The Confederate Flag is not the Canadian Flag

An AP story of 8/13/08 details the efforts by Tennessee teen Tommy Defoe to be allowed to wear his confederate belt buckle and other confederate memorabilia to school, which would be currently a violuation of the school's written dress code. Naturally, the plaintiff alleges that it is a straightforward matter of freedom of speech. According to the AP article,

"DeFoe's lawsuit questions why other symbols aren't banned, including the Mexican flag, the Canadian flag, political campaign buttons and images of Martin Luther King Jr."

This is the sort of sophistry that, it seems to me, is an insult to freedom of speech and its preservation. In what context is there any reasonable juxtaposition of the Confederate and the Canadian or Mexican flags? Does the plaintiff really want to contend that the Confederate flag was just the flag of a country and not, in fact, the symbol of an arrogance and a way of life that arguably have left a legacy of poisonous relations between blacks and whites in this country to this day?

And the comparison to images of Dr. King?! Dr. King stood for non-violent resistance to racism, for the right to peaceful assembly to redress grievances, for the individual rights of the disenfranchised. Can anyone with a functioning conscience dare to stand up and say "the Confederacy and Dr. King -- it's really the same thing"?

A part of me agrees with what the hate speech apologists say: freedom of speech is freedom of speech; you can't pick and choose. And yet is there not a type of symbol and a kind of speech that is so dedicated purely to hate that we as a society can and should ban its use? Nazism and the Swastika come immediately to mind: both are banned in Germany. Does anyone doubt that freedom of expression is alive and well in Germany? Is the quality of German life diminished by the ban of something that seems to most of us to be emblematic of pure hatred?

Similarly, does the Conferderate flag not represent a most shameful past -- a time when white human beings could and did own black human beings and a time, after the emancipation proclamation, when white human beings could and did terrorize black human beings (activities which continue today in some parts of the south, no doubt by people who would love to see the Conferederate flag on every belt buckle in America)? And, more to the point, does it not represent racism today?

Perhaps that is the crux of the matter: both the Swastika and the Conferederate flag are of more than just historical significance; they both represent unfinished business in our societies: just as there are neo-nazis today who venerate and would like to see the return of nazi policies, there are confederacy worshippers here and now who yearn for the good ole days of the old south, when whites were in charge and darkies knew their place.

This is why it seems to me that these symbols belong in history books and museums, but not as part of anyone's personal adornment, nor flying above anyone's statehouse. In books and museums, they can enlighten and inform us about some of our less savory past, a past which deserves not to be swept under the rug, but not to be celebrated either. On someone's belt buckle -- or on a T-shirt or an armband, or a poster, or as graffitti -- the symbol is not "educational;" rather it is a proclamation of intent to keep alive the evil of racism and race hatred.