CONFEDERATE FLAG NOT THE PROBLEM
By Charley Reese
King Features Syndicate, Inc.235 E. 45th St., New York, NY 10017
Confederate Battle Flag |
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is trying again to boycott South Carolina. It succeeded in getting a Confederate battle flag removed from the Capitol dome. It now flies at a Confederate monument in front of the Capitol. The NAACP wants it removed from the state grounds.
The NAACP's campaign against all things Confederate began in 1991, when the organization was wracked with scandals and, having won all of its legal battles, found itself with nothing to do. It needed a new "enemy at the gates," and so it picked the Confederacy and the battle flag in particular.
The campaign has been scurrilous and stupid. It's stupid because no black American today faces any problems at all as a result of Confederate monuments and Confederate battle flags. The claim that blacks are offended by the sight of the flag doesn't hold water. No one has a constitutional right to be unoffended, since whether something is offensive is purely subjective.
The claim that the battle flag is a symbol of slavery doesn't hold water, either. The battle flag--the red one with the St. Andrews cross--was not the official flag of the Confederate States of America. It was the battle flag carried by soldiers. In the days before radios and walkie-talkie, flags were necessary so that soldiers could tell where their own lines were during the fog or war. If the battle flag is a symbol of anything, it is a symbol of bravery, honor and a desire for independence.
Nor was the secession and war all about slavery. For a minority in the North and a minority in the South, slavery was the primary issue, but the majorities in both North and South fought for something else. In the North, it was to preserve the union. In the South, it was to preserve the constitutional republic. At any rate, all those issues were settled more than 130 years ago. There are no slaves, no slave owners, no advocates of slavery. The problems our generation must solve are unrelated to that long-ago struggle.
Naturally, there are some blacks who are trying to scam folks into paying reparations. Why anyone who was never a slave owner should have to write a check to someone who was never a slave doesn't make any sense at all. We cannot blame our ancestors for either our virtues or our faults. Nobody in 21st century America can justly blame his failures on the fact that a distant ancestor was a slave. They can be thankful to their ancestors that they were born in North America instead of in Africa, where slavery originated and still exists.
I can't think of any problems facing black Americans that are a result of white racism. There are laws in every state against discrimination, and even laws that allow discrimination in favor of blacks and other minorities. Black and white alike suffer economically from the export of American jobs to cheap-labor countries. Black and white alike suffer from a devalued currency, from a lack of affordable housing, from the sky-high cost of medical care. None of these has anything at all to do with racism.
Both also suffer from poor leadership. There are still too many charlatans running around the country and living high on the hob by conjuring up white racist conspiracies where none exist. There are too many white liberals who encourage and support these charlatans. That is paternalistic.
The way to show respect for a black man is to treat him exactly the same way you would if he were white. If he's a crook or a hoodlum, you condemn him. If he's wrong, you argue with him. Making excuses for his failure or his bad behavior is an insulting form of paternalism.
So I have no problem at all defending the Confederate flag. Taking it down would not result in a single benefit to any person, black or white. The NAACP boycott won't amount to a hill of beans. Black problems will start getting solved when blacks decide to give up the crutch of blaming Whitey for their own mistakes and failures.
Reach Charley Reese at 407-420-5315 or creese@orlandosentinel.com
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Charley Reese |
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