I
have never been a huge fan of flag-waving.
I think it is possible to express love of people and country and homeland
without the nationalistic hyperbole that frequently attends the veneration of
flags. Frankly, an overabundance of flags makes me nervous. I still vividly
remember, for example, the instant ubiquity of U.S. flags after 9/11. Initially, it was completely expected -- and
understandable – for the flag to become a symbol of sympathy for and solidarity
with the United States and with all whose lives were lost, or tragically
transformed, that day. But before too long, the flag became a misguided call to
war and vengeance. Similarly, “United We Stand” posters, which initially
implied some defensible stance against terrorism, became a way to proclaim “we all
agree to the necessity of invading Iraq.” War against Iraq came to be seen as
the just, honorable, and right thing to do, especially as it was coupled with
the propaganda about Saddam Hussein readying weapons of mass destruction to launch
against the U.S. If you disagreed, you were at best, unpatriotic, and at worst,
a traitor. Early on, it was rough going
for people who didn’t display flags and who did not want the U.S. to invade
Iraq. (I still recall how a man attending some public presidential event was arrested because he was wearing a peace-sign T-shirt!)
Neither
do I loathe most flags. I know that people who fly the U.S. flag are not
necessarily rabid nationalists or let’s-go-bomb-Iran warmongers. They may be expressing love of homeland, a remembrance
and respect for those who serve in the military, or an honoring of
constitutional ideals -- however well or poorly realized our history has proven those ideals to be.
I
have a bevy of mixed feelings about the Confederate flag. Make no mistake: I recognize
it as an emblem of the secessionist South and its promotion of slavery and
white supremacy. And yet I have also known people who felt that it represented
something else. In my early twenties, during my cafeteria bus-girl stint in
Death Valley, a white co-worker invited me to a party at his desert shack. The
crowd there was a kitchen-and-wait-staff mixture of mostly whites, but also
a few other people of color. Along one wall, next to his dresser mirror,
a medium-sized Confederate flag was tacked.
At some point (fuzzy in memory now), it became the topic of
conversation. Not a debate – perhaps someone had simply asked him if the flag
had been handed down in his family. I surmised the flag did have some
connection to his southern roots – but for him it was mostly an expression of a
proud anti-authoritarianism. He fancied himself a “rebel” because he greatly
distrusted government and religion, loved southern food and southern music
(as in Lynyrd Skynyrd and Creedence Clearwater Revival – but also the B-52s and
REM), and held a muckraking approach toward institutions, especially savoring
monkeywrench-style actions to protect the environment, a la Edward Abbey. Later
I noticed he also had a couple of other flags: the Ethiopian flag (which he thought
of as the "Rasta-reggae" flag) and the British flag. Apparently he enjoyed flags representing
his musical tastes. This co-worker was not, to my mind, a slavery-loving bigot.
He
is not the only white person I’ve known who has had this kind of “alternative”
take on the Confederate flag. Because of people like him, I’ve tried (though not always successfully) to
withhold my “that’s a racist redneck” judgment on individuals who sport this
flag until I know more about them – just as I do not automatically conclude
that people who fly the U.S. flag are xenophobic or toxically nationalistic.
But,
of course – the sight of a Confederate flag always troubles me at some level. It is not benign, like the sight of flags flapping
side-by-side at the United Nations. I have seen too many images of Klansmen
carrying Confederate flags (though yes, I know they carry U.S flags too). And
I know too well that the secessionist government this flag represented would
have despised my very existence as a black child of a white mother.
The
parents who adopted me, both black, were born in South Carolina. So I’ve been
to South Carolina many times for family gatherings. At family picnics or in the home of aunts and
cousins, there is a rich and sweet down-homeness there that I love. But venturing out into wider public arenas there
is challenging, because the level of racial segregation – at least in the
smaller towns – remains entrenched and disturbingly resistant to the existence
of people like me, my siblings, and my cousins with spouses of another race.
I
was last there for a family reunion in the early 2000s – a gathering of around
70 people. Most of us were staying in the same motel, and we spent much of our
time at the homes of elders nearby. But one morning, I, along with my white
husband, my light-skinned and hazel-eyed brother, my darker-toned cousin and
her Jewish husband, went to eat breakfast at a nearby Denny’s. As we entered
the restaurant together, we all felt and heard this disquieting hush among the
nearly all-white crowd of customers. We were greeted and seated politely enough
– but many flabbergasted and contemptuous stares followed us as we were led to
our table. Not subtle at all – folks were rubbernecking and beaming hard
hate-stares. One woman glared with her mouth open, as if she were witnessing a
crime and about to call the police. I felt like we were extraterrestrials, or
covered in blood, or naked.
Once
we were seated, the tension dissipated somewhat as people re-huddled and
returned to their breakfast conversations – some of them casting occasional
sidewise glances at us. I noticed, however, that the later appearance of a
black family did not elicit the same response. It was the appearance of black
and tan and white people together that had been the violation. Thus: it was
okay for black and white people to eat in the same restaurant. They just
weren’t supposed to eat together, at one
table, in the same restaurant. We
weren’t supposed to be family.
There
were similar incidents throughout the rest of our stay there – like going into
a store and just picking up the vibe that our presence was off-putting or
pissing someone off. There would be
sudden, tense motions – heavy car door slams, or the over-loud return of a
grocery cart, hushed whispers to children. At a Subway Sandwiches with my
brother and husband one day, a worried-looking older black man came over and
asked where we were from. “I’m from Kansas,” said my brother, “and my sister
and her husband here live in California.” “Ohh, okay,” the man said, nodding.
My brother asked him, in turn, “Where are you from?” The man seemed to
appreciate this inquiry. “Well, I was born in Birmingham, but been here about
30 years now. I figured y’all were traveling.” His demeanor communicated “Be
careful, y’all.”
Okay:
we survived South Carolina, as always. We had mostly good times, not everyone
was a bigot, and there are plenty of worse things that can happen and that have
happened to black folks & interracial couples in the South. But when I’m in
the South, particularly in small-town or rural areas, I have to be watchful,
and I have to steel myself. (Actually,
this is true of the entire U.S. – it just feels especially true of the South).
If I see someone with a confederate flag, I cannot help but be unnerved. I
cannot be sure of the intentions of someone sporting this flag. It always
carries a threatening undercurrent. This
remains true even as I logically recognize that not everyone with this flag
despises my existence.
I
think that the co-worker I knew back in Death Valley honestly did not feel that
his particular display of the Confederate flag was a pro-segregationist or
white supremacist expression. And I accept the sincerity of some of the people
who have insisted that, for them, this flag represents a regional pride or a
desire to honor ancestors who died in the Civil War – and not a support for
slavery.
But
now, in this moment, after the conversation that has re-emerged again as a
result of the tragedy in Charleston – I wonder why anyone would still want to
cling to this flag as an emblem of rebellion, or nostalgia, or regional pride. Now that everyone has been reintroduced to its
origins as a battleflag in the war over slavery, its recyclings as a white
supremacist banner for the KKK and as a southern state pro-segregationist and
anti-civil-rights proclamation in the 1950-60s – and, most poignantly, hearing the
pain it evokes in so many descendants of slaves in this country – why would you
still want to fly it now? Or make the weird claim that moving it from a
statehouse to a museum is a form of censorship or historical revisionism? Of
course you have a right to own it or display it in your yard, in your home, on
your rear bumper, on your T-shirt. But you can no longer innocently claim that
it has no connection to slavery or bigotry or racism or terrorism.
(Brief
rant -- And no: Obama is not trying to outlaw airings of the movie Gone With
the Wind. A friend of a friend has actually been spreading
that bullshit on Facebook. Get a grip and get a life! Rant over.)
For
those who see in this a hackneyed argument about political correctness, I ask: Once
you learn that some non-essential item you own evokes a well-founded fear and
anxiety in a segment of the citizens of your own country, what is your
rationale behind continuing to constantly display this item? Just because you
can? Because it is your right? Because you don’t care what others think, and
you enjoy flaunting that? What if someone you personally cared about felt
uneasy or threatened by it? What if someone you dearly loved saw in this item a
desire to obliterate their freedom, their humanity? Would you still want to
continually display it?
Or,
switch it around: How would you feel about someone who chose to constantly
exhibit an image from some primal nightmare of yours? After you told them that
it was getting to you? That you had
actually been traumatized by it? I know I’m Captain Obvious here – but might
you prefer that they not parade this thing every day, 24/7?
As
Rebecca Alpert wrote in her 1996 Tikkun article on political correctness, “I
believe that what some deride as ‘political correctness’ is really only a
caricatured description of what I always defined as common decency; a variation
on the Levitical precept that what is hateful to you, you should not do to
others.”
I
feel sad and ashamed for my country that it took the murder of 9 people in
church to get the Confederate flag down from the SC statehouse. Because really – in some ways that choice was
such a very small step – like the earliest beginnings of something long
overdue. The deeper problems of systemic injustices remain and are barely touched
by this decision over where and how a historical emblem should be displayed. I
do not want to get overly mired in arguments about when and where flags should
fly, not when there is so much else that needs to be done.
And
yet: I also cannot deny how affected I was by Representative Jenny Horne’s
pleading, at the South Carolina state house podium, to take the flag down. I had not expected any of it – I had not
expected at all to see this white Republican southern woman, a descendant of Confederates, rage and cry and beg to please, do this small thing, do
this commonly decent thing, make this one meaningful choice for damned once. In
response to other representatives’ longwinded arguments about the need to retain the flag to honor ancestors who fought in the Civil War, she declared :
"I'm sorry. I have heard enough about heritage. I
have a heritage: I am a lifelong South Carolinian. I am a descendant of
Jefferson Davis. OK? But that does not matter. It's not about Jenny Horne. It's
about the people of South Carolina who have demanded that this symbol of hate
come off of the Statehouse grounds." (For her entire 4+ minute soliloquy,
see the video below)
Her
emotion was genuine. I admit that I have been needing to see that kind of
emotion. As I witnessed her beseeching, I experienced a momentary release of
the grief and frustration that I and many others carry through life – that
ever-present sense of not being heard, of not being able to get through to the
white public at large the extent of the individual and collective wounds wrought by pervasive
racism, covert and overt, day in and day out. I have grown so tired and weary
of trying to communicate it, of offering examples and statistics, of searching
for words and stories that might clarify. I have felt stinging tinges of
cynicism and despair over it. I have given up trying and returned to trying and
given up yet again. But watching her has let me know, again (because of
course I have known it before, through cross-racial friendships and other
solidarities), that some moments, and some days, we are heard. Every once in a while,
hearing happens. What Ms. Horne did reminds me anew that we who struggle --in
whatever large or small ways we can -- for simple justice, common love, and
ordinary decencies never do so in vain. And perhaps what little I have done in
my years of tiny writing assignments and small-group dialogues might not be
just a crazy, stumbling dance among those who refuse to hear the beat. I see again that there is light in the heavy
gloom of history, small but significant steps in these raw, muddied fields.
