The Confederate flag debate is keeping some potentially productive people out of trouble by shifting their minds from genuine problems to safely benign “issues.” While the country teems with political questions begging answers, a few folks down in the Southern states seem to think that evil embodied is flying atop their state capitols. Well, maybe, but we might as well let it fly for the time being, as its relative harm is minimal.
A quick, critical gander at the debate shows that this topic is both useful and ridiculous: useful because racism is a disturbing problem; ridiculous because the Confederate flag is the wrong tree, and a lot of seemingly intelligent people are barking at the bottom. The fact that so many protesters have worked themselves into a tizzy over this absurd debate can only make the federal government as happy as a clam in high tide. If citizens’ time is occupied with inconsequential nonsense, no one will step back and see the larger picture.

Opponents of the Confederate flag — composed, as you might imagine, of members of the African-American community along with academics of the NPR variety — claim that the flag represents slavery, hatred and everything else wrong in Dixie. The other side — a comfortably homogenous crowd of white individuals — insists that the flag symbolizes its grand Southern heritage. That, in a proverbial nutshell, is the playing field, the teams and the general extent of the controversy.
And all of it is horribly misguided. The debate’s appeal is similar to a blind boxing match: interesting as a perverse curiosity, but without much intellectual substance.
Opponents of the flag overlook the fact that most slaves were imported not by the Confederacy, but under the dubious auspices of the much-revered Stars and Stripes. Moreover, the United States has been the purveyor of many more atrocities than were ever committed at the hand of Jeff Davis and the short-lived Confederate States of America. Indian reservations, the internment of Japanese-Americans and — let’s face it — just about every war since 1848 in which this country has been involved have all been based on racist beliefs and headed by those in Washington, not Richmond. Racial segregation, specifically in the South, continued for many years after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, and students from Louisville to New Orleans recited the Pledge of Allegiance throughout these years. Beyond these comparisons, though, the notion that abolishing a piece of cloth could halt racism in its tracks is about as flimsy as relying on the Ten Commandments to stop school violence.
Granted, the Confederate flag is an important symbol for many contemporary racists, who have adopted it as representative of their own half-witted ideology. Boy George would have more influence at a Ku Klux Klan rally than these hayseed pundits exert in modern politics, however. The genuine threat to liberty resides more with the club of Rich White People in Washington than it ever will with a group of good ol’ boys in South Carolina. If racism is a real concern, you might have a word, for example, with those who create policy for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. That’s racism in a very active, tangible sense, carried out in the name of the United States of America.
In the other delusional corner, those who advocate the flag as a piece of historical beauty have yet to portray themselves in the brightest light. Mississippi resident Justin McNamee was quoted in a recent Associated Press article as saying, “What that flag means is freedom.” Sure. Keep voting and drinking beer, buddy; you’re doing your government an incalculable favor. Flags in no way represent freedom, and this man’s reasoning mirrors that of people who pad around with ‘Free Burma-Myanmar/Tibet/Etc.’ patches on their backpacks. Free them from what, and unto whom? Shifting control of a country from one government to another is anything but a liberation.
Digressions aside, governments are not concerned with the liberty of their citizens. Vaclav Havel (president of the Czech Republic, ironically) put it quite succinctly when he said that our political systems serve people only to the extent necessary that people will serve them, and Edward Abbey was right when he noted that freedom begins between the ears. Political flags of any persuasion — not merely the Nazi or Confederate flags — are symbols of repression. All of which is important only if you choose to vest as much of yourself in an abstract symbol as those on both sides of the Confederate flag debate.
My suspicion is that both the NAACP and the white establishment could, if they so desired, find more important projects on which to spend their time. Instead, they’ve succeeded only in drawing an outrageous number of people into an inane, one-dimensional squabble.