In Defense of the Confederate Flag

According to the Declaration of Independence, the United States of America is a free country. Our founding fathers stated in the First Amendment of the Constitution that we are entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of press, freedom of religion, and the right to assemble. Those men also stated that these rights are inalienable to citizens of this great country and cannot be taken away from us. Now, what does this mean? It means that Congress, the Supreme Court, the President, etc., can violate these rights. We need to quit blaming inanimate objects and start focusing on the problem, and the problem isn’t the Confederate flag. South Carolina voted to remove the Confederate Flag from their government buildings. Why did they do that? Their legislature claimed that this piece of cloth made a mentally ill man shoot up a church. Of course, this caused a frenzy and now many people are demanding it be banned from everywhere and everything. South Carolina took down this flag, but for the wrong reason. They claim that this flag made that man shoot the people at the church. Evidence does not support that. There is a large amount of evidence claiming that the man was mentally ill and has been in and out of mental hospitals for a long time. The only reason he was released was because he was taking his medication. For people who have mentally ill family members, my family included, we know that they quit taking their medicine quite frequently. It’s what they do. South Carolina did exactly what the “Guns kill people” movement did a couple of years ago: they’re blaming something other than the problem itself. How can a flag make someone kill people? How can a gun kill people? They can’t. It is not physically possible. David Sarrratt stated, “The flag was placed above the State House in 1962 as a response to the Civil Rights movement. Blacks in South Carolina see the flag as a symbol of racism and slavery. Many Southern whites see the flag as a symbol of their proud, distinctive heritage and the gentility of the Old South.” The State House that he is referring to is the one in South Carolina where the major controversy has been for the past couple of months. If the flag represents the Civil Rights movement then what does it have to do with slavery? Sarratt also goes on to explain the origin of the Confederate flag. He stated, “The banner which we now recognize as the Confederate flag was conceived as a battle flag after the first battle at Mannassas. The original flag, the stars and bars, proved to be too similar to the Union flag for soldiers to recognize in the haze of battle.” We never hear about the Union flag being an issue or offending people. Why does it have to be the Confederate flag? Oh, right. People still think that only the South had slaves. Elizabeth Spencer had a really decent opinion on the flag itself. She stated, “I do not believe this flag should ever be exhibited to show defiance of racial integration or support for those who believe in white supremacy or any other similar purpose. Let it be kept, but kept in those historical contexts where it belongs.” I agree that it should be kept at historical locations and I also agree that it should never show defiance, but that’s not what the flag represents. People have a negative view on it and I think it’s because they don’t know all of the facts. I never want to offend anyone, and I mean that honestly; however, history is history and there isn’t anything we can do about it. At the end of the day, you can remove the flags. What is that going to do? The Civil War still took place. The Confederacy still existed. We shouldn’t have to try and cover it up just because someone feels sad when they see the flag. People have said, “That flag represents slavery and racism. There’s nothing good about it.” If they really knew what it represented then they would know that it represents the South. In 1860, the southern states seceded from the northern states. This flag represents the Confederacy, hence the name the Confederate flag. When the country split, it was only a matter of time before they went to war. This is when the Civil War started. I found a couple of sentences from Sarratt’s webpage that explains the history a little more. Sarratt noted, “Southerners became strong advocates of state's rights and sympathized with all those who were persecuted for being different, like the Mormons. Most historians will also agree that the war was not fought over concerns about racial inequality.” If the war wasn’t even about racial inequality then how can this flag represent racism? The Confederate soldiers fought for the south. I actually have an ancestor who was a Confederate soldier in the 7th Alabama Calvary. His brother was also in the Alabama infantry. I’m not exactly sure how this flag represents slavery and racism. Yes, there were slaves. What people fail to remember is that Africans were capturing and selling other Africans to slavers. White people were enslaving African Americans. It wasn’t a popularity contest. Slavery was happening in the south, but it was also happening in the north, and that’s a fact. What flag flew so high in the northern states? The American flag. If you take one down then you have to take the other one down. It’s only fair. Taking down the Confederate flag dishonors those who fought and those who died in the Civil War. So what does this flag represent? It represents the south who seceded because of what they believed in. Yes, things have drastically changed over the years, but this flag is a part of history whether people like it or not. Ian Briggs also wrote an article about the Confederate flag. He backs up the argument I have been trying to make and he also gives more information about the flag. He stated, “White Southerners saw the flag as a symbol of heritage and dignity.” This is what most people in the South, from what I have seen, think about the flag. He then went on to say, “As for hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, they did use the flag, but they did not give it its blatantly racist connotation.” From what I understand, people just assume that since the KKK use the Confederate flag that it automatically has a bad name and reputation. So, once again, we are assuming rather than doing research. Briggs made it known that the Dixiecrats were to blame for the flag’s bad reputation. Briggs closed his article in a very great way, and I happen to agree with everything he said. Briggs noted, “While the Confederate flag may not be intrinsically racist, it represents the entirety of southern history, much of which was racist. There is a connection to racism and the confederate flag. People have the right to be offended, but they should not assume the motives of the person owning the flag, because it means something different to each person.” If that’s not the truth then I don’t know what is. At the beginning of July, I was in Florida. While I was there, I purchased a Confederate flag shirt. I got so many compliments on it. I even had someone ask me where I purchased it. Now, you could say these people are biased and that they are from the south as well. I had an African American man tell me he really liked my shirt. Why is that? Because this flag doesn’t represent racism or slavery. There are too many ignorant people in this world who are blindsided by hate. They need to take a look at the facts. I would like to make it a known fact that Wal-Mart refuses to sell Confederate flags, but they sell ISIS flags. That’s going to be the biggest security breech known to man. Why is it that our country will support a terrorism group, which is trying to blow us up, but won’t support our fallen soldiers and their family’s heritage? People will not accept the past for what it is. They have so much hatred for what happened centuries ago. Get over it. It happened. It ended. Why drag it on? Don’t blame it all on the south. Like I mentioned earlier, it was happening in the north just like it was in the south. If you take down the southern flag, the Confederate flag, then you have to take down the northern flag, the American flag. That will be the only way to get rid of the past. Tear down the battle sites. Take American history out of schools. It will take all of these things to make sure that history is forgotten. But will it really be forgotten? I will always remember what my ancestors fought for, and they will always remember what happened with their ancestors. There is no way to rewrite history, or to get rid of it. It will always be there. If history is not studied then it is condemned to be repeated. I found a really cool article that was published by PBS. It’s a list of eight facts about the confederate flag. The first fact that is listed stated that the Confederate flag was never an official flag for the Confederacy. In fact, Roberts stated, “It only came to be the flag most prominently associated with the Confederacy after the South lost the war.” It wasn’t even a major flag for the war. It was strictly just a battle flag. The second fact claims that most American’s don’t care about the flag. Roberts noted, “But the majority, 58 percent, reported feeling neither positive nor negative. The poll also showed that African-Americans, Democrats and the highly educated were more likely to perceive the flag negatively.” If a large amount of people don’t feel a certain way about the flag then why is it such a hot topic? That doesn’t really make any sense to me. There are six other facts about the flag but, I don’t feel like they are relevant to this discussion because they have to deal with state flags. A writer from Georgia, Tina Ansa, wrote a fantastic article about this flag. She started off with, “I'm one of those black folks who identifies herself, along with African-American, female, author, womanist, and feminist, as ‘Southerner.’ I have always felt at my core a Southerner.” I knew this article was about to blow the racism argument out of the water. She then goes on to say, “For some folks, my discussing my southernness makes them downright uncomfortable. I mean really, the very idea, a black person, an African American over the age of 35 going on and on about the South and her place in it as if she weren't aware of the region, its past and all it stands for.” She just pointed out the stereotype for her race and the South. What she says later on in her article really just hits home. She stated, “In more than half a century on this earth, I have never thought for a moment that it was the inorganic/heartless/ synthetic trappings identified by white Southerners- the Confederate flags, the anthem ‘Dixie,’ the gray Rebel uniform, the racist license plates, the Rebel yell, the historically incorrect image of plantation life-that tie my heart and soul to the region. Is it the flag? Is it that rag of textile that seems to have the power to rile us so? No! It is my own Southern story that ties me here. I refuse to let that racist image have such power over me. In part, it flies over every local government building in my home state of Georgia. And I am a Georgian ... for real.” She refuses to let racism take control over her. That is extraordinary. Ansa just proved that not all blacks think that the flag is racist. She just proved that stereotype to be wrong. Mae Henderson stated, “Historically, the confederacy and the confederate flag have evolved, from Reconstruction to the present, into symbols that interpellate identity and citizenship not so much on the basis of region (southerness) as on the basis on race (whiteness).” This is very accurate. The entire world has changed over time. The South is not the same place that it used to be so why do we treat it the same? She then goes to close her article by saying, “It is an imagined community whose vision of citizenship, rights, and privilege are predicated on racial exclusion and racial privilege. For this reason, I suggest that the role of the scholar and critic is to deconstruct the confederate flag and its mantra, ‘heritage without hate’-to demonstrate how the flag, like other confederate icons, memorials, and memorabilia, function to secure the notion of white privilege under the cover of sentimentalized racial shibboleths appealing to tradition, heritage, and legacy.” I don’t agree with this. I don’t think the Confederate flag needs to be deconstructed. That means that we let the people who are against it win. This means we give up. If there is one thing I absolutely know about the South it is that we don’t give up. With all of this being said, the Confederate flag did not make that mentally ill man kill all of those people. It doesn’t matter what he was wearing on his shirt. South Carolina was one of the first states to secede from the union. It’s a coincidence. Guns don’t kill people, and neither do flags. People kill people. It doesn’t matter what shirt they are wearing. The man could have been wearing a shirt with President Obama’s face on it when he killed all of those people. Does that mean we blame the President? Of course not. We need to quit blaming inanimate objects and start focusing on the problem, and the problem isn’t the Confederate flag, it is hatred. Ansa, Tina Mcelroy. "What's the Confederate Flag Got to Do with It?" Callaloo 24.1 (2001): 5-7. JSTOR. Web. 06 Aug. 2015. Briggs, Ian. "The Elm." The Elm RSS. The Elm, 30 Sept. 2012. Web. 06 Aug. 2015. Costa-Roberts, Daniel. "8 Things You Didn’t Know about the Confederate Flag." PBS. PBS, 21 June 2015. Web. 06 Aug. 2015. Henderson, Mae. "For Which It Stands." Callaloo 24.1 (2001): 85-90. JSTOR. Web. 06 Aug. 2015. Sarratt, David. "The Confederate Flag: An American Cultural Object." The Confederate Flag: An American Cultural Object. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Aug. 2015. Spencer, Elizabeth. "Some Notes on the Confederate Flag." Callaloo 24.1 (2001): 168. JSTOR. Web. 06 Aug. 2015.