What's in a Flag-The Continuing Battle of Lost Causes

Perhaps Shakespeare said it best when he had Juliet considers a rose while thinking about her true love Romeo, whose family, Montague, were sworn enemies of her family, Capulet. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” she muses. But is that really true in blood feuds, or anything else for that matter?

Recently, a small group of people calling themselves the Virginia Flaggers raised the Confederate Battle Flag along Interstate 95 in Chester in what they say is support of their southern heritage. Whatever their belief about the battle flag, it has come to mean far more than States Right and Southern heritage. Due to organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation, Skin Heads, and a broad variety other hate groups; the Confederate Battle Flag has now become even more a symbol of hatred and racism. A shame, really, since the flag design and the heritage it at one time seemed to espouse has now been contaminated.

In a way, it’s no different from the reason why some companies battle for copyright infringement. Coke ©, for one, has long since lost that battle as many people today consider virtually any cola flavored drink a coke. Even at restaurants, you can often here a waiter say, “Is Pepsi okay?” in response to someone asking for a coke.

And so it is with the Confederate Battle Flag. The symbol of a great and wonderful heritage has been hijacked and now stands equally or even more strongly in favor of hatred and racism. Sorry to those of you who don’t believe that’s the case, but it is. And I know my being from the North, the God-forsaken north; in some eyes I probably don’t have a right to make that statement. But only certain kinds of people overlook the obvious and rally around their fallen idol.

From a historic perspective, those people are well within their rights to espouse their Confederate heritage. History is history, and if we forget why our forebears fought and died then we have lost much. But aren’t there other ways to do so? Civil War enactments happen around the area with a startling regularity. Right here in the Tri-City area we live side-by-side with the history. Even some of our buildings continue to bear testimony to Civil War era artillery barrages.

In a recent Richmond Times-Dispatch article by Peter Bacque about the flag in Chester, Bacque said that more than 200 people attended the flag raising ceremony. The flag, which appears alongside I-95 but is somewhat hidden in the midst of a few small pine trees, stands in mute testament of whatever the people who see it perceive it to be. Unfortunately, the flag is incapable of telling passer’s by that it is there to support states’ rights, the Confederate heritage, or the bittersweet loss of life of those who died in battle fighting for what they held dear.

No. Looking at the Confederate Battle Flag a good number of the people passing by will pick up the other meanings of the Confederate Flag instead. You know the ones about hate and racism.

Those meanings exist and are just as legitimate as the ones about history and heritage and The Southern way of life. Unfortunately, just as Coke has lost its battle with copy right, the Confederate Battle Flag has lost its battle as the symbol of States’ Rights and Southern Heritage. In almost every sense today flying the Confederate Battle Flag is contentious.

Don’t think so? Well, it seems that even one of the group’s leaders, Susan Hathaway was quoted in the Times-Dispatch stating, “Richmond needed a reminder of her Confederate heritage.”

Richmond is the former Capital of the Confederacy. It is home to the Confederate History Museum. The city is surrounded by Civil War battle fields and was the main objective of U.S. General Grant and all others that attempted to subdue the South before him. It’s hard to believe that Richmond needs a lesson about its Civil War Heritage.

When I was teaching school one of my African-American students complained to me about a white student who was wearing a baseball cap with a Confederate Battle Flag patch on front. He said it bothered him because he felt it was a symbol of slavery, racism, and hatred and he wanted me to ask him not to wear his hat. What was I to say to him, a white male teacher? I said he probably was wearing it as a symbol of his Southern Heritage. My student was not convinced. Then I said, well if it means what you think it means, then wouldn’t you rather have him wearing it and know that or not wear it and not know what you think he believes?

People certainly have the right to support whatever symbols they wish to uphold. They just need to keep in mind that just because they feel one way about something doesn’t mean the rest of the world feels the same way. Over the past 150 years, the Confederate Battle Flag has come to mean a lot more than Southern Heritage and States’ Rights. The Confederate Battle Flag has its place in museums and civil war collections, but the negative baggage it has accumulated over the years makes it impossible to send a positive message when flown in the open. It says, Welcome to Chester, land of hate and racism.