Time to rebel against Confederate flag

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/06/2015 (3969 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last week, an angry young white man named Dylann Roof walked into a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., and opened fire, murdering nine black churchgoers.

In the days following the horrific hate crime, a debate has resurfaced around the Confederate flag. You know, the flag that continues to fly full-staff at the state capitol. The flag many rightly consider a symbol of white supremacy — the ideology to which Roof subscribed.

There should be no debate about the Confederate flag in 2015. That it continues to fly and isn’t under glass in a dusty museum somewhere is an affront.

Yet, this symbol of racism and oppression remains an ubiquitous image in pop culture, branded on everything from bikinis to pocket knives. (That could start to change: This week, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley called for the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol, while Walmart, Sears, Amazon and eBay have said they will stop retailing Confederate merchandise.)

“The Confederate flag is one of those symbols that should really only be seen on T-shirts, belt buckles and bumper stickers to help the rest of us identify the worst people in the world,” comedian John Oliver quipped on Sunday night’s episode of Last Week Tonight.

Yeah, like ignorant Canadians who wave it every summer in the name of “Southern pride” at country music festivals.

In 2013, a colleague of mine wrote an article for Vice about Dauphin’s Countryfest — that annual back-40 bro-down known for its hard-partying atmosphere. He saw “over a dozen” campers flying Confederate flags. (When I covered Countryfest for this paper last year, I didn’t spot any flags for myself, but I do recall seeing the odd article of clothing). At the 2014 Boots and Hearts Festival in Bowman, Ont., a Mississauga woman filed a human rights complaint after Confederate flag-waving festivalgoers verbally harassed her.

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Those are just two examples, and Canadian examples at that.

That the Confederate flag continues to turn up at country music festivals is disappointing, but it isn’t surprising. For many of the country music fans who wear it — like Canadians well north of the Mason-Dixon line — the Confederate flag is meant to serve as a shorthand for I Enjoy Certain Aspects Of Southern Culture. To those people, it’s nothing more than a bit of good ol’ boys Americana. As Brad Paisley sang of his Confederate T-shirt on his terribly titled 2013 song Accidental Racist: “I hope you understand/When I put on that t-shirt/The only thing I meant to say/Is I’m a Skynyrd fan.” (Eh, I don’t know, Brad. Pretty sure a Jack Daniel’s T-shirt would do the same job.)

But there are no accidental racists. There are racists, and then there are ignorant people whose entire knowledge of the Confederate flag comes from Dukes of Hazzard. Those people would do well to listen to the people for whom the Confederate flag is a painful reminder not only of a dark period in American history, but of the fact that racism is alive and well in 2015. For them, the only culture being celebrated by the Confederate flag is one that raises young men like Dylann Roof.

Consider that if you’re headed to Countryfest this weekend, and adjust your campground decor accordingly.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Jen Zoratti
Columnist

Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen.

Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.