confederate Flags...on their trucks, hanging in their yards, patched onto their hats, sketched into the margins of their school books. Not everyone who had a Confederate Flag seemed racist, of course...but enough did that even to a Son of the South like myself, the sight of the stars and bars raises more discomfort in me than it does pride.
TTFN,
Blackout
---
A question of love.
---
Check out Progressive PRIDE, a Gay-Straight Alliance for the Progressive U community.
Although I felt no kind of anger, I just had the thought...I wonder what the intention of the person who put up the flag was.
I mean it's one thing to be proud of your heritage, while it's another thing to put up a flag that brings these kind of bad feelings to certain people. It is a bad history that's why people get upset, it bears or brings bad memories of another time that some people don't want to be reminded of but are.
“You cannot wean away an addict from the drug. It is not possible for me to walk away from Ranjha. If it is our destiny to be together then who, other than God, can change it?”
she's a spaceman, no walker, dreamer...maybe
Good point... I'm not from the South, and nobody in my family ever was, so I could care less about the Confederate flag. I think people have the right to fly it, but some might have a problem with it because they don't know what you're trying to say: is it an innocuous expression of one's heritage, or a message of hate? I think most of the time, it is merely intended as a non-offensive symbol of community pride. But thanks to the few who use (and used) the flag as a symbol of oppression, we can never be sure, and that's why the display of the Confederate flag is controversial.
On the other hand, even if one was using the battle cross as a symbol of hate, they have every right to that, too. That still falls under free speech.
As a side note, we've been referring to the Confederate flag as a "Southern" symbol, but in my experience, it's really a symbol of rural (or at least not metropolitan) America. I'm from Pennsylvania, and I do see the flag north of the Mason Dixon line- usually flying from a home out in the countryside, or in the back window of a pickup truck in small towns.