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Choose Your Battles, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

June 26, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 1 Comment

I have no more affection for the Confederate battle flag than I do for the flag of the Third Reich.  Both, unhappily, represent dehumanizing ideologies that incited people to go to war in defense of hatred.  The Confederate flag also represents an act of treason by the Confederate States and their attempt to leave the Union.

(If they had been successful, it is my opinion that our thus smaller country would be much more prosperous and better educated.  I would, however, miss grits.)

Still, I have never considered the Stars and Bars to be anything more than a symbol and, depending on how it was used, a threat.  A flag is a piece of cloth.  It means different things to different people.

Sometimes, people are in denial about what that piece of cloth does, in fact, symbolize.  I have no doubt that some soldiers in the Confederate Army sincerely believed they were fighting (and dying) to preserve their family homes and communities.  I also have no doubt that some soldiers in the German Army in World War II believed the same thing. I respect their sacrifices even as I despise their violent ignorance.

(For the record, I think most soldiers honestly believe they are fighting for a just cause, and I also believe most of them have been lied to and sent to slaughter to defend the wealth of the powerful.  That’s another rant.)

In the aftermath of last week’s horrific terrorist attack on an African-American church in Charleston, there has been a lot of hand-wringing in the media about the Confederate flag that flies in front of the Capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina.  For a variety of legal and logistical reasons, the flag could not be lowered, much less removed, while the American flag and state flag were lowered to half mast in mourning.

This seemed to me to be profoundly beside the point.  I mean, yes, the flag is offensive to anyone with an ounce of sensitivity.  Yes, people who are too insensitive to know that should at least have the good manners to respect the feelings of the mourners.  Even the Germans do that.

This week, it seems, public opinion, even in the former Confederate States, seemed to reach critical mass.  Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina called upon the state legislature to remove the flag.  The Governor of Alabama (not constrained by the same set of laws as Haley) took the flag down from his own Capitol.  Wal-Mart, Target, Ebay and Amazon all announced they would no longer sell products emblazoned with the flag.

Here’s what I’m afraid of:  We’ll think this is a victory and celebrate.  I mean, I like celebrations.  I like cake.  Please don’t let me stop anyone from enjoying a rare moment of national consensus.

It’s not enough.  Removing the Confederate flag is a symbol, an important symbol, but it won’t change anything of substance.  It won’t materially improve the lives of people who are the victims of racism.  It won’t stop banks from redlining, it won’t improve schools in poor neighborhoods, and it won’t end police brutality.   It won’t provide better jobs than dealing drugs, and it won’t stop gang violence.

Instead, while we lick the icing off our fingers, let’s consider this just the most recent battle in a war for racial (and class) justice.  This, I think, is the next step.

Not as catchy as retiring the Stars and Bars to museums, but much more substantial.  And much more difficult.

Media Goddess Martha Thomases doesn’t actually eat as much cake as she describes.

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Comments

  1. Steve Chaput
    June 26, 2015 - 1:31 pm

    Enlisting in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam wasn’t my endorsement of that war. I had been against it and felt it wrong for a couple of years already at that point (Jan. ’69). However, not wanting to be drafted (and with a pretty low number) I felt that enlisting would give me some choice in where I ended up. I did then and still feel that I was proud to be serving. I have no regrets about the nearly ten years that I spent in uniform.

    Conscription into the service or even volunteering to join doesn’t always mean that the individual endorses what the government at the time is doing.

    On the other hand, I’m totally in agreement with you in seeing the Confederate flag as being much the same as that of the German flag or Japanese (for that matter) flown during WWII. Putting up any of those now means you either openly endorse what was happening at the time, or are willfully ignorant of what was going on.

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