Guest Post by Morbo
A museum in Tallahassee, Fla., is under fire for an exhibit called “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag.” The piece, by artist John Sims, shows a Confederate flag hanging from a noose on a gallows.
Officials at the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science say they have no intention of removing the exhibit, despite protests from the local branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Good for them. The story refers to the flag as “Confederate,” and I suspect it’s the Confederate battle flag. This flag – a blue X containing 13 stars against a red field – tends to spark controversy for its connotations to racism. It was the standard of a faction of people who rose up in unlawful rebellion against the duly constituted government of the United States. We are not obligated to treat it as something sacred. Many who are ancestors of those enslaved view the battle flag as a symbol of oppression.
Defenders of the Confederate battle flag often argue that it merely honors their heritage. Rarely does anyone stop to ask the question, “Is that heritage worth honoring?” A legitimate interest in your ancestors is one thing; romanticizing a cause that sought to legitimize the ownership of human beings is quite another.
Neo-Confederates counter that the Civil War wasn’t really about slavery. It was, we are told, about “states’ rights.” They neglect to point out that the alleged “right” Southern states sought was the ability to own, buy, sell and breed other human beings as if they were cattle.
The view that the Civil War was not really about slavery represents the ultimate triumph of the neo-Confederate perspective. Amazingly, it has infiltrated even many schools in the North.
For a thorough debunking of this view, see James Loewen’s “Lies My Teacher Told Me.” Loewen points out that Southern leaders didn’t even raise the states’ rights argument until Abraham Lincoln’s election. Under President James Buchanan, they pressed for a federal law guaranteeing them the right to own slaves.
Many Americans are interested in the Civil War, just as many others enjoy reading about the American Revolution, the World Wars, Vietnam and other conflicts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a legitimate interest in this history. My beef is with those who go too far and try to romanticize Confederate leaders, those who engage in a type of hero worship of figures whose main accomplishment was their attempt to tear apart our country and carve out a region where it would always be safe for one human being to own another. In common parlance, the term used to describe such people is not “heroes”; it is “traitors.”
Loewen points out that we would be appalled if German-Americans regularly goose-stepped down the street waving swastika-laden flags and insisted they were only celebrating their heritage. He’s right. We can certainly examine the Confederacy as we would any other historical topic, but there is no need to portray its leaders as a romantic band of visionaries fighting for freedom. They fought to maintain a system based on violence, degradation and the stubborn belief that some people can and should be property.
In short, one’s heritage, while it can be interesting to explore and analyze, isn’t always worth celebrating.
