The Confederate Flag and Me

I've lived in the South now for 17 years. Being originally from a state that is semi-Southern, there were many things I already understood when I moved here, such as when to use "y'all" vs. "alla y'all" and the glories of the house wine of the South, sweet tea. There are other parts of Southern culture that I've learned about in those 17 years, things you don't really get until you live within a culture, but one thing remains a mystery to me: the attachment of some to the Confederate flag. There are many white Southerners who don’t like the flag and object to it flying in public spaces, but there is still that vocal group who stubbornly insists that it is somehow a symbol of regional pride, or "heritage not hate." I have listened to several perspectives and have yet to understand it. 

The issue of Southern heritage is a personal one.  I am related on my mother’s side to Ben McCullough, a Texas Ranger and brigadier general in the Confederate army, who died after being shot out of his saddle at the Battle of Pea Ridge.  Even with that connection, the power of the Confederate flag evades me, so I’ve looked to my heritage on my father’s side for some kind of analogy. 

My ancestry is largely German and when I was growing up, my dad taught me what it meant to have German roots. I was raised Lutheran and I grew up eating sauerkraut and other German delicacies along with my biscuits and gravy and fried okra. I was taught to be proud of Germanic character traits like hard work and thriftiness. When my dad and I were in Salt Lake City, he took me to see the US Immigration paperwork, which the Mormons have on microform, from when my grandfather (his dad) came to America as a boy. It was a powerful moment that made me proud of the resilience and perseverance of my ancestors.  If I chose to advertise my culture, I could choose the display a German flag…or I could choose to display a red flag with a black swastika, a flag associated with Germany and also with hate and murder and years of prejudice and oppression that still persist today.  

That, for me, is the heart of the debate.  It’s not whether you have the right to be proud of where you’re from.  It’s that choosing to symbolize that pride by displaying a flag that is so closely associated with our own shameful historical episode is such a terribly wrong way to do it.  There are many other symbols that can be used to symbolize a connection with heritage. But just as you will never see a Nazi flag flying in public spaces in Germany, we should also be ashamed to fly our own homegrown symbol of hate, torture, and death.  

The Confederate flag flying at the South Carolina statehouse isn’t their state flag (that one has a pretty palm tree and a crescent moon on it it) and it isn’t even a long-standing tradition.  Like most displays of the Confederate flag in the South, it wasn’t flown until the 1960s, when it was put up as a protest against court-mandated integration. The Confederate flag is a symbol of racism, pure and simple, and I hope those working to take it down are successful.  Put it in a museum, where it belongs.