|
Yes, it’s displayed
all over the world as a symbol of the South and its unique,
appealing culture... |
|
Confederate Conundrum
Why isn't the logic of the Confederate flag haters applied to other flags?
Let's put it this way: of all the famous cultural icons in the world, why does only the Confederate Battleflag supposedly signify an evil message, no matter what context it’s used in?
|
Yes, it’s displayed
all over the world as a symbol of the South and its unique,
appealing culture... |
|
...but the more enlightened assure us that displaying it is actually a message of hate toward black people. For example, when asked about the latest assault on the Confederate Battleflag at the public beach display on the Gulfport-Biloxi border, former Mississippi governor William Winter, one of the chief leaders of the anti-flag movement, said that the flag has been "captured" by hate groups. This is the stock answer that newspaper editors, “Civil Rights” spokesmen, and spineless politicians always solemnly proclaim. Whatever the flag once represented has been unalterably transformed into a hate message by the Klan, no matter the intended purpose in displaying it. Of course, it’s not that the media and Hollywood obsessively associate the Southern Cross with negative images, whether it’s “Pulp Fiction“, “A Time to Kill”, or CBS News showing a smoking pistol on a Battleflag backdrop for a report on a school shooting. No, they say, they didn’t define the Battleflag as a hate symbol, the Klan did it when they started using it in the 1960s.
|
So, when did the Klan acquire the right or the
power to change the meaning of the Confederate Battleflag? It’s
certainly not a matter of numbers--there are far more folks displaying
the Battleflag as a symbol of Southern pride and Southern culture than
those who use it as an emblem of a hate group. For example, the
Columbia, South Carolina Flag Rally of January, 2000 drew in over 10,000
proud Southerners to the capital steps. |
|
Strangely, there was no debate or referendum by the Southern people that authorized the Klan to transform the flag of Lee, Jackson, and Pelham into a message of hatred toward blacks.
And here’s another puzzle in this debate. There are flags openly displayed in this country that are the official emblems of regimes that are unquestionably racist, immoral, and downright murderous. But not a word of protest is raised.
|
Let’s consider the Cuban flag, for example. The
Cuban exiles in Miami regularly fly the Cuban flag, and when they
protested the Elian Gonzalez kidnapping, they defiantly displayed
hundreds of them. However ... |
|
|
... how could it be argued that the Cuban flag is
an honorable symbol of Cuban heritage? Hasn’t the recognized
government of Cuba officially transformed that flag into an emblem of
Communist dictatorship? |
|
Castro’s gulag is estimated to have over 200 prisons. These brutal re-education centers, packed with dissidents and political prisoners, are the product of Fidel’s Communist government. Before 1959, Cuba had just 4 prisons. While not as bloodthirsty as the Soviet Union that inspired and supported it, the Communist Cuban regime has still taken the lives of 115, 000 Cubans--and that does not include the number of people who died while trying to escape. Nor does that count the number of exiled Cubans who lost their homes and businesses to the Communist Cuban regime.
|
Another flag that is prominently displayed in this
country is the Mexican flag. When Mexican colonizers wave their flags in
downtown Charlotte, North Carolina on Cinco
de Mayo, the local paper will print their picture with a happy
story about margaritas, tamales, and other festive aspects of Mexican
heritage. |
|
However, R.J. Rummel, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, has written a book entitled Death By Government, which documents the mass murders committed by the 20th century’s worst regimes. It just so happens that the worst “legal murderer” in North America is the government of Mexico, which killed 1,400,000 of its people, mostly the native Mayan population in the southern Chiapas region, from 1910 to 1920. And it is still involved in a genocidal campaign against the native Mayans. On December 24, 1997, 70 members of a Mexican paramilitary force killed 45 women, men and children in the village of Acteal. During the five-hour massacre, soldiers with AK-47s fired indiscriminately upon a group praying inside a church and at unarmed civilians trying to flee.
Are Mexican mestizos proclaiming their hatred toward indigenous Mayan Indians when they wave the Mexican flag? No? Then one has to wonder: if the meaning of the Confederate flag has been unalterably transformed into a hate symbol by a few kooks in sheets, no matter the intent of the person displaying it, why aren’t the Cuban and Mexican flags symbols of communist repression and genocide?This article was written by Mike Tuggle in 2002. Mr. Tuggle is a management consultant and independent business owner.
