Yesterday at my open mic we had one of our regulars sitting outside with his camouflage pickup truck as he is wont to do. However, this week he’s added a huge Confederate Flag mounted on the side, playing out proudly. I grew up not really thinking about it very much – I grew up in an area where you didn’t see it except for on television on the roof of the General Lee, the Dodge Charger on The Dukes of Hazzard. There weren’t a lot of black people on the show, certainly, but when there were they were bad-ass sheriffs from the next county over. Not exactly an exacting pogrom.
The Weathered Road performing at Michos in Reisterstown, MD. As always, they were delicious – and their harmonies just keep getting better. I’ve begun to really admire Steve as a guitarist – he’s a killer player, and doesn’t suffer from the lack of passion that a lot of younger, technically proficient players seem to have. It was a nice venue, though kind of a late night for a show with a cover in an isolated section of the bar. Great space… we just need to bring LIGHTS!
And so I never thought about it much until there was a big uproar about changing the Georgia state flag. It was probably the first time that this cool thing from my childhood came to political light in my adult Life. I had to redefine what it meant. The Duke boys weren’t flying it as a symbol of racism – it was simply one more aspect of how they fought the law in their kind of silly, harmless anarchist way – but the updated movie (which I shamefully admit to enjoying) from 2005 does a great job of demonstrating how, no matter how harmless they felt their flag was, people really read it as a declaration of something else.
Playing a couple of biker festivals means that I’m QUITE familiar with the Battle Flag as a symbol of never bending (like the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag) in the face of oppression, as a representation of proudly flouting authority – a historic symbol of the secession more than anything else. But as a Northerner by birth and as someone with African-Amercian friends, I’m very aware of how it’s viewed in that world – as a threat of violence against change, a racist banner, a symbol of hatred and slavery. I have a shirt with the stars and bars behind a skull, a biker shirt by origin… I’ve got to be pretty careful if /where I wear it. I have friends who would disown me if I let it see the light of day.
So – out of curiousity I asked my Facebook friends what exactly the Confederate Flag meant to them? I figured I’d hear a lot of statements about racism, and perhaps one or two about freedom…
“to me, when I see it, I see a heritage of hate.”
“Agreed”“There are exceptions, but most often, ignorance is involved.”
“If you have a confederate flag, you don’t like black people. Enough said. They can deny it all they want. It’s like someone brandishing a swastika and saying, “no, it’s not because I don’t like Jewish people, it’s because I support Hitler for being a vegetarian.””
I felt like I had to post something to encourage ANYONE to come forward with a differing opinion. Lefties are just as prone to stamping down speech they don’t agree with as the other way around. You could never have a conversation about this on NPR, any more than you could have one with Rush Limbaugh.
“On a purely aesthetic vain I always liked the Confederate uniforms and flag as a child. Growing up with the TV series, The Gray Ghost, Johnnie Trumane, etc glorified the confederate army. I do not nor have I ever supported bigotry or racism, and unfortunately that is what the confederate flag represents.”
“I know there are people who claim it as a representation of the independent spirit and a sort of self-reliance that the South likes to believe it holds dear, but in doing so I think these people are willfully ignoring the incontrovertible fact of the legacy of hate and bigotry which surrounds that flag. You can CLAIM or THINK it doesn’t stand for that all you want, and in the small universe that is your own mind, this may be true. But you can’t make that claim on behalf of the rest of the world.”
“It represents the pure legacy of the south when poor white people always had someone to beat and look down on. I agree that if you fly it you don’t like black people periodunless you are totally clueless and boy, is that a thin frickin’ line – bigotry and ignorance. But maybe I’m biased!”
“While I do see the “Southern Heritage” aspect as being legit, I just think that there is too much racist (and anti-semite!) baggage that tags along for it to be a viable symbol of only the pride of the (white) south”
“It’s unfortunate that the confederate flag has come to mean what the commenters so far have indicated. There are a lot of things that I hate about big federal government, and that was really the entire point of the Civil War: the southern states not wanting the federal government to be so controlling. Slavery was of course tied in with that, but it was far from the major point. After all, it wasn’t plantation owners who were fighting the war.
That said, Rob makes a great point that when you decide to display a symbol of any kind, you have to be aware of not only what it represents to you but to the people who see that symbol. I could make similar arguments for bigotry and hatred in relation topeople who wear a cross, but for whatever reason that’s far more controversial than saying that about the confederate flag.”
Heh – well, that depends on where you Live, methinks. Traveling as much as we do we’ve seen parts of the country where it’s very unhealthy to be an atheist, and other parts where people look like you’re insane if you profess to believe in resurrected Jewish carpenters… of course half the time THEY believe in ghosts and ley lines… In general I think that context is a major part of the discussion. You can claim it to mean anything – but when you fly it you need to be aware of others’ associations – and realize that they are going to think you support everything they BELIEVE it to represent. If there’s air moving it, you’re not flying it in a vacuum.
Taking any symbol back from what popular culture has made it is very, very difficult. I took no small amount of flak for wanting to own the American flag again or wanting to perform the national anthem. I think taking “patriotism” back for people like myself is important – and it’s a shame that these symbols can’t be…. well conversation starters as opposed to instant warpaint. But sitting in a parking lot in a camouflage-painted pickup truck with a gun-rack in the back flying the Confederate flag is a little bit too much of a stereotype, and yup – I’m judging the guy sitting in the driver’s seat. Even if I’m notassuming he’d be upset if Rowan entered the room, I am kind of assuming he totally wouldn’t get it if Rowan REFUSED to enter the room on account of that flag flying there.
Whee! I’m a frakkin’ rock star! Playing hard at Urban Element in Indianapolis, IN. Captured beautifully by Robin Coleman’s lens.
After the show at Urban Element, I crashed with our local promoter, Robin of Segment of Society Promotions. Unfortunately, I also spent the night with her absolutely insane cat.
