HERITAGE:
BY BEAU BREAKER
Heritage or hate? The Confederate flag has been a symbol associated with hate, and racism for 100s of years. The flag has sparked a lot of controversy in the United States. The Confederate flag has been taken down in public places and outside of government buildings in the south.
People want the Mississippi state flag to be changed because it has the Confederate flag on it. The first notable appearance of the Confederate flag was in the Civil War, the Confederates fought the Union and lost. It also became very prominent during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
The debate wouldn’t be much of a debate if the flag was just overtly racist, and everyone who flies it was a racist. I would say there is more to it than what is just on the surface.
Freedom of speech is a right given to every American, they have the right to display their views and opinions without being censored.
In 2015 in South Carolina, the Confederate flag was removed from the capitol grounds. In 2017 in New Orleans the Robert E. Lee statue was removed. Freedom of Speech is being silenced due to public outcry and protests.
So where is the line? Should we dismiss Freedom of Speech because of a flag? Whether you like the Confederate flag or not, taking it down because it doesn’t fit your views and scoffing at the First Amendment isn’t the proper way to handle it.
The Civil War was 150 years ago, the meaning of the flag has changed since then. There is no arguing slavery, no arguing the racism and prejudice; slavery was horrible. The south seceded from the Union due to government involvement, taxation, and slavery. The southern economy lived and died by agriculture. They wanted cheaper imports, they exported most goods so high tariffs would be damning. The North wanted high tariffs and in turn, threatened the way of life for the Confederates. The South was able to survive through slave labor and so keeping slaves was seen as a necessity.
The Confederate flag made a reappearance during the Civil Rights Movement. The K.K.K displayed the Confederate flag which southerners disagreed with because it was used as a symbol of racism. The heritage of the flag is very prominent in the south because 620,000 Confederates died. Those lives taken were people’s ancestors and died defending the south. The flag symbolizes southern pride, proud of being in the south, growing up in the south and have embraced the modern southern culture as a whole.
The controversy of the Confederate flag will never cease but I think trying to understand the other side can allow progression on finding some common ground. The Confederate flag for a while was used as a racial symbol and has been misinterpreted through the decades. The flag now isn’t flown or shown to be racist or to hate, but instead remember the ancestors who lost their lives and the modern cultural pride of growing up and living in the south.
HATE:
BY RYAN BILLER
Let’s be honest, who has the need to flaunt the Confederate flag?
The truth is, the Confederate flag is, without a doubt, of great historical significance in American history. And guess what? So are the pointed white hoods of the Ku Klux Klan or the swastika in German history. But just because these symbols are of historical importance, that doesn’t pardon them from the harm that they have inflicted on millions of people.
During the American Civil War, the Confederate flag was the symbol of the Confederates whose primary reasoning to go to war was to keep their southern society and culture intact; a society in which slavery was a pillar.
The flag became prominent again after the civil war during the mid-twentieth century. It essentially was used as a response to the growing support for the civil rights movement. During this time, the flag became a symbol of opposition to racial equality.
And as time went on, it seemed as if Americans had realized that the Confederate flag was by no means a symbol of equality, kindness, and humanity. Thus, it wasn’t used by most people, as they were aware of the history behind the flag–a history of murder, rape, and torture.
At the very best, the rationale behind people who still promote Confederate imagery is naive.
If the people who drape a Confederate flag over their porches really are such history buffs as they claim to be, they’d know that such a symbol represents violence and oppression, not peace and unity. And if the reasoning for bolstering a flag in modern times is because of history, then there should also be a Union flag right above the Confederate flag.
History is vital. By understanding past events, we can work to avoid future atrocities. The saying goes that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. This is the exact reason as to why concentration camps in Europe should be preserved to educate younger generations, or why young Americans should be taught about slavery, or how Rwandans should teach about the genocide that happened in the country in 1994.
However, remembering and flaunting are two very different concepts. We should remember the hate that killed millions in Nazi Germany, the hate that lynched minorities in the United States, or the hate that spurred heinous acts anywhere in the world.
But we should never flaunt that hate outside of a historical context. When this happens, it is no longer a way of examining an issue, and instead transforms into a resurrection of that hate.
Whether the Confederate flag holds sentimentality to someone because they grew up around the flag or because they argue that its simply history, then they should try to see the flag from the eyes of those who suffered as a result of the ideology behind the flag. That is how we honor history.
In the end, the only Confederate flag that really mattered was the white flag of surrender.
