Over at The Atlantic, Clint Smith reflects on the image of a man carrying the Confederate Battle flag in the halls of the United States Capitol. Here is a taste:
Over the course of the past century and a half, the design of the Confederate battle flag became inextricably linked to the story of the Confederacy. The flag’s symbolism cannot be disentangled from the cause of those who fought beneath it. It cannot be separated from the words of its vice president, Alexander Stephens, who wrote in his infamous Cornerstone Speech that slavery was “the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution” and that the Confederacy had been founded on “the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.”
As I looked at the photograph on Wednesday, I thought of how the flag had expanded and evolved in meaning, how it had become a staple of Ku Klux Klan rallies, how it had been waved by white people attempting to intimidate Black children who were integrating schools after Brown v. Board of Education, how it had been made a part of flags in states whose legislatures worked tirelessly to disenfranchise Black citizens. And now it will forever be associated with the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, when the nation watched a new iteration of white-supremacist violence, incited by a deranged and cowardly president.
During the Civil War, the Confederate Army never reached the Capitol. The rebel flag, to my knowledge, had never been flown inside the halls of Congress until Wednesday. Two days ago, a man walked through the halls of government bearing the flag of a group of people who had seceded from the United States and gone to war against it. Then, presumably, he walked out—carrying so much of this country’s history with him.
Earlier this week I wrote about the disappointment and angst I felt when seeing flags and banners associating Jesus with the goings on at the Capitol on January 6. Associating the name of Jesus to sedition is blasphemous, and any so-called "Christian"--Paul the Apostle would refer to such a person as adelphos onomazomenos [cf. 1 Cor 5:11])--who does so would bring his withering quotation of Isaiah 52:5 in Romans 2:24 upon his or her head.
But as an American Christian--note: not a Christian American; the syntactical difference is all-important and a pointer to much of what is wrong with so much of what passes for White American Evangelicalism today--the sight of the Confederate flag in our nation's Capitol brought both deep sadness and righteous anger. It was the same response as what I had on July 3, 2008, when I saw that flag flying at a house in the former mill town of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania on the outskirts of Philadelphia. It was the same response I had a few years later when I saw that flag flying on a property in Parkesburg, Pennsylvania while passing on the train on my way from Lancaster to Philadelphia. Don't these people--in Pennsylvania, of all places--realize that an estimated 27,000 Pennsylvanians were killed in the Civil War to destroy everything that flag stood and stands for? Don't they realize that one of their own, Philadelphia's General George Gordon Meade, was the victor over what that flag stands for at the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in south-central Pennsylvania?
I am sick and tired of rationalizations to the effect that display of this flag is simply a matter of "heritage" or Southern "pride." As Joe Biden would say, Malarkey! (which also doesn't explain the presence of this flag on properties and pick-up trucks in the North). What is there to be proud of about a society and culture based on human chattel slavery? Yes, a Southern white person could take pride in their heritage of country music, though such postdates the time when that flag had relevance (and, I might add, just as a black Southerner could take pride in the blues and jazz music they created). But this is hardly what display of this flag is meant to signify.
Indeed, this is another matter entirely. The Confederate flag today is a symbol drenched in the despicable mythology of the Lost Cause. It is a tribal symbol of White Nationalism, one that associates America with its White "Christian" past and fears/resents the more culturally and ethnically diverse America that is developing. Indeed, that picture of a person carrying that flag in our nation's Capitol presented a moment of clarity. It showed, for the whole world to see, what the phenomenon of Trumpism signifies. It showed what dead-ender Trump cultists really stand for. Whether or not any of them really believe his endless lies is irrelevant. They see Donald Trump as the last, best hope for reversing the cultural and demographic trends they find threatening, and they were willing to commit insurrection to see him re-installed, however illegitimately, in the Oval Office. These seditionists were eventually repulsed on Wednesday. Finally. But for how long?
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