Dixie's Shame, Part II

Since my editorial "Confederate Flags Must Vanish" appeared in The Crimson on March 5, this newspaper has received much reader mail from outraged Southerners. I expected that they would be incensed with my portrayal of Dixie, and looked forward to their responses and criticism. I was disappointed by the weakness of their counter-arguments, but then again, it's pretty challenging to defend hundreds of years of inhuman slavery and several generations of equally abhorrent Jim Crow apartheid.

A common defense of the Confederate flag is that it does not only represent Dixie's shameful history, but the better elements of the Southern tradition as well. One disgruntled reader attempted to equate the rebel flag with the U.S. flag, which has also stood for torture and murder.

However, the U.S. flag does represent a capacity for moral purging and progress. For example, the civil rights movement broadened our nation's stunted conception of citizenship, thus reducing the extent to which the stars and stripes symbolizes white supremacy. Claiming that the Confederate flag also exemplifies a tradition of inclusion and exemplary change is foolish. The Confederacy was founded on principles of black subjugation, and the Southern whites who restored its flag to prominence during the '50s used this flag to demonstrate their desire to continue the domination of black citizens. When has the white South made formal moral or material restitution for its racism that could even begin to redeem the rebel flag?

Some Southerners also took issue with my assertion that for much of this century, most whites below the Mason-Dixon line exhibited moral and intellectual qualities that were rather bestial. This statement neither condemns all Southern whites nor excuses the North's racism. For most of the 20th century, almost all white Americans have held warped and loathsome racial views. But the South created a particularly hellish, suffocating environment for black Americans.

Those who enforced a system of separate and inferior institutions based on a color line that extended ridiculously to one drop of blood deserve no respect. The white South was so morally sick that it even segregated its Christian churches. White Southerners commonly refused medical care to dying blacks. They created such a dehumanizing climate that black men could not even look at white women for fear of being lynched. A typical example of the irrationality and paranoia that consumed most of the white South was its reaction to W.E.B. Du Bois's American classic, The Souls of Black Folk. One leading Southern newspaper warned that this book would put white women in greater danger of being raped by black men.

Today, the improvement that the white South has shown is mostly attributable to the effects of the civil rights movement. Prior to this crusade, Dixie's inbred racism was choking out most prospects for cultural betterment.

Some have questioned my insight into Southern history. Perhaps they need to become familiar with works such as Richard Wright's Black Boy or Martin Luther King's Why We Can't Wait. Or perhaps they should view documentaries of the civil rights movement such as "Eyes on the Prize." These visual records illustrate Dixie's depravity and demonstrate the rebel flag's racist connotations--in the turbulent '50s and '60s, no good segregationist was seen without the stars and bars, which was frequently emblazoned on a vest or embroidered on a Ku Klux Klan robe.

Calling attention to the scurrilous elements of the Southern tradition is not merely regional prejudice or a needless rehashing of evils better forgotten. Those who acknowledge that the rebel flag is a detestable symbol but take umbrage when its legacy is discussed seem to prefer to wallow in escapism and denial. And those who still revere this flag have even less grounds to complain when I graphically recount the barbarism associated with it. If the South, and Georgia in particular, wishes to cling to the Confederate flag, then its heritage of shame cannot be glossed over.

David W. Brown's column appears on alternate Wednesdays.