This week, a white terrorist murdered 9 black Americans in the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Emanuel, one of the oldest black churches in America, has for two centuries withstood natural disasters, bans and burnings, serving as a pillar of the community and a stalwart symbol of black resilience. The mass murderer, fueled by the racist vitriol that has plagued our nation for our entire history, intentionally targeted the congregation, traveling two hours from his hometown of Columbia, where the Confederate battle flag flies around the site of the state capitol building.
South Carolina’s relationship to the Confederacy and its symbols are inextricable. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union and Fort Sumter in Charleston was the site of the first engagement of the Civil War. The Confederacy’s main public policy and reason for existence, chattel slavery, was perhaps more integral to South Carolina than to any other Dixie state; by 1860, South Carolina had the highest percentage of slaves to total population (57%) and the highest percentage of slaveholders to free population (8.9%). The impact of such prolonged disparities continue to affect the state (and the country as a whole), as evidenced in part by the massacre in Charleston.
The actions of the terrorist (who shall remain nameless in this post so as to not publicize his notoriety further) have reignited a debate about the meaning of the Confederate battle flag and the place of symbols in our society. I use the term “Confederate battle flag” because those who defend the design are quick to point out that the flag did not represent the Confederate government, but rather Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and is thus not a symbol of institutional racism, but of military valor. I find the argument for this interpretation lacking.
The battle flag is, by my way of thinking, an undeniable representation of the Confederate government. The idea for the battle flag, itself a modification of the original South Carolina flag of secession, came from General P.G.T. Beauregard. Beauregard’s aide designed the new flag, President Jefferson Davis gave official approval, and General Robert E. Lee was given the flag to fly during battle while representing the Confederacy. The “Southern cross” design was then incorporated into the official state flag of the Confederacy in 1863. In sum, the flag’s existence is owed to the efforts of three of perhaps the five most recognizable agents of the Confederate government. The flag, contrary to the romantic picture painted by defenders, did not arise from the dirt as a populist symbol of Southern unity; it was created by government officials for the express purpose of war.
But let us, for the sake of argument, accept that the battle flag is merely a symbol of the Confederate army, and not the greater government. Why would this improve the acceptability of the symbol? Creating a government structure based inflexibly upon the proprietary bondage of humans is a heavy enough offense, but does picking up arms for said cause not make the crime worse? The flag, in its military sense, represents the losing efforts of an army, consisting of 90% volunteers and mainly of poor white non-slaveholders tricked into believing they were fighting for their “homeland” or the nebulous concept of “states’ rights” by a gentry class that wished to combat any potential attempts at abolition. The battle flag is a symbol of sorrow, of classism, of racial disharmony, of bloodshed.
Following the loss of the Civil War, the plagued process of Reconstruction began in the South. The resentment of Northern control and the freeing of slaves prompted the birth of the Ku Klux Klan by Confederate veterans, who sought to overthrow Republican governance and reaffirm white supremacy by murdering black leaders. The Klan has existed in different phases for 150 years, killing thousands of African-Americans and other minorities. KKK members, seeing themselves as the continuation of the Confederacy, often carried the battle flag during their extrajudicial operations. The flag, already a symbol of slavery and the romanticization of the old South to many, became a symbol of lynching, adding another layer of fear for African-Americans.
The Confederate battle flag, as President Obama has recently stated, belongs in a museum, the proper place for an historical relic. I recognize the yearning of Southerners to differentiate themselves from the rest of the nation; it is a region with an incomparably fascinating cultural landscape. But the symbol Southerners have chosen to represent themselves is tainted- a hopeless source of racial tension in a region and country desperate for unity. Hold a convention. Send delegates. Craft a new symbol for the South, a symbol that showcases the diversity and the contributions of all of the South’s people, a symbol that doesn’t disenfranchise millions, and leave the battle flag in cemeteries where it belongs.
But let’s not stop there.
Let’s abandon our state and national flags. The Confederate battle flag is not the only representation of fear and evil flying in our country. To Native Americans, to Asian-American internment victims, to oppressed minorities, to innocent bystanders around the world, the Stars and Stripes represent the brutal and violent actions that Americans have allowed to define us for far too long.
Let’s take some time off.
Let’s recognize the full equality and autonomy of women.
Let’s stop persecuting our LGBTQ citizens.
Let’s stop treating property as more valuable than human life.
Let’s stop spying on and killing without cause our international neighbors.
Let’s cease the structural oppression of African-Americans through police brutality, racist drug laws, discriminatory housing policy, unequal education standards and labor prejudice.
Let’s reform our immigration system to finally reflect the dream of the New Colossus, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Let’s address the foundation of our country- the widespread, systematic slaughter, forced relocation and theft of Native American peoples, cultures and lands.
Let’s build a society that lives up to the excellence that we vainly presume to embody.
Until then, we don’t deserve a flag.
Before the Deluge 