Above: Participants in Charlottesville’s “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017. The rally gained national attention for the violence between participants and counter-protesters, which killed one person. Among other things, the event set off new debates about the role of the Confederate flag in American culture.
Above: Participants in Charlottesville’s “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017. The rally gained national attention for the violence between participants and counter protesters, which killed one person. Among other things, the event set off new debates about the role of the Confederate flag in American culture.
Today, the Confederate flag is a complicated national symbol. But it wasn’t always that way. Back in 1861, when soldiers in Robert E. Lee’s branch of the Confederate forces brandished it during the Civil War, the Confederate flag was simply the unofficial flag of a rebelling faction. Even amongst Northerners, its meaning was relatively noncontroversial—most associated the flag with Southern defiance and pride rather than slavery and racism. In the period immediately following the war, the flag had little political significance. In fact, with few exceptions, it wasn’t flown at all until the late 1940s, when the Truman Administration proposed federal Civil Rights legislation. As if overnight, the “Dixie flag” became a symbol of states’ rights, and Southerners rallied behind it to preserve their autonomy over segregation. While segregation has faded, the flag remains as strong as ever.
How does the Confederate flag fit into the culture of Saline High School? Dru Campbell, a junior, tells me that most of the time, the flag is a symbol of racism. To a biracial student like Campbell, the flag’s connection to the Confederacy hits a little too close to home. “My grandfather was heavily discriminated against when he was younger and in his mid-age,” Campbell says, “so that side of my family is very oriented to that flag as a sign of racism.” He points out the events of Charlottesville, Virginia, two years ago, where hundreds of white nationalists at a Unite the Right rally clashed with counter protesters. “[The white nationalists] all had the American flag,” he says, “but they had the Confederate flag right next to it.” To Campbell, the connection between the Confederate flag to White supremacy is undeniable. When asked if a stranger displaying a Confederate flag could be considered racist, though, Campbell takes a more nuanced approach: he would make no assumptions at all. “It’s sort of an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ kind of thing,” he says.
For senior John Hughes, the flag means something different. “You get to display your own ideas without hesitation or restriction from other people,” he tells me. “The American ideal is that you get to support what you want and display what you want.”
Hughes isn’t wrong. The Supreme Court has guaranteed all forms of free speech in schools, except for speech that would “materially and substantially interfere” with the operations of the school, and wearing a shirt with the Confederate flag on it hardly constitutes such a disturbance—even if it does garner a few prolonged stares.
It’s tricky to decide where to stand on issues of free speech and equality. On the one hand, restricting students’ right to display controversial symbols like the Confederate flag would likely be considered a step in the right direction by students of color and their allies. Regardless of who flies it, the Confederate flag will always be a reminder of racism to some. That said, a considerable number of people that fly the Confederate flag are not racial extremists; rather, they are ordinary people who are expressing themselves, as the law allows. With free speech, there will always be a contradiction between the values of freedom and equality, and it’s up to us to choose: which do we value more?
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