Flag Flying...

My hubby and I recently started watching Sports Night on Hulu. (Love Hulu!) I’d caught part of the series during its original run back in the late 90’s and thought it was great. And seriously underrated. It was cancelled after just two seasons. Starting from the series’ beginning, I’m seeing episodes I missed the first time. The one we watched tonight was the best one yet. Titled Six Southern Gentlemen, the episode chronicles (among others storylines) a fictionalized college football star at a southern university who stands up to his school’s displaying of the Confederate flag by refusing to play until they remove it. Viewers learn as the story proceeds that his team and his school are going to cut him loose, potentially derailing his dreams of earning a degree, which his full football scholarship was funding. Besides this obvious drama, friction is caused when managing editor Isaac Jaffe—masterfully portrayed by the great Robert Guillaume—is battling an internal struggle to either ignore the situation in deference to his southern-gentleman-boss or make an on-air editorial in support of the young man, possibly risking his job. It’s a beautifully written and acted episode. What hit me most was his actual editorial (which I suppose it was designed to do), especially this part where he takes on the often referenced “tradition” and “heritage” of the flag itself: 

“In the history of the South, there's much to celebrate. And that flag is a desecration of all of it. It's a banner of hatred and separatism. It's a banner of ignorance and violence and a war that pitted brother against brother, and to ask young black men and women, young Jewish men and women, Asians, Native Americans, to ask Americans to walk beneath its shadow is a humiliation of irreducible proportions. And we all know it.”

If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know I was raised in Florida. While Florida is the adopted home state of many transplants from a variety of places and often doesn’t closely resemble the other southern states, there remains an element of “southern pride” there. And the South does, indeed, offer a lot for which to be proud: a fine and varied musical tradition that includes bluegrass, jazz, rock n' roll, and the blues; lovely architecture that often invites the outdoors in; biscuits and gravy (oh yes, I said it!); and an amazing literary ancestry, including such greats as Mark Twain, Harper Lee, William Faulkner, Zora Neal Hurston, Edgar Allan Poe, Alice Walker, and Tennessee Williams (to name a few). A short list from the top of my head that is certainly incomplete. But none of this culture and beauty that the South has to offer has anything to do with stars and bars on a red background.

I remember seeing my share of Confederate flags growing up. As a child, I didn’t possess the depth or historical knowledge to fully grasp the flag and the scope of its meaning. I even remember, at one point, having a “Dixie” pin. I cannot fathom where I got that, but I knew the design meant something about being a rebel--which, honestly, I associated with Star Wars, rather than with a life-and-death insurrection over slavery. In junior high and high school, I learned much more American history, and that pin was promptly trashed once I learned of all that design encompasses. I have read and heard many people defend the Confederate flag as “heritage, not hate”. I have seen—as I did earlier today—people flying that flag in their front yards or driving around town with it affixed the backs of their cars and trucks. These folks remain unmoved in defending their “heritage”; an antiquated identity which is apparently wrapped up in a flag from a “nation” that went belly-up 151 years ago. (Please join us in the 21st century.) It’s insane to me that this debate about displaying that flag still exists. That quote above, from a short-lived television show, perfectly cuts through all the nonsensical justifications for displaying that flag by cutting to the heart of it: the Confederate flag represents a heritage of hate. 

Why keep displaying a symbol of hatred that is a mortifying representation of our nation at its worst, and is rightfully offensive to so many of our citizens? Especially when we could choose to focus on the many positive things, the many similarities that we Americans share. How about we foster a heritage of peace, respect, and love? I'd fly that flag on the back of my vehicle any day.