Southern Discomfort

Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun (19th-century daguerreotype) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A few weeks ago, we asked "Is there anything new to add after the latest mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina that hasn't already been said before?  Or will likely be done about it?".  (6/22/15)

We have our answer.  Instead of more debates about gun control and the mentality of the alleged shooter, we get flag controversies and the church patrons' naive decision to forgive him before the investigation ends and his trial begins.  Anything to avoid talking about the elephant in the room, and we don't mean the one that represents the Republican Party.


Because of this, the Confederate flag and all those who pledged allegiance to it are getting the cold shoulder from African-Americans and others who think it belongs in the trash heap of history, 150 years after the end of the Civil War.  It has gone from the profound to the ridiculous.  Some examples:

• The battle flag that was used during the Civil War, and has been flown at South Carolina's state capitol for more than 50 years in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement, was taken down to cheering crowds at an otherwise solemn ceremony in Columbia.  Similar flags across the South have also been taken down.
• Cities and states across the country are taking a second look at their founders, some of whom may have been racists and/or slaveholders, and considering whether or not to keep honoring them.  Minneapolis, for one, is thinking about removing John C. Calhoun's name from a popular lake.  He was a 19th Century Vice President and Senator who often spoke in favor of slavery and states' rights.
• The cable channel TV Land (also known as TV Commercial Land, but that's another story) yanked reruns of the 1980s CBS series "The Dukes of Hazzard", because the car used on the show happened to have its roof bedecked with the Stars and Bars.  To TV Land, that must have represented more of a threat to impressionable young minds than reckless driving, moonshine or stereotyped characters.

You might say this is all political correctness running amok, an attempt to whitewash the negative aspects of American history.  Well, the Confederate flag does mean different things to different people.  To the Southern man and woman whose ancestors came here to escape the British Empire, the Stars and Bars represented loyalty, courage, and the upholding of a certain way of life.  To the African American man and woman, whose ancestors came here in chains, the flag meant slavery, lynchings and Jim Crow laws.  To everyone else, it just meant that the South was on the wrong side of history.

The American flag represents many of the same things the Confederate flag stood for, and then some.  How come no one ever talks about taking Old Glory down (not that we advocate it)?  Oh, that's right.  The Union won the war.  We still have the legal right to use the Stars and Stripes as an excuse to go to war anywhere we want, discriminate against anyone we want, and do anything else that makes patriotic Americans no different than your average Rebel.

The Confederate flag has had its day, and that day was between 1861 and 1865.  It belongs in the history books, museums and Ken Burns documentaries as a reminder that one of the bloodiest and costliest wars in human existence was fought right here, not in some faraway land.

You can take down the statues, place names and symbols of every Confederate war hero and sympathizer if it makes you feel better.  Unfortunately, you're also going to have a harder time changing people's attitudes about racial discrimination, no matter what flag they're saluting.  Or whether the alleged Charleston shooter should have had access to guns at all.  To some people, the Civil War never ended.