Katherine Frances's Blog, page 352
June 23, 2015
Southern Pride
I am from the South, born and raised. I am proud of my home. I am proud of Appalachian traditions, of learning to cook and can, of farming and driving the tractor, of family values instilled in me at an early age. I am proud of my ancestors, who have fought in ever major war this country has known (including some on both sides of the Civil War). I love my home. I love waking up and looking at the mountains and feeling a part of that world. I love having roots, and knowing exactly where they are.
The Confederate flag has nothing at all to do with those things.
I am not proud of the Confederate flag. I am not proud of the things it represents. Because it represents racism. It represents hate. It represents people who were willing to fight a war and die to maintain the “right” to continue owning other people.
I know history. I know the Civil War wasn’t just about slavery. But a huge part of it was, and the elements that weren’t about slavery–such as states’ rights and the economy–are still linked back to slavery.
Yes, as a person born in the South, the Confederate flag is a part of my history. But it is not a part of history I’m proud of, and it’s not a part of history I want to celebrate.
I, also, am from the South and I understand Southern pride. I was raised in an area where the Confederate flag was considered a normal thing by many, though I myself was never raised to see it that way. That being said, I understand why people, who have been raised their whole life to believe that the Confederate flag is a symbol of Southern living, could be reluctant to let that symbol go. I understand their confusion, and their disbelief that something they thought was representative of sweet tea, out doors, warm weather, country music, and so many other great things could possibly be perceived as a symbol of racism.
But a flag is a symbol, and while for some it is simply a symbol for Southern living, for many more it is a symbol of white oppression and racism. Both of those views are legitimate. Even though many country kids are raised to believe otherwise, the Confederate flag is realistically a symbol of the civil war, which was heavily founded around slavery. We have to realize that if we are asking Blacks to see our point of view, that we don’t view the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism, then we also have to see their point of view, that the flag is a symbol of racism for them, and for very good reason. We have to realize that they have just as much a right to see it that way as we have a right to not see it that way. Both of those views are founded in cultural truths.
This is why, as Americans from the south, we have to ask ourselves if our view of the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern living is so important to us, that we would uphold that flag when it is simultaneously a symbol for hate and racism for so many others? Is that, very small and very insignificant part of our glorious Southern culture, so important that we can’t make due without it in order to strengthen the bonds with our fellow Americans, and our fellow Southerners? We cannot change the fact that there is an association between the Confederate flag and racism.
Do we really want country living to be associated with something so negative and so hateful?
Here’s my suggestion. I think the South needs a new symbol of pride. One that we can wear on our shirts, hang from our porches and flag poles, something that will say this is Dixie and this is pride. I think a new flag should be made. Maybe a Black artist from the South could make one up, or a collaboration between Black and White artists together. This new flag could be spread out through social media and made as the new symbol of southern pride. There’s probably quite a bit of profit to be made there too for the business savvy out there.
Listen, this wouldn’t just be a way of saying ‘I’m still proud to be from the South’. If something like this could happen I think it would say a lot more than that. It would say, we’re proud to be part of the new South that doesn’t condone the historically institutionalized racism. We’re proud of the New South that loves and celebrates the good country culture and leaves the bad where it belongs; in the history books.
"Write from the heart. A book without a pulse is like a person without a spirit."
-
Linda F. Radke
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