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On an Imperative to Educate People on the History of Race in America

photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. Statue profile at night

Many people don’t have much occasion to observe racism in the United States. This means that, for some, knowledge about the topic can only come in the form of testimony. Most of the things we know, we come to know not by investigating the matter personally, but instead on the basis of what we’ve been told by others. Human beings encounter all sorts of hurdles when it comes to attaining belief through testimony. Consider, for example, the challenges our country has faced when it comes to controlling the pandemic. The testimony and advice of experts in infectious disease are often tossed aside and even vilified in favor of instead accepting the viewpoints and advice from people on YouTube telling people what they want to hear.
This happens often when it comes to discussions of race. From the perspective of many, racism is the stuff of history books. Implementation of racist policies is the kind of thing that it would only be possible to observe in a black and white photograph; racism ended with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. There is already a strong tendency to engage in confirmation bias when it comes to this issue — people are inclined to believe that racism ended years ago, so they are resistant and often even offended when presented with testimonial evidence to the contrary. People are also inclined to seek out others who agree with their position, especially if those people are Black. As a result, even though the views of these individuals are not the consensus view, the fact that they are willing to articulate the idea that the country is not systemically racist makes these individuals tremendously popular with people who were inclined to believe them before they ever opened their mouths.
Listening to testimonial evidence can also be challenging for people because learning about our country’s racist past and about how that racism, present in all of our institutions, has not been completely eliminated in the course of fewer than 70 years, seems to conflict with their desire to be patriotic. For some, patriotism consists in loyalty, love, and pride for one’s country. If we are unwilling to accept American exceptionalism in all of its forms, how can we count ourselves as patriots?
In response to these concerns, many argue that blind patriotism is nothing more than the acceptance of propaganda. Defenders of such patriotism encourage people not to read books like Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Anti-racist or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, claiming that this work is “liberal brainwashing.” Book banning, either implemented by public policy or strongly encouraged by public sentiment has occurred so often and so nefariously that if one finds oneself on that side of the issue, there is good inductive evidence that one is on the wrong side of history. Responsible members of a community, members that want their country to be the best place it can be, should be willing to think critically about various positions, to engage and respond to them rather than to simply avoid them because they’ve been told that they are “unpatriotic.” Our country has such a problematic history when it comes to listening to Black voices, that when we’re being told we shouldn’t listen to Black accounts of Black history, our propaganda sensors should be on high alert.
Still others argue that projects that attempt to understand the full effects of racism, slavery, and segregation are counterproductive — they only lead to tribalism. We should relegate discussions of race to the past and move forward into a post-racial world with a commitment to unity and equality. In response to this, people argue that to tell a group of people that we should just abandon a thoroughgoing investigation into the history of their ancestors because engaging in such an inquiry causes too much division is itself a racist idea — one that defenders of the status quo have been articulating for centuries.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. beautifully articulates the value of understanding Black history in a passage from The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Even the Negroes’ contribution to the music of America is sometimes overlooked in astonishing ways. In 1965 my oldest son and daughter entered an integrated school in Atlanta. A few months later my wife and I were invited to attend a program entitled “Music that has made America great.” As the evening unfolded, we listened to the folk songs and melodies of the various immigrant groups. We were certain that the program would end with the most original of all American music, the Negro spiritual. But we were mistaken. Instead, all the students, including our children, ended the program by singing “Dixie.” As we rose to leave the hall, my wife and I looked at each other with a combination of indignation and amazement. All the students, black and white, all the parents present that night, and all the faculty members had been victimized by just another expression of America’s penchant for ignoring the Negro, making him invisible and making his contributions insignificant. I wept within that night. I wept for my children and all black children who have been denied a knowledge of their heritage; I wept for all white children, who, through daily miseducation, are taught that the Negro is an irrelevant entity in American society; I wept for all the white parents and teachers who are forced to overlook the fact that the wealth of cultural and technological progress in America is a result of the commonwealth of inpouring contributions.

Understanding the history of our people, all of them, fully and truthfully, is valuable for its own sake. It is also valuable for our actions going forward. We can’t understand who we are without understanding who we’ve been, and without understanding who we’ve been, we can’t construct a blueprint for who we want to be as a nation.
Originally published on February 24th, 2021

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Dispatch from the Monument Wars

photograph of Ulysses S. Grant Monument in Chicago

The nationwide protests sparked by George Floyd’s murder that roiled the nation this summer provided additional impetus to a process that has been ongoing since 2015: the dismantling of Confederate monuments. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently reported that at least 168 Confederate symbols in public spaces — including statutes, institution names, plaques and markers — were removed or renamed last year. Increasingly, however, other monuments have come under activists’ and community leaders’ crosshairs.

Chicago’s experience is emblematic of this new trend. Over the summer, statues of Christopher Columbus became focal points of demonstrations across the city, leading Mayor Lori Lightfoot to remove the statues in the middle of the night. Lightfoot also formed a committee composed of community leaders, artists, architects, scholars, curators, and city officials to conduct a thorough review of other public works of art to assess if they should be removed or changed, promising an “inclusive and democratic public dialogue” about the future of Chicago’s internationally acclaimed public art collection.

A few weeks ago, the Chicago Monuments Project Advisory Committee released a list of 41 “problematic” artworks slated for review. The list included numerous statues of Abraham Lincoln and Christopher Columbus, as well as statues of Ulysses S. Grant, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and William McKinley. In an editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times, the co-chairs of the Committee suggested that the reason for Lincoln and Grant’s inclusion concerned their roles in the forcible removal of Native Americans from their land.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that the Committee has not said what will be done with the monuments, the reaction in the local media has been mostly negative, with concerns about the transparency of the Committee’s deliberations — the Committee’s meetings during the first six months of work were kept secret — mingled with general alarm about the inclusion of great men on the list of works scheduled for review and possible removal. (No one seemed to shed a tear for the Italo Balbo Monument, which was gifted to the City of Chicago by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini). It is likely that those process concerns will be at least partly allayed by the Committee’s recent shift to a more public-facing posture, inviting feedback on its website, hosting a number of interactive speaker events, and soliciting proposals from artists for new monument ideas.

Still, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune is fairly representative of the local media response. “Take down Chicago statues of Lincoln? No.” makes two arguments. The first is that the moral standards of those who wish to reassess the commemorative landscape are too demanding: “some critics think every person we memorialize must be perfectly blameless by the standards of modern America.” The editorial sensibly replies that if this is the standard, then there will be no (or at least, very few) monuments. Because this is an obviously (?) undesirable result, those high standards ought to be abandoned. Instead, we should “weigh the good done by those who have been honored against their shortcomings, and in the context of their generation, not ours.” The second argument is that critics of the monuments are guilty of arrogance, believing that they are morally superior to “yesterday’s heroes.” Presumably, however, everyone has feet of clay, particularly by the standards of future generations. To avoid arrogance, then, we should not presume to stand in judgment of our forebears.

The Tribune’s arguments have the flavor of straw men, although it’s impossible to say whether they are right about at least some activists. At the heart of the Tribune’s argument is the assumption that activists are primarily interested in whether the subjects of monumental representations are blameworthy for what they’ve done by the standards of our own time. However, the much more relevant consideration seems to be what effect publicly expressing admiration for these men has on members of marginalized groups, regardless of whether they are to blame for what they did. Philosophers would distinguish these two considerations by calling the blameworthiness consideration backward-looking, concerning the basic desert of the subjects of monuments, while the consideration of effects is forward-looking, concerning the present and future consequences of honoring these individuals.

I have argued elsewhere that honoring individuals who either took part in, or expressed approval of, the oppression of currently marginalized groups can undermine the assurance of members of those groups that their basic moral and constitutional entitlements will be respected in their everyday interactions with others. Imagine for a moment living in a society in which individuals who approved of, or took part in, rights violations against members of the group to which you belong are the subjects of honorific monuments. Surely, this would make you doubt whether your society took your rights seriously. In my view, this is the primary, though not sole, reason why there is a strong prima facie moral case for modifying monuments to such individuals, and it has nothing to do with whether those individuals are blameworthy for what they did. Put another way: the movement to change the commemorative landscape should be about upholding the dignity of those who are currently marginalized, not punishing historical figures for past injustices. We need not stand in smug judgment of these figures in order to be concerned about the effects of honoring them.

If I am right about why we should care about these monuments, then there is good reason to consider how we honor figures like Lincoln and Grant. It’s not just that they were both morally flawed; more importantly given the considerations highlighted above, both of them played well-known roles in the oppression of Native Americans. Those roles should be emphasized in any honorific representation of these men in order to convey a properly balanced admiration tempered by acknowledgement of the injustices to which they contributed. This does not, it should be said, entail removal of the monuments. Various forms of recontextualization are possible and perhaps preferable, including the addition of signage or other monuments and artworks.

Another conservative argument against modifying or removing monuments goes like this. We owe a debt of gratitude to people like Lincoln and Grant for helping to build a more just society. We express that gratitude through honoring them. Thus, we are positively obligated to honor these individuals by creating and maintaining honorific representations of them. The problem with this argument is that even if we concede that we have a gratitude-based obligation to our illustrious forebears, there are many ways we could conceivably discharge that obligation other than creating monuments to them. Furthermore, even if creating monuments were the only way to discharge the obligation, there is no reason why those monuments could not be properly contextualized so as to avoid the damaging effects highlighted above.

It must be conceded, however, that there is an inherent tension between the goals of honoring an individual and providing proper historical context for understanding that individual’s attitudes and actions. The former goal aims at having an emotional impact; the other aims at encouraging a less emotional, reflective attitude. Again, the former goal aims at encouraging admiration and appreciation for an individual; the latter aims at tempering that admiration. Perhaps my preference for a properly balanced appreciation reflects an intellectual cast of mind that does not fully appreciate the role of emotion in civic life.

Nevertheless, for the reasons set out above, I believe that the attitudes of admiration and esteem that monuments encourage us to develop towards their subjects can be dangerous, and should be kept within their proper bounds. I would rather live in a world in which there is less unqualified admiration for Christopher Columbus or even Abraham Lincoln, if that meant that members of marginalized groups had greater assurance that their rights would be respected.

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On an Imperative to Educate People on the History of Race in America

photograph of Selma anniversary march at Edmund Pettus Bridge featuring Barack Obama and John Lewis

Many people don’t have much occasion to observe racism in the United States. This means that, for some, knowledge about the topic can only come in the form of testimony. Most of the things we know, we come to know not by investigating the matter personally, but instead on the basis of what we’ve been told by others. Human beings encounter all sorts of hurdles when it comes to attaining belief through testimony. Consider, for example, the challenges our country has faced when it comes to controlling the pandemic. The testimony and advice of experts in infectious disease are often tossed aside and even vilified in favor of instead accepting the viewpoints and advice from people on YouTube telling people what they want to hear.

This happens often when it comes to discussions of race. From the perspective of many, racism is the stuff of history books. Implementation of racist policies is the kind of thing that it would only be possible to observe in a black and white photograph; racism ended with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. There is already a strong tendency to engage in confirmation bias when it comes to this issue — people are inclined to believe that racism ended years ago, so they are resistant and often even offended when presented with testimonial evidence to the contrary. People are also inclined to seek out others who agree with their position, especially if those people are Black. As a result, even though the views of these individuals are not the consensus view, the fact that they are willing to articulate the idea that the country is not systemically racist makes these individuals tremendously popular with people who were inclined to believe them before they ever opened their mouths.

Listening to testimonial evidence can also be challenging for people because learning about our country’s racist past and about how that racism, present in all of our institutions, has not been completely eliminated in the course of fewer than 70 years, seems to conflict with their desire to be patriotic. For some, patriotism consists in loyalty, love, and pride for one’s country. If we are unwilling to accept American exceptionalism in all of its forms, how can we count ourselves as patriots?

In response to these concerns, many argue that blind patriotism is nothing more than the acceptance of propaganda. Defenders of such patriotism encourage people not to read books like Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Anti-racist or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, claiming that this work is “liberal brainwashing.” Book banning, either implemented by public policy or strongly encouraged by public sentiment has occurred so often and so nefariously that if one finds oneself on that side of the issue, there is good inductive evidence that one is on the wrong side of history. Responsible members of a community, members that want their country to be the best place it can be, should be willing to think critically about various positions, to engage and respond to them rather than to simply avoid them because they’ve been told that they are “unpatriotic.” Our country has such a problematic history when it comes to listening to Black voices, that when we’re being told we shouldn’t listen to Black accounts of Black history, our propaganda sensors should be on high alert.

Still others argue that projects that attempt to understand the full effects of racism, slavery, and segregation are counterproductive — they only lead to tribalism. We should relegate discussions of race to the past and move forward into a post-racial world with a commitment to unity and equality. In response to this, people argue that to tell a group of people that we should just abandon a thoroughgoing investigation into the history of their ancestors because engaging in such an inquiry causes too much division is itself a racist idea — one that defenders of the status quo have been articulating for centuries.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. beautifully articulates the value of understanding Black history in a passage from The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Even the Negroes’ contribution to the music of America is sometimes overlooked in astonishing ways. In 1965 my oldest son and daughter entered an integrated school in Atlanta. A few months later my wife and I were invited to attend a program entitled “Music that has made America great.” As the evening unfolded, we listened to the folk songs and melodies of the various immigrant groups. We were certain that the program would end with the most original of all American music, the Negro spiritual. But we were mistaken. Instead, all the students, including our children, ended the program by singing “Dixie.” As we rose to leave the hall, my wife and I looked at each other with a combination of indignation and amazement. All the students, black and white, all the parents present that night, and all the faculty members had been victimized by just another expression of America’s penchant for ignoring the Negro, making him invisible and making his contributions insignificant. I wept within that night. I wept for my children and all black children who have been denied a knowledge of their heritage; I wept for all white children, who, through daily miseducation, are taught that the Negro is an irrelevant entity in American society; I wept for all the white parents and teachers who are forced to overlook the fact that the wealth of cultural and technological progress in America is a result of the commonwealth of inpouring contributions.

Understanding the history of our people, all of them, fully and truthfully, is valuable for its own sake. It is also valuable for our actions going forward. We can’t understand who we are without understanding who we’ve been, and without understanding who we’ve been, we can’t construct a blueprint for who we want to be as a nation.

Originally published on February 24th, 2021

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The Problem and Potential of Provincialism

painting symbolizing Manifest Destiny

In most respects, the United States is isolated and protected from the problems of the world. While WWI and WWII devastated much of the world, the wars never made it to US soil. The geography and military capability of the United States made sure of that. And, afterward, US economic and political dominance only grew. The US dollar became the world’s reserve currency. Excepting natural disaster, the only structural damage that comes to the US comes at its own hand.

As such, Americans are exceptionally ignorant of world affairs. We may be better informed than the impoverished of many nations in the Global South, but this comparative advantage is easily explained by our increased access to information. Compared to the industrialized nations in Europe, the United States is greatly outperformed in knowledge of world affairs.

The vast majority of the time, Americans have no reason to think or care about the world. This fact is well-known enough to be a subject for jokes. In the very first episode of the YouTube series, Crash Course US History hosted by author and educator John Green, Green comments on his desktop globe, which has every land region painted over in green except the United States. This is tongue-in-cheek of course, but the joke only works because it has truth to it. Though the people of all countries put their domestic affairs ahead of international ones in most cases, Americans are unique in their utter disregard for problems that do not directly affect them. Here, we are safe. Here, we are free.

But in recent times, we have experienced an exception to the rule. Viruses do not much respect borders and tend to ignore the customs agents. So, the global problem of COVID-19 has seeped into even the smallest, most rural towns in the country. In this rare case, the global problem—as John Green would say, the problem of “the green parts of Not-America”—has become a domestic issue. And so, unlike most every problem of Not-America, COVID-19 is getting tons of mainstream news coverage and many Americans are paying attention to what is happening in Italy, in Korea, in China, and elsewhere, if only to get ahead of their own domestic experience of the virus.

The term for this sort of behavior, common to Americans, is “provincialism,” or, less kindly, “parochialism.” And, as I have presented it so far, associating it with terms like “ignorance” and “disregard,” I seem to be presenting it as a moral flaw of the American populace. But, the idea that this is a flaw is not so clear.

The United States government, like increasingly many governments nowadays, is a representative democracy. Because it is impractical for every citizen to vote on every issue, both for logistical reasons and because it is difficult to assure everyone has expertise on every issue, we elect representatives to decide on political solutions for us. And today, our representatives themselves tend to rely on still other people to guide them because the political issues of today, unlike in 1783, are so much more complex. It is quite unreasonable to expect even a representative to form an opinion on how to approach climate change, or the efficacy of different tax incentive structures, based on the raw data. In the United States, the Congressional Research Service provides detailed analysis for our representatives to use in making their decisions. If we have such a resource, why does every citizen really need to know what is happening in Myanmar, Monaco, or Malawi? So long as each of us acts in our self-interest, so long as we elect representatives who act in accordance with those interests, and so long as those representatives are informed by such reputable sources as the CRS, there seems to be no need for widespread citizen awareness of global affairs. Our province is all we need know.

In the ideal case, this argument obtains. But, reality—in all its stubbornness—rarely chooses to conform to our ideals. The problem of idealism failing when met with reality is well encapsulated in a famous quote from Roman poet Juvenal: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchers? Representative democracy is already nonideal. In the truly ideal society, every citizen would have perfect knowledge, would be able to apply that knowledge to their self-interest, and would vote in accordance with that self-interest. Representative democracy is a compromise. And so is our representatives’ dependence on the CRS. As the knowledge of truth and falsehood becomes concentrated in the hands of the few, there is little room to question the government. For what do you know compared to your representatives, or they compared to the scholars of the CRS?

Thomas Jefferson recognized this problem long before our time. He wrote in a letter to George Wythe that “I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowlege among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness.” In his time, the people were to trust kings and priests and in light of the oppression that came along with that trust he wrote: “Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils” for “kings, priests and nobles. . . will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.” Unfortunately, now we the people have been left in ignorance, by our own hands as well as by the news media who respond to our demand only for news of domestic affairs, unless of course, some bombs are being dropped in some exotic locale.

This is not only worse for us, but for all the people of the world. A focus on domestic affairs encourages Americans and their representatives to value their own interests above those of others, even to the point of taking actions to superficially benefit themselves when, as a whole, those actions hurt them as well as others.

The prototypical example of this can be found in the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the United States government has attempted to hoard medical supplies, including N-95 rated masks, particularly by banning their export to other countries. While these bans were partially lifted later on, that they were ever instituted at all—and allowed to persist even in a limited capacity—is testament to our short-sighted self-interest. In a classic case of game theory brought to life, when these bans are instituted, other nations retaliate, and, on the whole, everyone is left worse off.

“But,” you might say, “you’re demanding the unreasonable and the impossible. How are we, a nation of people working so much, to stay up-to-date on global affairs? How are we, as a collective, to ignore our self-interest?” And you would be right to ask these questions. Thomas Jefferson was, for better or worse, fairly idealistic. Some people just don’t care. And we can’t make them care. The issue, then, is better presented as an either-or.

Either we find a way to approach the impossible, perhaps by way of expanded public education and incentivizing knowledge of global affairs, or we find a way to assure our representatives are tied to the truth, unable to act indifferently to it. There are good arguments for a limited sort of parochialism. In practice, market-based economic systems like those of most industrialized countries, do not rely on consumers having perfect knowledge, and yet they seem to work fairly well at efficiently allocating goods.

In a similar way, utilitarianism is often chided for demanding practitioners to consider how their actions could affect the whole of humanity for all time. Not only is it impossible to do so for our finite minds, but any attempt to do so can be paralyzing. There is a great deal of allure to leaders who take decisive action, even if they have not considered the problem they seek to solve at great length, seeking the perfect solution. In reality, decisions have to be made with some rapidity.

The solution to the problem of parochialism is unclear, and though in practice it provides great efficiency, its trade-off is increased uncertainty on the part of most people, and the potential for oppression by leaders whose knowledge greatly exceeds that of their citizens. As the aphorism goes, scientia potentia est. Knowledge is power. And since we also know “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” by the transitive property we can deduce, absolute knowledge corrupts absolutely.

COVID-19 has demonstrated some of these flaws, particularly with the more severe parochialism to which Americans are uniquely subject. But due to the rarity of such situations where the global affects the domestic in such an extraordinary way, it is questionable whether Americans will do much to abrogate their parochialism and whether, in fact, they should. Nonetheless, even if the pursuit of knowledge necessary for an ideal citizenry is unobtainable, the citizenry, ideally, will find it necessary to have knowledge of that pursuit. Only then will we know how to go forward, how much we ought to depend on the few holding our collective knowledge, how much we should seek to understand ourselves, and whether our seeking should include global affairs or only those of our own provinces.

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Where Does the Confederate Battle Flag Belong Today?

Political pressure is mounting for the removal of the Confederate battle flag that flies on the state grounds of South Carolina in the wake of the Charleston Church shooting. In recent years, public debate over the flag that symbolizes racism to some and heritage to others has intensified. The divergent views towards the flag inflamed intense public dialogues about racism, culture and history ever since the mid-1950s. Under this circumstance in 1993, United States Senator from Illinois Carol Moseley-Braun claimed “it is a fundamental mistake to believe that one’s own perception of a flag’s meaning is the only legitimate meaning.”

As Moseley-Braun suggested, people should not impose one’s interpretation of the flag to others, and seeking to understand why people are offended by it and why people preserve it are actions that are necessary to take as educated citizens. In order to fully comprehend the implications that the flag gives to a diverse public, understanding the entire history of this symbol would become necessary as people from different backgrounds from a wide range of generations view the flag from a variety of perspectives.

Unlike common belief, during the Civil War the Confederate battle flag did not explicitly symbolize racism nor slavery. Among the southern white population, less than 5% were slave owners, and thus, the majority of the Confederate soldiers did not own slave property. Racism prevailed both in the Union and the Confederacy as both parties did not give African Americans the right to vote and fundamental human rights. In fact, historian James McPherson argues that the main Confederate “cause” of the Civil War was to preserve their country and the legacy of the Founding Fathers, which derived from southern nationalism. As Lincoln recalled in his Second Inaugural Address in 1865, that slavery was “somehow the cause of the war,” the modern debate arguing that the Civil War about slavery, and therefore, the battle flag represents slavery is a mere simplification of history. The war was centralized on the issue on slavery, but one cannot naively generalize that all Confederate soldiers were committed to slavery and supported going to war for that cause.

The history of the flag does not end with the Civil War, but expands after World War II with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. To many people’s surprise, the proliferation of the Confederate battle flag happened after 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional via the Brown v. Board of Education case. Although segregation was illegal, many southern states were reluctant to integrate schools. To show their resistance against integration, the Confederate battle flag came back in the public sphere.

The following year of the Brown case, George Wallace, governor of Alabama, raised the flag as part of his “Segregation Forever” campaign and endorsed it as a symbol of resistance. Not only political figures, but also segregationists brandished the flag to contest integration. It was at this time when the flag entered American popular culture as a symbol of opposition to integration, as Jonathan Daniels, editor of Raleigh News & Observer, lamented in 1965 that the flag had become “just confetti in careless hands.”

So, how should governments, corporations and individual citizens cope with a cultural icon that ignites intense debates? One must acknowledge the difference between public and private display of this flag. Public display of the flag (e.g. on the South Carolina state grounds) should be prohibited with the understanding that this flag symbolizes racism for a wide majority of the public. A governmental institution should not naively display a symbol of racism and show innocence in front of people who are offended by it. One must ask: “what would it be like for a Black citizen living in a state where a symbol of racism waves on the state ground?” Confederate flag images can harass or intimidate citizens and the government must not endorse such figure on its public ground. Moreover, the presence of the flag on the state ground excludes and ignores the population who do not honor it.

On the other hand, it is essential to distinguish between the flag as a memorial and the flag as a symbol of exclusion. The Civil War is undeniably a fundamental part of American history and culture, whose events still fascinate many Americans today. The history of the Confederacy is as valuable as the history of the Union, and no one can erase the four years that the two parties had fought. It is necessary to acknowledge that for many southerners, the Confederacy is part of their family history and the flag is a tool to honor their ancestors. Confederate heritage organizations have the right to privately use this symbol with the understanding that explicit use of the Confederate battle flag may offend others who are uncomfortable with it.

We live in a country where people come from different cultures, nationalities, and family backgrounds, and therefore, it is natural that there is a variety of perspectives on how one considers the Confederate battle flag. Many Confederate descendants look at the flag as a symbol of heritage, but this does not make the flag an honorable icon for everyone. A large number of people view the flag as a symbol of racism, but no one can assume that everyone who raises the flag is a racist. However, a governmental institution must consider the negative implications that this icon gives to the public. Even in private settings, no one can naively use this powerful symbol without considering the message that this flag might give to a wide public. In sum, seeking to understand the diverse meanings of the flag and engaging in honest dialogues would lead us to a better understanding of the proper place of the Confederate battle flag in modern day society.

 

References

Edward Pessen, “How Different from Each Other Were the Antebellum North and South?” American Historical Review 85 (1980): 1119-49.

James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

John M. Coski, The Confederate Battle Flag: America’s Most Embattled Emblem (Cambridge, MA : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005).