Point: This Memorial Day, It’s Time to Retire the Confederate Flag

It’s time that we southerners voluntarily choose to retire the Confederate flag.

Not because we were bullied into it. Not because somebody in Congress passed a law against it. Not because somebody got their feelings hurt. And not because it’s been misappropriated by racist ignoramuses.  Instead we should retire it because it’s the right thing to do – the time has come for us to finally end the war and focus our attention on symbols that can bring people together.  The Confederate flag has never done that and can never do that, simply because of what it stands for – the biggest and bloodiest mistake ever made by the American people in our history.

Memorial Day has its roots in the Civil War, and was first commemorated as “decoration day” – a day when mourners would place flowers on the graves of the hundreds of thousands of Americans, both northern and southern, who perished in that conflict.  After World War I, it was expanded to remember all those who have given their lives in America’s wars throughout our history.  Since 1971, it has been a federal holiday.  As we pause in our national life to reflect on the price so many Americans have paid on behalf of their fellow Americans, I think now is as good a time as any to discuss finally retiring one of our most bitterly divisive symbols.

In an era where the American public is more divided than at any time since what will forever be remembered by us southrons as “The War,” it’s disconcerting to me to see so many of us reaching so often for such a divisive symbol.  My argument here isn’t focused on what those who see the flag think of it, because those opinions vary widely.  It’s based on the reasons why those who choose to fly the flag do so.  It’s time we ask ourselves, are those reasons sufficient justification to use such a divisive symbol, one that has been so deeply ingrained on the American psyche that it brings powerful emotions out in people seeing it, even though we are over one hundred and fifty years removed from Appomattox and the fall of Richmond?  What do we gain by continuing to embrace such a potent symbol of American democracy’s closest brush with extinction?

At this point, I think the costs outweigh the benefits.  Now, more than ever, we need symbols of a united America to rally around, and we need to put away the symbols that divide us.  There are better and less divisive ways to display and reflect our heritage, and far better ways to mourn and remember the dead.

Before I get called a Yankee, let me be clear – I’ve always taken pride at being born south of the Mason-Dixon, and of my family’s heritage.  As far back as I can find on my mother’s side, my family has resided in Virginia, and even on my father’s side, the Scots-Irish portion of the family (the other half was obviously German, as my last name can attest) I can trace our lineage back to the first member of our family born in Virginia, in 1627.  I’ve read more books about the war than I can count, from both northern and southern perspectives, and I’ve read plenty of contemporary documents, from the Congressional Globe and the records of the Confederate Congress, to the nine volume set of the complete works of Abraham Lincoln that sits on my shelf today.

The one thing that my studies of the war have proven to me is that we’ve come a great distance since the 1860s, in a variety of ways.  And in many ways, we have far to go.  One thing I do know for sure is that constantly dredging up the past in such a divisive way is not healthy.  The Confederate flag and the constant debate we have over it is a sea anchor that keeps us from moving forward together as a united people. It hearkens us back to an era when we were so divided politically, tens of thousands of Americans were willing to break their oaths to the Constitution and try to go their own way.  How is constantly reminding ourselves of that time in history healthy, especially when those flying the flag aren’t doing so to remind us of the folly of disunion? Usually it’s just the opposite.

Why do people continue to fly the Confederate flag?  There are a variety of reasons, but I find none of them compelling today.  Leaving aside the racists, the most common answer you will hear is “it’s our heritage,” “it’s history” or “to honor those who died.”  I understand the reasoning behind those arguments, but with due respect to those who make them, I think the time has passed when those answers alone are good enough to justify the damage to the fabric of the body politic the flag has caused and still causes today.

If we want to express our heritage – even our heritage as southerners – there are more appropriate symbols we can choose.  I fly an American flag in front of my house, and a smaller Virginia flag hangs near my driveway.  The flag of Virginia flew over the capital of the Confederacy and it bears none of the divisive undertones that come along with the Confederate battle flag, or even the various Confederate national flags or southern-identified flags often do.  In the past I’ve advocated flying less conspicuous Confederate flags, like the Stars and Bars or the Bonnie Blue, but those flags are only lesser known examples of the same divisive philosophy.  Flying a flag that is a symbol of rebellion and disunity, even if it’s not that famous or hasn’t been appropriated by white supremacists, is really no more virtuous than flying their more famous brethren.

If you have difficulty accepting how divisive the Confederate flag can be, notwithstanding the racism argument, let’s look at other similarly divisive symbols and the motivations of those who use them.  Many of the same people who would choose to fly the Confederate flag would not accept the “heritage” argument when those of Hispanic descent fly Mexican flags in protest, whether of the presumptive GOP nominee or as a way to express latino solidarity.  They get angry, because they see flying the Mexican flag as both unAmerican and unpatriotic, but also as a blatant attempt to divide us.  Which it is.  It’s the same thing as wearing Cowboys gear to a Redskins game, or Red Sox gear in the Bronx.  Your avowed purpose is to support your team, but everybody who has worn an opponent’s jersey into their home territory also know that it’s a way to give a one-finger salute to the other guys.  It’s deliberately provocative.  Those who blithely stand by and say “it’s heritage” should know better than to pretend that our heritage is not a heritage that was racked by bitter conflict, suffering, death and humiliating defeat.  So difficult a heritage that the scars of it remain almost a century and a half after the last man fell on the last battlefield, and the last soldier put down his rifle and went home.  Yes, it’s heritage.  But it’s not always a heritage we should choose to celebrate.

When America is this divided politically – when we are all too often coming to blows in the street, where people are openly urging secession and disunity, and where peaceful protests rarely remain peaceful for long, we no longer have the luxury of embracing disunity and defending our actions by claiming “history” or “heritage.”  We are faced with a more important need – finding ways to bind up the nation’s wounds and ways to remind us that we remain out of many, one people.  One way to do that is to put this most divisive symbol away, for good.

As the saying goes, only Nixon could go to China.  Those of us who are proud of our Southern heritage are the only ones who can end this debate by doing the same thing our forefathers did at Appomattox.  As part of our efforts to heal the wounds that remain and bring our people closer together, we should choose to respectfully lower that flag, knowing that we do so not because we were compelled to, but because we chose to.  Because we want to help do our part to bring America closer together in this time of division.

What better day than Memorial Day to embrace the future those who died gave us by letting go of the past and focusing on what we all share?

Regardless of section, we are all Americans, now and forever.