Here’s a story on a group’s intention to erect a giant Confederate flag near the intersection of Interstates 75 and 4:
The Sons of Confederate Veterans wants drivers in the Tampa area to see the massive flag — 30 feet high and 50 feet long — atop a 139-foot pole, the highest the Federal Aviation Authority would allow. It would be lit at night.
With the pole already in the ground and building permits in hand, the group is on its way to having what it calls the “world’s largest” Confederate flag in place by mid 2009. The group just needs about $30,000 more, said Douglas Dawson, Florida division commander.
John W. Adams, a spokesperson for the group wishing to fly the flag, says this project is all about remembrance:
“It’s about honoring our ancestors and about celebrating our heritage,” he said. “It’s a historical thing to us.”
He hopes people who are offended by the flag will drive to the memorial and view the plaques honoring Confederate soldiers. They plan to have one dedicated to black Confederate veterans, he said.
The second paragraph gets at the real intent. If your objective is simply to honor your ancestors, you build a nice monument. But if your objective is to make a public statement and rile people up, you erect a giant flag.
This revives the long-standing flag debate: Is the Confederate flag merely a historical relic representing Southern heritage? Or is a darker symbol of racial division and suppression?
Obviously, many people who have rallied for the stars and bars–both today and in the 1860s–do not necessarily believe that the black race should be suppressed or enslaved. But the fact is that the Confederate States of America were fundamentally intertwined with the institution of slavery. Southern apologists can make arguments about “states rights” until they are blue in the face. But they can’t escape the fact that without slavery, there would have been no Civil War.
And so to the extent that the Confederate flag represents that era in the South, African Americans are justified in being upset when it’s used in this kind of a in-your-face-type display. Being of a libertarian/First Amendment bent, I’m somewhat conflicted over whether or not the government should step in and stop this flag. But clearly it doesn’t advance the interests of society.
UPDATE: A segment on this controversy was broadcast on “Fox and Friends” on June 5.
The Confederate Flag, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Blacks fought and died under that banner just like anyone else.
Let’s face it, if blacks had as big a problem with the CF as many people (mostly white Yankees) insist, the South probably wouldn’t be home to the majority of African Americans. It’s the north and the west that harbor this nation’s worst race relations. That is a statistical fact
Tolerance works both ways.
The Confederate Flag does not symbolize racism. It symbolizes resistance to tyranny and the courage to fight for what one believes in. Even if one aspect of those beliefs is inherently wrong such as slavery.
If someone is really that bent out of shape about something that occurred a hundred and fifty years ago they need to get a life and fast. Reconciliation lies in the future, nowhere else.
I’ll tell ya what, let’s go to the UN building in NY and tear the Spanish flag down. They were the first to take slaves from Africa and instituted the global slave trade. And while we’re at it, let’s burn the flags of Ghana and Ivory Coast for capturing and selling their brothers into slavery.
Hating on the South is popular amongst those who aren’t from here. But their argument is without merit since they tend to ignore the realities that are less convenient.
By the way, I’m a card carrying member of the League of the South. And I’m voting for Barack Obama.
The Confederate Flag, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
The problem is that you’re focusing on the beauty that you want to see in it and ignoring its tainted past.
Perhaps a few blacks did fight under the stars and bars, but they were fighting for their states’ right to continue slavery.
In addition to its connection with the Confederate States, the flag has also served as a rallying point for white supremacist groups much more recently than 150 years ago.
This is all to say there’s an anti-black association with the Confederate flag that understandably upsets some people.
One more point: this post does not bash “the South.” I simply point out the divisive history of this particular symbol.
Yeah, I understand where you’re coming from.
I’m sorry that the banner has been stigmatized in such a way.
I focus on the beauty as others focus on the ugly. Is the glass half full or half empty?
Unfortunately I’m no more capable of stopping some bigoted idiot from flying it or misusing it than Obama is capable of shutting up his goofy preacher.
The point I’m making is that there is no benefit to dwelling on the past concerning this issue. The future is where we should be looking because that’s where the end of it lies if there is one.
That giant flag is no threat to America’s future or the betterment of racial relations. Not unless we allow it to be that is.