Flagging Enthusiasm 1

Up the road a piece, the city of Lexington turned down a request from the Sons of Confederate Veterans to festoon the city in Confederate flags on January 10-15, 2011, in honor of the Virginia holiday, Lee-Jackson Day (Dennis G. has written extensively of the SCV at Balloon Juice). The city agreed to allow the display on January 10-13, but not on 14-15, when plans already existed to display United States and Virginia flags in honor of Dr. King.

Some folks felt that flying it on Martin Luther King Day was inappropriate. Imagine that.

Apparently the SCV felt that it had already conceded enough in voluntarily not displaying the Confederate Battle Ensign (what most folks think of as the “Confederate flag”) and cannot understand why some would object to flying Confederate flags on the day set aside in remembrance of Dr. King. (Here is a good rundown on the various Confederate flags.)

Dorsey’s reaction to the council’s alternative plan included a charge that officials continue to exhibit “prejudice against the flying of Confederate flags.” He described the council’s response as a cagey way to skirt a permanent federal injunction issued in 1993 that prohibits the city from denying the rights of individuals or groups to display Confederate flags.

Given the adoption of the Confederate flag as the symbol of most of the representatives of hatred and bigotry (the Anti-Defamation League brands it as a “general racist symbol“) in the United States since 1865, I don’t wonder at the objections. When most persons see the Confederate flag, they think of the Klan in the same thought. It’s display bears connotations that the SCV is aware of, but which they choose to ignore.

Unlike the eagle of ancient Rome, the Confederate flag is not a symbol whose meaning is lost in the past. That meaning lives, and it lives odiously. And those who display it know that.

My ancestors wore the grey, and I don’t like seeing the Confederate flag in public display because of those who would display it.