If they are ours then shouldn't we be able to take possession of them
and do what we want to do with them?
On 7/7/2015 10:08 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Do you pay taxes? I do. If we pay taxes, the drones are one of the
government enterprises we are paying for so the drones are certainly our's.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2015 9:21 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the Confederate
Flag Go
When those innocent people are killed by our drones? Are they really your
drones? Somehow I don't feel like those drones are my drones and that is why
I would never call them our drones.
On 7/7/2015 4:48 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Charlie,have mentioned...
You said,
I would argue that there are many people in this nation who have
experienced kindness, hope, accomplishments, family, liberty, and a
sense of security and wellbeing which in no way relate to all the ills you
Of course there are. And I'm sure that's true in many countries, nottreats the poor.
just our's. I did say that there are many people who have lived happy,
fulfilled, satisfying lives here.
You also said:
we also have rights of redress, checks and balances to help us seek
and achieve justice, law and courts to protect our interests, and a
political system which while very much flawed by " Citizens United, "
can still be made to respond to the needs of our people.
I'm not so sure about this second assertion of your's. In terms of
our subjective experience, it appears to be true because neither your
nor I have run afoul of the law in any way. So we haven't experienced
how differently the law enforcement system treats the wealthy from how it
But we have read enough to know that the bankers who stole from all ofwhat I have in my life, it is necessary to be aware of what harm my country
us, have not been prosecuted, while a poor person who is accused of
stealing something is arrested and kept imprisoned if he doesn't have
enough money to make bail. And we do know objectively, that the
bankers who stole the money from all of us, have been much more
harmful than someone who steals a back pack. The individual who was
arrested for stsealing a back pack is not imaginary. An aarticle was
written about him in the New Yorker. He was sixteen years old, kept in
Riker's Island without triall for 3 years, and destroyed by the
system. A year after his release, he committed suicide. So no, that
kind of thing hasn't happened to you or me and so we talk about
equality before the law. But it is my contention that when we close
our eyes to what is happening to our fellow citizens every day and
continue to mouth platitudes about freedom and equality, that makes us
complicit. Saying what is true does not mean that I cannot enjoy my
life, appreciate nature, love my friends and family, enjoy a good meal
or participate in the good things in life. But while I am appreciating
is doing to other people.
You said:disobedience wherever there is fracking and strip mining.
This potential for another way of life and the periodic manifestations
of goodness such as Doctors without Borders, Oxfam, Save the Children,
and relief efforts to ease the pain of disasters in various places,
along with everyday good people around us, all point to a direction we
all believe is achievable.
The relief organizations of which you speak are valuable. However,
they are not American organizations and their purpose is not to change
the political and economic system of the US which, although you may
feel that it benefits you and your neighbors, is not benefiting a very
large number of other Americans and which is reeking havoc throughout
the world. There was a time when people who cared about human values,
demonstrated on behalf of those values. That's what I would like to
see now. All those church goers out in the streets, marching for peace
and justice. All the people who love nature, engaging in civil
No, I certainly don't want to see hopelessness or nihilism. I want toand equality, and I believed them, just as strongly as you do.
see all the people who expressed horror at the murders in the South
Carolina church, expressing the same horror at the murders of black
people by police and the lack of any concerted effort to hold police
accountable when they thoughtlessly kill suspects. I want to see the
ssame kind of outrage that was expressed when ISIS beheaded
Westerners, expressed when wedding parties and other innocent
civilians are killed by our drones. And I suppose that I feel so
strongly about all of this because I was raised here and I was taught
all those ssame things about American values, about Democracy and freedom
Miriamour interests, and a political system which while very much flawed by "
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles
Crawford
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2015 3:04 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the
Confederate Flag Go
Hi Miriam and all,
You certainly make points that would lead any reasonable person to
conclude that we have, if anything, barely next to nothing to
recommend us. Now comes the bottom line as I see it. I would argue
that there are many people in this nation who have experienced
kindness, hope, accomplishments, family, liberty, and a sense of
security and wellbeing which in no way relate to all the ills you have
mentioned. Yes, there are real problems and activities which none of
us would condone, but we also have rights of redress, checks and
balances to help us seek and achieve justice, law and courts to protect
Citizens United, " can still be made to respond to the needs of ourpeople.
Are these and other features of our Democracy sufficient to, onpeople around us, all point to a direction we all believe is achievable.
balance, call our nation a great place in which to live? I believe
the answer is a qualified yes. We do have to speak out or the silence
would only add to the corrosion created by our problems and apathy of
folks who would have given up. As long as there are forums like
Blind-Democracy, and groups like Move On; there will be hope and
satisfaction. Rose colored glasses? Maybe, but I think not so much
that as I know we all know that there is another way of being and
hence our disapproval of what is going on. This potential for another
way of life and the periodic manifestations of goodness such as
Doctors without Borders, Oxfam, Save the Children, and relief efforts
to ease the pain of disasters in various places, along with everyday good
Lastly, I will say that perhaps the downside of hearing about theseof everyday life.
constant examples of things not going right, is that we are tempted to
become very cynical and cast an almost nihilistic eye on everything.
These things are upsetting, but they are not nearly the sum and substance
Otherwise, we would all just conclude it is not worth it an either dosupport of a slow genocide in Palestine on the other.
ourselves in, or decide to grab what we can for ourselves and the heck
with everyone else.
Charlie.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: 07 July 2015 13:55
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the
Confederate Flag Go
Charlie,
You know, I'm not sure at all about that, not after all the history
I've been reading about our country. I think that we certainly have a
mythology about justice and freedom for all. I think that some people
have lived useful and satisfying lives here. But I just finished
reading a history of what this country did to Puerto Rico and is still
doing, which is an example of how it acquired and treated territories.
And even within the US, aside from what it does to its poor and its
people of color, there is a history of inhuman exploitation such as
its experimentation on 20,000 people with radiation. Right now, I
don't see evidence that we're moving toward the fulfillment of those
ideals that you mention. I see a corporate state which is beginning to
treat its citizens as disposable, in the same way that it treated its
conquered people like the Puerto Ricans. Towns are dying or dead
because industry has fled and there is nothing to take its place to
employ people except low paying service jobs and the military. It's a
very sstrange time with same sex marriage and a black President on one
side, and increasing police killings of unarmed black people, enslaved
workers in our prisons and disappearance of women's health on the
other. And a silence regarding our drone murders of civilians and military
Miriamof oligarchy.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles
Crawford
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2015 11:15 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the
Confederate Flag Go
Hi Miriam and all,
Your points are well taken. Still I have to ask if it is not true
that the American revolution may have been a rebellion of business
folks, but did it not ultimately turn into a nation dedicated to the
increasingly freedom, liberty, and dignity of all? Sure we have lots
of problems and I don't know if we will ever become perfect, yet I
know that the idealism that at least our leaders preach have in them
the seeds of a great nation. Not there yet, but still traveling in
that direction, despite the best efforts of some to turn us into some kind
Charlie Crawford.slaves.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: 05 July 2015 22:19
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the
Confederate Flag Go
Charlie,
The issue of states' rights is used as a rationalization by people who
are opposed to civil rights. It was used to rationalize the right to own
It is used as a rationalization for resisting women's right to choose,for freedom and equality for everyone who lived in the colonies.
people's right to marry whomever they love, the right of everyone to
receive medical care, the right of people to vote on the basis of
national standards that are fair to everyone, et cetera. It has
nothing to do with southern traditions which benefit people like
southern hospitality or southern cooking or a slow, leisurely pace of
life. States' rights is always used as an excuse to withhold certain
rights from certain people. Roger reminds us that the confederate flag
about which we're talking is a battle flag. Well obviously, that flag
has been used by Southerners who do not wish to comply with federal
laws with which they disagree. It symbolizes rebellion. I see nothing
to respect about that. And if we're going to go back to the rebellion
of the colonies against England, well, it was certainly not a rebellion
It was a rebellion of businessmen who didn't wish to pay taxes to theit was.
Crown because they felt that their business interests weren't being
properly represented. Our propagandists have turned that into a
glorious revolution for freedom and justice for all. But that isn't what
Miriamdecisions as violations of states'
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles
Crawford
Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2015 5:37 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the
Confederate Flag Go
Hi Miriam and all,
I do not dispute the fact that owning slaves was at the heart of why
the southern states formed their confederation and left the Union. Yet
the classic protestation offered by those who favored the confederacy
was not ownership of slaves, but rather the imposition of too much
national government over the rights of states to govern themselves in
union with, but not controlled by other states. When viewing the
difficulty through this lense rather than the slavery issue, it became
more justifiable in the minds of many to support the confederacy.
From the above scenario, two features can be identified. First,
there was a South with a community identity greater than simple
ownership of slaves, and secondly that irrespective of the slavery
issue, didn't the states have rights which could not be violated by
the federal government? This latter question still flares up even in
our modern times and is not likely to ever go away completely.
So, yes, the ownership of slaves was clearly a major problem and had
to be addressed, however the idea that states have rights not given to
the Congress which Congress cannot violate is still a living question.
I would submit the two recent issues of the Affordable Care Act and
the lack of state created exchanges as well as the issue of same sex
marriages are two very current and potentially contentious matters.
While I agree with the Supreme Court on their decisions in these
matters, I am concerned that some folks will attempt to exploit these
rights. So what is my point?as somehow really not fair.
The act of rebellion is a basic American value. We did it to form the
Union. The lesson we must take from the Civil War is that all of us
have civil rights and denying one is denying all. We fought a major
war to guarantee the right of liberty to all people irrespective of
race, creed, or national origin. That same civil right to liberty
implies respect for the dignity of all people. In as much as I agree
that the confederate flag needs to be retired to museums since it
unfortunately is associated with the tyranny of slavery; we do need to
be sensitive to the broader issues that distinguish Southerners which
have nothing to do with slavery. I admit it sounds a bit over the top
to me as well, however, I do feel that blanket condemnation of the
south and all southerners as confederates who simply wanted to own slaves
I know that some will find my logic to be tortured. All this is toexist.
say that the confederate flag is a symbol of rebellion which albeit
for the wrong reasons, did and does occur in our nation. We must find
ways to accommodate the opinions of others which may be even annoying,
but do have a place in the marketplace of ideas, while not allowing
the kind of evil that is represented by slavery and like activities to
Charlie Crawford.seceded from the union.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: 05 July 2015 14:47
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the
Confederate Flag Go
Charlie,
I guess that's where we differ. I don't see that any good was ever
attached to it. The southern pride you speak of, was the pride of
southern landowners to have the right to own slaves. That's why they
That's what they were fighting for. What Barbara Kingsolver is sayinga
in the article is that there were poor white southerners who fought
because they were forced to and that to some of them, the flag
symbolizes valor. But my feeling is that most of them were brainwashed
into believing in the southern cause and that cause was the right to
own slaves. There may be other fine southern traditions, but they're
not what the flag was created for. It was created as a symbol of a new
country formed on the basis of slave ownership.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles
Crawford
Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2015 1:56 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the
Confederate Flag Go
Hi Carl and Miriam and all,
OK, I will admit it. I like the confederate flag! Why, well it has
better look to it as far as I am concerned and I was also a fan ofthey were.
Colonel Molsby on TV back in the 50's. I am saddened to see what has
been done to that flag and all the hate, evil, and downright racism
that has been attached to it. So whatever good was once associated
with-it has been overwhelmed with the horror that has become its
legacy. I agree that putting it in museums and maybe fly it over
confederate graveyards is a good thing to do, but let's now come
together in our celebration of freedom and humanity and say goodbye to
a flag that was not just a symbol of slave ownership, but one that
also represented the much broader pride of southern people for the people
Charlie Crawford.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: 04 July 2015 16:46
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A View From the South: Let the
Confederate Flag Go
What is the function of a flag?
In my disinterested opinion, a flag is a symbol of a Belief or a
Place. A flag or banner containing a cross indicates a belief in
Jesus Christ. A flag with 13 alternating red and white stripes, with
a blue field filled with 50 stars, tells me that it represents the
United States of America. A light blue flag with orange and gold
zigzag stripes and dueling Humming Birds, means absolutely nothing to me.
National flags, such as the Stars and Stripes, not only represent a
geographical territory, but to the citizens that flag represents the
history and traditions of that nation.
So what can we say regarding the confederate flag. There is no
Confederacy for it to represent. Does it represent the history and
traditions that were of the short-lived confederacy? If not, then
what does it represent. To say it represents the pride of the South
is to suggest that this includes the Southern Traditions. That
tradition of the short-lived confederacy included slavery. Wouldn't
it seem better to design a new flag, proclaiming the goodness and love
of the New South toward all people of all color and ffaith?
Carl Jarvis
On 7/4/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If the author of this hadn't been who it is, I would have skipped it(photo:
because so much has been written about the subject.
Miriam
Kingsolver writes: "My little town is proud to have reared citizens
like Carolee, an honour student and star athlete who offers a helping
hand to anyone she meets. She wears her blonde hair in a ponytail and
a delicate tattoo on her wrist. It's the Confederate battle flag."
Kingsolver: 'Around here we see it on license plates and T-shirts. A
ragged one has hung for years on the side of a barn in my neighborhood.'
Stephen Morton/Getty)on her wrist.
A View From the South: Let the Confederate Flag Go By Barbara
Kingsolver, Guardian UK
04 July 15
The Confederate emblem was about pride as well as hatred, but racists
have twisted its meaning
My little town is proud to have reared citizens like Carolee, an
honour student and star athlete who offers a helping hand to anyone
she meets. She wears her blonde hair in a ponytail and a delicate
tattoo
It’shonour students.
the Confederate battle flag.
That flag has come crashing into the global conversation after an
avowed white supremacist massacred nine parishioners in an African
Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina. He tore up
hearts and families, left a state without its senator and a nation
bereft. A crime so senseless leaves us grappling for something we can
blame, or fix. We’re sickened by Dylann Roof’s self-portrait with a
semi-automatic pistol and Confederate flag. In the wider world where
it’s seldom seen, people must wonder how that emblem waved by a
racist vigilante could ever have held appeal for local historians or
thoughtful
No story is ever simple here in the south, least of all the AmericanDixie.
civil war. It’s easily reduced to a morality play – a conflict
between northerners who wished to abolish slavery (the Union) and
southern whites who refused (the Confederate rebels). In that
version, any invocation of the lost Confederacy looks like nostalgia
for slavery’s return.
But history is nuanced. Economics divided an industrialising north
from an agrarian south, where cotton plantations exploited enslaved
labour for their solvency. Most white southerners, of course, didn’t
own plantations or other humans. Poor farmers and sharecroppers were
brutally conscripted to fight for the interests of wealthier men. The
region where I live – southern Appalachia, was occupied to enforce
compliance.
Bullets, illness and starvation killed hundreds of thousands during
that brief Confederacy, and some six generations later, families
still decorate the graves. Some feel their ancestors are as nobly and
tragically dead as any soldiers under any flag, and would honour them
independently of the worth of the war that consumed them – a
distinction we’ve accepted since the moral quandary of Vietnam. If
the Confederate flag only flew over cemeteries, the discussion would
be over.
But it doesn’t. Around here we see it on licence plates and T-shirts.
A ragged one has hung for years on the side of a barn in my
neighbourhood, making me wince daily. My neighbour is a decent
person, so far as I’ve seen.
I can only guess he nailed it up in a spirit of defiance, maybe akin
to the way some rappers use the N-word: as a belligerent gesture of
identity politics. Southerners, especially Appalachians, live in a
shadow of condescension. Popular culture wages a steady war on our
dignity, decking us out as ignorant, vaguely incestuous hayseeds.
Reality TV digs deep to find trashy families to reinforce the
stereotype. In a nation with a hair-trigger sensitivity to
disparaging labels, the word “hillbilly” still flies with impunity.
Attaching banality or meanness to every element of our culture is
unfair, but defining southern pride is an endless navigation. In our
town, high-school football games are community entertainment. Our
team is the Rebels. My daughter played in the marching band known as
the Rebel Regiment.
We decided to embrace the title: rebels, in my opinion, are the
pilots of most human progress. The school cafeteria once bore a mural
of Confederate soldiers and their flag, but it was painted over
decades ago when the school’s first African-American principal arrived.
Our Rebels’ only remaining civil war tie is the school’s fight song,
It’s a simple song about a southerner far from home who wishes he(photo:
were back on his native soil, south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Countless soldiers surely identified with the sentiment, back in the
day, but Abraham Lincoln also used it at campaign rallies – it was
never the official anthem of the Confederacy. I’d vote to retire it
anyway, knowing it’s tainted for those who hear it as such.
Alternatives get proposed, without success, because most people here
identify it as the anthem of a touchdown.
‘Dylann Roof tore up hearts and families, left a state without its
senator and a nation bereft … we’re sickened by his self-portrait
with a semi-automatic ¬pistol and Confederate flag.’
(photo: AP)
Who gets to draw the line between tradition and callous intransigence?
Where
does sensitivity become censorship? Tarring whole communities with
the brush of racism doesn’t bring us grace. I could have whisked my
daughter from the home of the Rebels to a private school where she
wouldn’t have to play Dixie. But this is our home, and I believe
public schools function best when we all support our kids together. I
think they’re better citizens for having grown up with many kinds of
people, to be judged by the contents of their characters, not their
tattoos.
When I claim my Appalachian identity I’m embracing some things that
are often mocked: the poetry of our dipthong-rich language; a
fine-tuned interest in crops, the weather, and everybody’s business.
The fact that when I throw a party there will be spontaneous music,
and someone will bring homemade whiskey. The fact that we never say
the words “hostess gift” but would never show up without one. Loving
your neighbour is a commandment we take seriously.
But I don’t have to love his barn art, or the symbolic anti-freedom
fighters frozen beneath a coat of paint in the school cafeteria.
Southern pride doesn’t mean loving the lynchings, segregation and
lingering racial inequality that have bled into this place, any more
than wearing cotton implies complicity with that crop’s awful history.
The modern south, home to our nation’s most racially diverse cities,
now has organic farms between tobacco fields, and yoga studios beside
churches. My favourite bumper sticker this year says “Namaste, y’all”.
We don’t want outsiders telling us what we are. So the duty is ours,
and ours alone, to distinguish our past from our future. The
Confederate flag is anathema to that project. Whatever it meant in
the 1860s, since then it has been deliberately attached to a racist
agenda, beginning in 1948 when the new, segregationist Dixiecrat
party dug it out of mothballs. (Dixie, alas, was their fight song
too.) The flag’s presence has grown steadily more menacing. It turned
up wherever white mobs opposed civil rights marchers. It showed up at
Klan rallies. I’m sure it still does. Swastika was the ancient
Sanskrit word for good fortune, its symbol representing the movement
of the sun across the sky. But it was appropriated by vile people,
and now virtually everyone sees racial hatred in that one too.
Regardless of intent or origin, a symbol achieves its meaning in the
eye of the beholder.
For some folks who incorporate the battle flag into their wardrobe or
body art, familiarity may have made it seem innocuous. But it isn’t.
A flag is a potent symbol, purporting to be the standard of a
concordant nation. By carrying one into hate crimes, racists try to
elevate their evil by suggesting a nation of racists stands behind them.
My southern home is not that nation. This month the Confederate flag
finally came down from several southern state houses, and my
neighbour’s barn. Our governor banned it from licence plates. The
stock car drivers of Nascar, that bastion of good-ol-boys, expelled
it from the racetracks. We’re honouring heritage by tapping our well
of kindness, knowing that for too many people those colours evoke
terror and despair. No more. Now is the moment in history when we
send that flag to the graveyard.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
Kingsolver: 'Around here we see it on license plates and T-shirts. A
ragged one has hung for years on the side of a barn in my neighborhood.'
Stephen Morton/Getty)honour students.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/03/south-flag-confe
d
erate-
pride-hatred-racistshttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul
/ 03/sou th-flag-confederate-pride-hatred-racists
A View From the South: Let the Confederate Flag Go By Barbara
Kingsolver, Guardian UK
04 July 15
The Confederate emblem was about pride as well as hatred, but racists
have twisted its meaning y little town is proud to have reared
citizens like Carolee, an honour student and star athlete who offers
a helping hand to anyone she meets. She wears her blonde hair in a
ponytail and a delicate tattoo on her wrist.
It’s
the Confederate battle flag.
That flag has come crashing into the global conversation after an
avowed white supremacist massacred nine parishioners in an African
Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina. He tore up
hearts and families, left a state without its senator and a nation
bereft. A crime so senseless leaves us grappling for something we can
blame, or fix. We’re sickened by Dylann Roof’s self-portrait with a
semi-automatic pistol and Confederate flag. In the wider world where
it’s seldom seen, people must wonder how that emblem waved by a
racist vigilante could ever have held appeal for local historians or
thoughtful
No story is ever simple here in the south, least of all the AmericanDixie.
civil war. It’s easily reduced to a morality play – a conflict
between northerners who wished to abolish slavery (the Union) and
southern whites who refused (the Confederate rebels). In that
version, any invocation of the lost Confederacy looks like nostalgia
for slavery’s return.
But history is nuanced. Economics divided an industrialising north
from an agrarian south, where cotton plantations exploited enslaved
labour for their solvency. Most white southerners, of course, didn’t
own plantations or other humans. Poor farmers and sharecroppers were
brutally conscripted to fight for the interests of wealthier men. The
region where I live – southern Appalachia, was occupied to enforce
compliance.
Bullets, illness and starvation killed hundreds of thousands during
that brief Confederacy, and some six generations later, families
still decorate the graves. Some feel their ancestors are as nobly and
tragically dead as any soldiers under any flag, and would honour them
independently of the worth of the war that consumed them – a
distinction we’ve accepted since the moral quandary of Vietnam. If
the Confederate flag only flew over cemeteries, the discussion would
be over.
But it doesn’t. Around here we see it on licence plates and T-shirts.
A ragged one has hung for years on the side of a barn in my
neighbourhood, making me wince daily. My neighbour is a decent
person, so far as I’ve seen.
I can only guess he nailed it up in a spirit of defiance, maybe akin
to the way some rappers use the N-word: as a belligerent gesture of
identity politics. Southerners, especially Appalachians, live in a
shadow of condescension. Popular culture wages a steady war on our
dignity, decking us out as ignorant, vaguely incestuous hayseeds.
Reality TV digs deep to find trashy families to reinforce the
stereotype. In a nation with a hair-trigger sensitivity to
disparaging labels, the word “hillbilly” still flies with impunity.
Attaching banality or meanness to every element of our culture is
unfair, but defining southern pride is an endless navigation. In our
town, high-school football games are community entertainment. Our
team is the Rebels. My daughter played in the marching band known as
the Rebel Regiment.
We decided to embrace the title: rebels, in my opinion, are the
pilots of most human progress. The school cafeteria once bore a mural
of Confederate soldiers and their flag, but it was painted over
decades ago when the school’s first African-American principal arrived.
Our Rebels’ only remaining civil war tie is the school’s fight song,
It’s a simple song about a southerner far from home who wishes he
were back on his native soil, south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Countless soldiers surely identified with the sentiment, back in the
day, but Abraham Lincoln also used it at campaign rallies – it was
never the official anthem of the Confederacy. I’d vote to retire it
anyway, knowing it’s tainted for those who hear it as such.
Alternatives get proposed, without success, because most people here
identify it as the anthem of a touchdown.
‘Dylann Roof tore up hearts and families, left a state without its
senator and a nation bereft … we’re sickened by his self-portrait
with a semi-automatic pistol and Confederate flag.’
(photo: AP)
Who gets to draw the line between tradition and callous intransigence?
Where
does sensitivity become censorship? Tarring whole communities with
the brush of racism doesn’t bring us grace. I could have whisked my
daughter from the home of the Rebels to a private school where she
wouldn’t have to play Dixie. But this is our home, and I believe
public schools function best when we all support our kids together. I
think they’re better citizens for having grown up with many kinds of
people, to be judged by the contents of their characters, not their
tattoos.
When I claim my Appalachian identity I’m embracing some things that
are often mocked: the poetry of our dipthong-rich language; a
fine-tuned interest in crops, the weather, and everybody’s business.
The fact that when I throw a party there will be spontaneous music,
and someone will bring homemade whiskey. The fact that we never say
the words “hostess gift” but would never show up without one. Loving
your neighbour is a commandment we take seriously.
But I don’t have to love his barn art, or the symbolic anti-freedom
fighters frozen beneath a coat of paint in the school cafeteria.
Southern pride doesn’t mean loving the lynchings, segregation and
lingering racial inequality that have bled into this place, any more
than wearing cotton implies complicity with that crop’s awful history.
The modern south, home to our nation’s most racially diverse cities,
now has organic farms between tobacco fields, and yoga studios beside
churches. My favourite bumper sticker this year says “Namaste, y’all”.
We don’t want outsiders telling us what we are. So the duty is ours,
and ours alone, to distinguish our past from our future. The
Confederate flag is anathema to that project. Whatever it meant in
the 1860s, since then it has been deliberately attached to a racist
agenda, beginning in 1948 when the new, segregationist Dixiecrat
party dug it out of mothballs. (Dixie, alas, was their fight song
too.) The flag’s presence has grown steadily more menacing. It turned
up wherever white mobs opposed civil rights marchers. It showed up at
Klan rallies. I’m sure it still does. Swastika was the ancient
Sanskrit word for good fortune, its symbol representing the movement
of the sun across the sky. But it was appropriated by vile people,
and now virtually everyone sees racial hatred in that one too.
Regardless of intent or origin, a symbol achieves its meaning in the
eye of the beholder.
For some folks who incorporate the battle flag into their wardrobe or
body art, familiarity may have made it seem innocuous. But it isn’t.
A flag is a potent symbol, purporting to be the standard of a
concordant nation. By carrying one into hate crimes, racists try to
elevate their evil by suggesting a nation of racists stands behind them.
My southern home is not that nation. This month the Confederate flag
finally came down from several southern state houses, and my
neighbour’s barn. Our governor banned it from licence plates. The
stock car drivers of Nascar, that bastion of good-ol-boys, expelled
it from the racetracks. We’re honouring heritage by tapping our well
of kindness, knowing that for too many people those colours evoke
terror and despair. No more. Now is the moment in history when we
send that flag to the graveyard.
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