Why I Don't Fly the Confederate Battle Flag

I am a Southron. All my ancestors after about 1800 lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and the vast majority were in the south decades before then. All my male ancestors who were not too old or too young served as enlisted soldiers in the Confederate military, and they probably thought that they were defending their homeland. Only a few of my ancestral lines owned slaves, and most were yeomen farmers or craftsmen. I am certain that I am not the beneficiary of any legacy attributable to slave ownership by any of my ancestors. In my mind, the Confederate Battle Flag is a symbol of my southern heritage and history.

Nevertheless, I would not dream of displaying a Confederate Battle Flag, especially where I live in the Hudson Valley. To the vast majority of people where I live, the flag symbolizes racism, and displaying the flag is interpreted as a racist gesture. I don’t see it that way personally, but I am obliged to recognize that my neighbors do.

Certainly, the meaning of symbols is negotiable, and I would like to see the Confederate Battle Flag rehabilitated and recognized as a symbol of southern pride rather than racism. This is made difficult by the use of the flag by the KKK and white supremacist groups and in connection with segregationist politics. My claims of a non-racist meaning for the flag are not as credible as they might be if it was not, in fact, employed as a racist emblem by so many other people. Those of us who want to reclaim the flag should denounce its use in racist contexts.

Some years ago in Yosemite, I admired a beautiful Miwok dress decorated in beads with Miwok images. I saw a photo of the same dress from the 1930s, at which time it included a row of swastikas, a symbol of significance to that tribe. Apparently, it was necessary to remove the swastikas during World War II because the Nazis had ruined it. Almost everyone sees the swastika as a Nazi symbol, and it does no good to point out its importance in some other cultures as an inoffensive symbol. Swastikas are still used to communicate hate, anti-Semitism, authoritarianism and the like, and I would be a fool to wear a swastika on my t-shirt and expect anyone to believe that I was simply honoring Miwok traditions, even if I were sincere.

It doesn’t do any good to whine about “political correctness” if I find myself misunderstood when I display a Confederate Battle Flag or a swastika. I am well aware of what these symbols mean to the majority of my neighbors, and it is up to me to explain myself if I seek to use them to communicate anything else. I doubt that either of these symbols will be rehabilitated in my lifetime. It may be better to try to find some other symbols of southern heritage or Miwok traditions that are not tainted by offensive associations.