<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Monday, November 10, 2003

Dean and the confederate flag. 

My friend posted these comments to me regarding Dean's comments on confederate flag wavers:

I wasn't offended at all by his reference to the Rebel flag,
>which to me and to millions of Southerners symbolizes regional pride,
>fierce individuality, and a refusal to knuckle under to tyrranical
>authority, not racism or slavery. I understood his remark to mean that
>his candidacy has to appeal to the Southern white mainstream if he's
>going to win, and I think that's very true.
> Dean's Democratic rivals unfairly twisted his remark into
>something else, unfortunately damaging the Party, but not too bad. To
>me, their remarks were more condescending toward Southerners than Dean's
>were. Pickup trucks aren't cheap.

And my response:

Regarding Dean's comments concerning the confederate flag, I sat next to a Dean supporter at a breakfast for Kathleen Blanco recently. This Dean supporter, a white woman, said that African Americans who work with her won't speak to her now regarding Dean, because of his remark. I'm afraid he still has some fences to mend with the average black voter who is aware of his comments, and it is hard not to be aware of them what with everyone jumping into the fray.

You may disagree with anyone taking offense at his remark, but it was ill-considered and I'm afraid he'll have to learn the hard way on this one. You very accurately expressed how some white people feel about the flag, when you said:

"I wasn't offended at all by his reference to the Rebel flag, which to me and to millions of Southerners symbolizes regional pride, fierce individuality, and a refusal to knuckle under to tyrranical authority, not racism or slavery. I understood his remark to mean that his candidacy has to appeal to the Southern white mainstream if he's going to win, and I think that's very true.

Dean's Democratic rivals unfairly twisted his remark into something else, unfortunately damaging the Party, but not too bad. To me, their remarks were more condescending toward Southerners than Dean's were. Pickup trucks aren't cheap."

I am somwhat surprised to hear you say how much you also identify with the flag, when to millions of blacks, it is a symbol of the slavery they fought to be free of. You and I have had discussions about our beliefs that the Civil War need not have been fought. I agree with you on that point. However, to put such importance and pride in a symbol that provokes fear and horror in our African American population, is callous and insensitive, to say the least.

If Dean had prefaced his remark, in a way that would have respected the "regional pride and fierce individuality", as you put it, while gently chiding those same people, and reminding them that the Democratic party has and always will be a huge tent for everyone, including disaffected republicans.

Yes, he went out on a limb, in reaching out to confederate flag wavers, but he sawed the limb off with his own words, when he didn't turn the coin to view the other side of it, and the oppression and slavery that the confederate flag symbolizes to blacks.

Honestly, I don't need the Confederate flag to symbolize anything for me. I turn to our Declaration of Independence for my sustenance, and reminder, when I am discouraged, that we have endowed ourselves, from the beginning, with the concept of equality, and the right to a just government:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Dean would have done well to remind these southern Confederate flag wavers that the true source of our irrepressible strength, as a nation, was, and always will be, our inclusiveness, regardless of the symbols that we individually subscribe to.

elizabeth

My friend's response to this:

It's sad to me that so many southerners have forgotten the sadly
noble original meanings of the rebel flag. They've let the fearful
racists of the '50s and '60s and the yankees (who want to pretend their
brutal invasion and subjugation of the South was really a righteous act
of racial liberation) redefine it.
The Civil War was an unjust war over power and money. (I admit I
think all war is unjust.) The North included four slave states where
blacks were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued
two years into the war as a tactic for winning it. Race riots ensued in
NYC. The violence and destruction and hatred and hypocrisy of that war
and its political aftermath is what created the terrible race relations
that followed. What the rebel flag meant to southerners of the time was
their love of their homeland and its independence.
People who think the rebel flag represents slavery are ignorant
of American history. Dean is not ignorant of American history -- should
he self-censor his every utterance to be sure not to accidentally offend
the ignorant? His apologies have satisfied most reasonable people that
he didn't mean to promote racism.

And my response:

It's truly amazing to me that you fail to recognize that the confederate flag, to African Americans, is a symbol of slavery. You are very quick to acknowledge your own, personal meanings of the flag. I accept your personal meaning, though I disagree with it.

Your refusal to acknowledge the meaning of the flag for blacks is nothing short of historical and political naivete. I hope that Dean is not as naive, although something tells me he has a touch of that as well, as he made the remark in the first place.

Wether or not the Civil War was fought over slavery, the flag is a symbol to blacks of their own slavery in the deep south.

You said:

"The violence and destruction and hatred and hypocrisy of that war
and its political aftermath is what created the terrible race relations
that followed. What the rebel flag meant to southerners of the time was
their love of their homeland and its independence."

What the flag also meant, I am sure, to blacks, at that time, was the continuation of slavery, wether or not the North originally intended to emancipate slaves. If the south had won, slavery would have continued. That is what I am sure, blacks believe. Wether or not you agree with that belief, to refuse to recongnize their subjective meaning that they associate with the rebel flag, and by the way, all symbols are infused with the subjectivity of our beliefs, is, quite simply, a rather interesting state of denial on your part.

Again, I agree with you, that all war is unjust. Will you also agree that slavery is unjust? Wether or not the civil war, the institution of slavery was bound to fail.

You said: "It's sad to me that so many southerners have forgotten the sadly
noble original meanings of the rebel flag."


Because I believe the civil war was an unjust war, doesn't mean that I see nobility in the way of life of the south at that time. The southern economy was predicated on slavery. Without it, it would have never risen to the heights that it did. The oppression of any human being has nothing to do with nobility. I am sure many hard-core capitalists right now see the out-sourcing of American jobs to cheap labor abroad, and sweat factories in those countries, as a noble venture of spreading the good word of capitalism. We all know the obvious hypocricy there.

Let us be careful with what symbols we choose to defend, and remember that symbols have multiple meanings, because they are, after all, the reflections of our subjective beliefs. As far as I am concerned, because of the way blacks feel about the confederate flag, the flags ought to be retired to the cedar chests with moth balls. But they won't, and they aren't now, as some states insist on continuing to fight to have the flag flown over state capitals, despite the objections of its black citizens.

Dean waded into this rattle snake nest when he mentioned the flag. He simply didn't think it through before he spoke. You gave no credit to my suggestion that if he had acknowledged the beliefs of white southerners, who still regard the flag with pride, and, at the same time, reminding them that the source of our strength as a nation is our inclusivity, and that the democrats best represent this inclusivility because of our big tent metaphor, this entire controversy may have turned out differently. Maybe he didn't couch the issue in those terms, because he might have lost a few votes. Big deal.

He would have gained the respect of many more in the process. By the way, I well know that Dean is not a racist. However, he shot himself in the foot by emphasizing the importance of the white southern vote. What about the black southern vote? He certainly doesn't have that vote sewn up yet. He's got to think before he speaks, otherwise he is going to get tired of the taste of shoe leather.

elizabeth


# posted by scorpiorising : 7:30 AM |

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?