A Dandelion Head: Why the flag should keep flying

Symbols are important.  The Jewish Star, the Sign of the Cross, the door marked Do Not Enter; each carries a level of significance depending on historical and cultural backgrounds.  Some symbols once stood for something good and have since been turned into something evil.  The Swastika comes from Hinduism and Buddhism (to name a few) and in Sanskrit means “good fortune.”  The Nazis co-opted the symbol and made it the sign of one of the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen.  The skull and crossbones now represents either poison or pirates, but in Spain they were first used to mark cemeteries.  Symbols can be born with one meaning but through their historical appropriation they can easily be changed.  Something that was meant for hope can be a cause for pain.  So is the case with the Confederate Battle Flag.  

I decided to put thought to word document when I saw statuses on Facebook saying, “this whole flag debate has taught me which of my friends are racist,” and “If you disagree with me on the flag debate then I will de-friend you.”  When I see comments like that all that comes to mind is a palm to my forehead.  No, no, no, don’t say that.  You are part of the problem.  The flag should come down, yes, that’s true, but the flag itself is just a dandelion head, when you cut it off it will grow right back.  The issue at hand isn’t a symbol of hatred, but rather why the symbol was allowed to exist for so long.  And the problem with the flag debate is that it is based in social media, it is based in the consumer culture’s desire to satisfy their own morality as quickly as possible, but none of that deals with the real issue.  This form of 21st Century activism is the core of the problem because rather than dealing the issue, we sidestep it in order to get to the juicier story which is a broken binary between what is socially “good” and “morally ok” and what is repugnant.  We seek to satisfy our hearts with the quick fix rather than an actual solution.  

The flag is just a flag.  The real problem is our education, but no one wants to talk about that because it diverts from the superficial, easy to process buzzfeed or twitter language.  We sign a petition so that we can feel morally superior and then go about our regular business.  The flag debate is nothing more than the hot topic of the day, rather than a cultural issue that has infested our country since its creation.  We applaud the President for “talking tough” about Charleston, but then don’t pay attention to him when he is out supporting early childhood education, because if it didn’t occur to you, one of the fixes for this problem is early childhood education.  Racism is a disease, but rather than a common virus there are only two ways for racism to infect the host; through their eyes and through their ears and it needs to be relatively constant and begun at an early age.  A person is not born a racist, but a person can be raised as one whether it is through the teachings of their parents, their

siblings, their schools, or their societies.  Today, in America, this racist educational background is no more prevalent than in the South.  Why is that?  Is it because of a flag?  Is it the Dukes of Hazzard or redneck intellect? Well, yes, but it isn’t the things themselves but rather the culture that has allowed them to exist.  The problem isn’t the flag, the problem is a group of people who think the flag stands for Southern Heritage.  The problem is in the mouth of a white kid who thinks saying the “N-word” is okay.  The problem lies in every time you make a redneck joke.  The problem is in college kids who think the Civil War was about state’s rights.

Every semester I begin by talking about educational relativity and how what one group of students learned in first grade another group of students might have never learned.  This can be taught by asking a few simple questions like:  Who is Franklin Delano Roosevelt?  When did the Civil War start?  Who has listened to the I Have a Dream speech?  One of the scariest questions to ask, especially in a place like Richmond, Virginia:  What was the cause of the Civil War?  For me, I don’t ask this question, probably because it has nothing to do with Business Speech, but based on what I have heard and seen, I can guarantee that if I did ask the question in a class of 18 students I would get back at least nine different answers.  Slavery would be the minority reason and state’s rights would be the majority.  By the way, although the answer “state’s rights” is scary it isn’t nearly as scary as the three students who would say, “I don’t know, we never learned about the Civil War.”  It is time we start changing the narrative on how we teach the Civil War.  The Civil War’s main cause was slavery.  Plain and simple.  The South required slavery to keep their economy intact and they went to war over it.  That’s how much the South valued African American lives, the war was about slavery, but it wasn’t even about slave’s rights.  It was about the economics of slavery.    The description of the war being about state’s rights comes from the “lost cause” narrative of the war.  Why does this narrative exist?  How can so many people believe in it such as in the case of the 2011 Pew Research Center study.  In recognition of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Pew Research Center asked “What is your impression of the main cause of the Civil War?”  While 38% responded that the main cause was the South’s defense of an economic system based on slavery, 48% said the nation sacrificed some 650,000 of its fathers, sons, and brothers over a difference of interpretation in constitutional law (39% of black respondents believed this latter interpretation). (Lies of the South)  THIS ISN’T TRUE.  This is the problem.  How has this educational lie been allowed to exist?  You need to only look at the facts: 1) At least 188 schools, not just in the South, are named after Confederate Leaders.  2) Fort Hood, Fort Lee, Fort AP Hill, Fort Bragg, Fort Picket, Fort Beauregard, and Fort Stewart to name a few are all named after Confederate Generals.  3)  The states of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia all celebrate Confederate Memorial Day.  Louisiana and Tennessee celebrate Confederate Decoration Day.  Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day.  4) In Georgia, Confederate Memorial Day is considered a state holiday and all state offices are closed.  5) Some celebrate Robert E Lee’s Day like Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi.  

Someone I know recently was upset by the fact that someone was calling for a Richmond bike race to be moved from Monument Ave in Richmond.  Monument Ave is home to monuments including J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E Lee.  This student was sickened because “Robert E Lee who actually contrary to popular belief did not support slavery, who was a leader in the early

reconstruction days who you know just so happens to help fund a college oh and throw in one of the most gifted strategic minds as well as one of the most intellectual minds America has ever seen.”  In response to this, I went on a short historical field trip.  “Lee's history has been drummed up in the Antebellum South to support the "Lost Cause" narrative of the war in order to better shine light on his nobleness and bravery, but Lee did own slaves (at one point 196), he did torture slaves leading one of his slaves to proclaim that he was "the worst man we ever saw,", he did not free them until January 1, 1863 (Same day as the Emancipation Proclamation) ignoring Virginia orders to free his slaves. Yes it is true that in multiple letters, namely one to his wife from 1856, Lee discusses the evils of slavery and his distaste for it, but he owned slaves, he beat them, and he kept them longer than legally required so that he could enhance the property value of his estate.”  Now is this person wrong, yes, but is this person dumb and racist?  No.  I know them and I know that they have goodness in their heart, but on this topic they are misinformed.  This is how we help fix a problem, through education, not through taking down a flag.

We need to change our educational narratives in this country.  The American Civil War is a

fascinating subject because in large part the losers have helped write the history of the war.  After the war ended, in the South, the Daughters of the Confederacy helped re-write many of the text books that were used in school districts throughout the South.  One of the major Civil War historians was Alexander Stephens, better known as the former Vice President of the Confederacy.  In describing the war he said, “it was a noble and doomed effort on the part of the South to preserve self-government against federal intrusion, and it had little to do with slavery.”  In other countries, losers of a Civil War would be labeled as traitors and executed, but in this country we have built them statues.  After the Civil War, Robert E Lee was neither arrested nor punished, he served as President of Washington College (Washington and Lee University) until his death.  General Beauregard returned to Louisiana and served as a railroad executive and became wealthy working with the Louisiana Lottery.  Former President of the Confederate States, Jefferson Davis, was arrested as a war prisoner but released after Presidential Amnesty given by President Johnson in 1868.  The government couldn’t figure out how to convict him of treason due to the difficulty in proving the unconstitutionality of secession.  He later went on to become rather wealthy and write two books.  Did you know that?  When we change this narrative we don’t need to condemn.  We don’t need to cast these men as anything more than what they were.  Robert E Lee can be a strategic and intellectual mind and he can be a man who owned and beat slaves.  We need to commemorate this history rather than continuing to celebrate it.

A flag is just a flag and I believe that the flag should remain flying high, as an intellectual reminder, until we actually figure out a plan to deal with the root of the weed.  We need to fix early childhood education.  We need to change the narrative of the Civil War and we need to stop social media morality activism.  We need to actually get our hands dirty and deal with the real problems.  Taking down the flag is a band-aid that conceals a much deeper wound.  It is a wound that idolizes men that not only owned people but sent other people to fight and die in order for them to keep owning people.  It is a wound that believes Southern Heritage and Southern Pride must be seeded in hatred.  It is a wound that has never understood the George Santayana quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  It is time for us to stop trying to solve 150 year-old problems with 24-hour solutions.