1.
Approximately thirty years ago, my wife, son and I spent a week at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where I attended a pediatric conference. Hilton Head Island, as many of you know, is a well-to-do area, surrounded by poor, rural communities inland. It is a pocket of the New South sewn with golden threads onto the tattered overalls of the Old South.
One evening, while we were returning to our rented town house on Hilton Head Island after a day spent in Savannah, Georgia--the evening was rapidly becoming night--I noticed something that made me uncomfortable. We were passing some rather ramshackle houses, most of which had large yards with at least one rusted old car and other junk memorials to entropy. I noticed that Confederate flags were flying from many porches; many of the mailboxes lined along the road were decorated with diminutive versions of the same banner.
I became nervous. What if my car broke down here? What would they think of a family that consisted of a white man, a brown wife and an adopted black child? I didn't want to find out, and am thankful that I didn't. It might have turned out, however, that if I had had a car problem, someone, full of Southern hospitality, might have emerged from one of those houses to give me a helping hand. With a fixed car and a generous portion of fried chicken in a brown paper bag, I would have driven away, gazing thankfully into the rear view mirror as a poor but proud Southerner waved good-bye to us, and, especially, to my toddler.
That might have happened. Our mixture of races, however, were much much more likely to have elicited a very different response than if we had been all white. The history of tortured race-relations in America repeats itself daily; I had reason to be scared.
2.
Some would consider my fear to have been unwarranted. Many Southerners argue that the confederate flag is merely a symbol of pride and nothing more. Let us examine that view.
We would all agree that the Nazi flag is thoroughly tainted; the sight of this symbol of hate disgusts all decent human beings. But what of another form of the swastika, the original one, still used in Buddhism today?
Svastika in Sanskrit means "all is well." It is a symbol that has been used in Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism for centuries. In all Eastern cultures it is a positive symbol. In Buddhism it represents auspiciousness; it is also said to contain the whole mind of the Buddha. The svastika can be seen on many Asian temples; it also is a decorative motif, found on clothing, among other items.
The Nazi and Eastern versions of the swastika are not identical; the difference between them is readily apparent. The Nazi form of the figure is a forty-five degree counterclockwise rotation of the Buddhist svastika. The moral difference between the two is, of course, obvious: the Nazi one is 100% indecent, and should never be used as a political symbol ever again. In contrast, the Buddhist one is 100% decent; its continued use in an Eastern context is unproblematic. The use of the Confederate flag is, however, much less clear cut.
For the majority of Americans, myself included, the flag represents the ideology of white supremacy; for others, it is a symbol of Southern culture and pride. A brief history of the use of the confederate flag justifies the majority view. Before the 1940s it was not in general use. A Southern political party, the Dixiecrats, adopted it as a symbol in the 1940s. That party, advocating white supremacy, was founded in order to resist President Truman's calls for integration. The use of the flag declined when the Dixiecrat party, which lasted only a few years, disbanded. The flag was a mere novelty until it was resurrected in the 1960s as a symbol of resistance to integration. 1962 was the first year it flew over a state capital in the South. Other Southern states followed; private and public fondness for the flag soared all over the South. It is absolutely clear that the flag was almost exclusively used in a racial context as a symbol of white supremacy.
I am willing to concede, however, that the flag is, for some, primarily a symbol of Southern pride. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the flag is only 70% tainted by racism, a low estimate in my opinion. How do we tease out the good from the bad?
After President Obama called for banning the flag from all public places in reaction to the horrible, racially motivated murders in Charleston, I came across the following sentence from an article a conservative acquaintance of mine posted on Facebook:
(Reverend Pinckney's death) was quickly used by the Mainstream Media and the Obama White House as a tool by which they could call for the outright banning of a historical image sacred to many who proudly declare their Southern heritage.
The widespread and despicable use of the Confederate flag as a symbol of white supremacy isn't even mentioned! The quote miserably fails what I call the Moccasin Test--can anyone imagine that if a white man walked a mile in a black man's moccasins, he could ever gloss over the racial connotations of the confederate flag? Failure of the Moccasin Test indicates an us vs them mentality, an attitude at the root of a good deal of our political and social dysfunction. I view the above-quoted statement as reflective of a mindset that is both ludicrous and frightening.
There may be, however, more than a few Southerners who repudiate past racism, but would still like to use the confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride. Is there a way to remove the white-supremacy connotations from the flag? Can the thirteen stars on a blue St. Andrew's cross upon a red field ever pass the Moccasin Test? Is there a way for a non-racist to use the flag in good conscience? Perhaps there is.
3.
On a day off from work many years ago, I listened to a radio discussion, the subject of which was the Confederate flag. A group of Southerners argued for its continued use; an opposing group believed that the flag had no place in a non-racist society. The two groups were at loggerheads. After a debate that went no further than opposing statements from each side, listeners were invited to call in with questions or comments. This was the first and last time I ever participated in a call-in segment of a broadcast. I told the Southerners that I had a potential solution. Insert into the confederate flag an icon of hands shaking each other in friendship, one belonging to a dark-skinned person and the other to a light-skinned one. This icon must be prominent and clearly visible on the flag. The Southern-pride aspect of the banner would remain intact, while the racist connotations would be repudiated. Bearing an unmistakable marker of racial harmony, the Confederate flag would thus become a symbol of the New South, repudiating the terrible racial legacy of the Old. It could thus be flown in good conscience anywhere.
Needless to say, the Southerners did not agree. This was revisionism, I was told. I replied that anything that brought something more in accord with the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbor as oneself should not be viewed as revisionism, but should be welcomed as a sign of moral progress. For the Southerners, the flag was something to be completely proud of and needed no improvement. In other words, they miserably failed the Moccasin Test.
I thought I had had a good idea, and wrote to the governors of the states that still used the flag officially, proposing that they adopt the new version I suggested. Needless to say, I received no response from them or from other groups to which I had written. It is obvious to me now that the vast majority of those who advocated then and advocate now for the continued use of the Confederate flag would have to lie more than the most dishonest used-car salesman in order to get a passing grade on the Moccasin Test.
I am pleased to report that in the aftermath of the Charleston murders, the Confederate flag is no longer, as far as I know, in official use. (It would be best, in my opinion, for us never to see that flag again, except in a historical context.) Furthermore, retailers have removed items decorated with the confederate flag from the shelves; many retailers, such as Amazon, no longer sell the flag online.
I think, however, that my solution to the problem can be
a useful shibboleth. If you come across someone who is proud of the flag, suggest to them the addition of black and white hands. If they like the idea, they pass the Moccasin Test, if they don't, they fail. Perhaps Amazon and other companies could offer this New-South version of the flag. It would strike many good Southerners as odd, no doubt; they would take time to get used to it. With the new version of the flag flying in their faces, however, Americans of European descent would be forced to confront the terrible and ongoing legacy of racism and choose between the Old South and the New. "My God! What are we doing? My God! What have we done?"
If a non-racist confederate flag results in honest discussions about race relations in the United States, resulting in renewed efforts to eliminate all forms of hatred, it will help provide much needed assurance that those nine lovely people did not die in vain. With or without a new confederate flag, however, our country's task is the same. Pass the Moccasin Test, America, and move on!
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