Op-Ed: Striking the Confederate Battle Flag by Roger Burt

We should be asking why it has taken so long to finally strike the Confederate Battle Flag. Excuses often include claims that it represents a matter of pride about the southern heritage. Such a curious claim.

The flag was raised to defend the institution of slavery. It represented the right of the plantation owners to hold people against their will, murder them if they chose, beat them and rape them without consequence. That is hardly a heritage to be proud of.

And the people who benefited from the institution were only an elite class. My father’s family lived in the deep South, especially Mississippi, for many generations. They owned no slaves and worked hard to maintain themselves, often in a climate of deep poverty.

My father gave me an assessment of the meaning of the war to his family told to him by his grandfathers both of whom fought in the Confederate army. Going to war was not their choice. In effect they were impressed and had to leave their families behind to tend the farms as best they could. In a real sense it was not their war. The results of the war only deepened poverty.

Is this a proud heritage? Certainly there are things the people of the South can be proud of but slavery is not one of them.

The question remains why it has taken so long for us to question the display of this flag. Were the nine people murdered in Charleston really the cause for a collective reassessment? The lynchings, bombings, murder and violence have been going on for a long time. And politicians have wantonly defended this flag.

At this time we are discussing the need to gain control of racial hatred. Nowhere in the discussion have I heard a realistic discussion or debate. In fact a major part of the reason for the existence of racism is our social nature. We cleave to our social group and its culture. In so doing we put up a barrier of attitude and feeling to the “others”. What we have to do is recognize our tendencies and separate them from distorted or excessive attitudes. Being social in nature is generally a benefit but not when unexamined attitudes yield consequences that are routinely negative.It takes awareness and understanding of a very human attribute to derive the benefits and to live productively with the other people in our society.

The Confederate Flag, in fact, represents an attitude in regard to the “other” and it is time to recognize it for what it is and that it fuels counterproductive and ugly tendencies. Let’s hope that we have a productive national discussion and bring about the needed changes in how we view and treat each other.

It appears to be time for the discussion. Something significant is happening in our country. We have a major wave of immigrants taking up their place among us, LGBT rights are suddenly being supported, gay marriage is taking its rightful place, we are facing the failure of the second prohibition (marijuana) and now in a matter of days there is a movement to face the issue of the Confederate flag. Altogether it points the way to the fact that suddenly there is a marked maturation process underway in our national culture. And in that context it behooves us to ask why now and what do these events mean.