Dixie's dilemma

Athens Banner-Herald ^ | January 6, 2003 | Michael A. Fletcher

[stainlessbanner]

At the beginning of the school year, Dixie Outfitters T-shirts were all the rage at Cherokee High School. Girls seemed partial to one featuring the Confederate battle flag in the shape of a rose. Boys often wore styles that discreetly but unmistakably displayed Dixie Outfitters' rebel emblem logo.
But now the most popular Dixie Outfitters shirt at the school doesn't feature a flag at all. It says: ''Jesus and the Confederate Battle Flag: Banned From Our Schools But Forever in Our Hearts.'' It became an instant favorite after school officials prohibited shirts featuring the battle flag in response to complaints from two African-American families who found them intimidating and offensive.

The ban is stirring old passions about Confederate symbols and their place in Southern history in this increasingly suburban high school, 40 miles northwest of Atlanta. Similar disputes over the flag are being played out more frequently in school systems -- and courtrooms -- across the South and elsewhere, as a new generation's fashion choices raise questions about where historical pride ends and racial insult begins.

Schools in states from Michigan to Alabama have banned the popular Dixie Outfitters shirts just as they might gang colors or miniskirts, saying they are disruptive to the school environment. The rebel flag's modern association with white supremacists makes it a flashpoint for racial confrontation, school officials say.
''This isn't an attempt to refute Southern heritage,'' said Mike McGowan, a Cherokee County schools spokesman. ''This is an issue of a disruption of the learning environment in one of our schools.''

Walter C. Butler Jr., president of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, said it is unreasonable to ask African Americans not to react to someone wearing the rebel flag. ''To ask black people to respect a flag that was flown by people who wanted to totally subjugate and dehumanize you -- that is totally unthinkable,'' he said.
But the prohibitions against flag-themed clothing have prompted angry students, parents, Confederate-heritage groups and even the American Civil Liberties Union to respond with protests and lawsuits that argue that students' First Amendment rights are being trampled in the name of political correctness.
''This is our heritage. Nobody should be upset with these shirts,'' said Ree Simpson, a senior soccer player at Cherokee who says she owns eight Confederate-themed shirts. ''During Hispanic Heritage Month, we had to go through having a kid on the intercom every day talking about their history. Do you think they allow that during Confederate History Month?''

Simpson said no one complains when African-American students wear clothes made by FUBU, a black-owned company whose acronym means ''For Us By Us.'' Worse, she says, school officials have nothing to say when black students make the biting crack that the acronym also means ''farmers used to beat us.'' Similarly, she says, people assume that members of the school's growing Latino population mean no harm when they wear T-shirts bearing the Mexican flag.
Simpson believes the rebel flag should be viewed the same way. The days when the banner was a symbol of racial hatred and oppression are long gone, she contends. Far from being an expression of hate, she says, her affection for the flag simply reflects Southern pride. ''I'm a country girl. I can't help it. I love the South,'' she said. ''If people want to call me a redneck, let them.''

It is a sentiment that is apparently widely shared at Cherokee, and beyond. The day after Cherokee Principal Bill Sebring announced the T-shirt ban on the school's intercom this fall, more than 100 students were either sent home or told to change clothes when they defiantly wore the shirts to school. In the weeks that followed, angry parents and Confederate heritage groups organized flag-waving protests outside the school and at several school board meetings.

''All hell broke loose,'' said Tom Roach, an attorney for the Cherokee County school system. When principals banned the shirts at other county high schools in the past, he said, ''there was no public outcry. No complaints. No problems.''

But the Confederate flag was a particularly hot topic in Georgia this year. Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes was upset in his re-election bid in part because he successfully pushed for redesign of the Georgia state flag, which was formerly dominated by the Confederate battle emblem. On the new state banner, the emblem is reduced to a small icon. During the campaign, Barnes' opponent, Sonny Perdue, called for a referendum on the new flag, a position that analysts say helped make him the state's first elected Republican governor since Reconstruction.

Elsewhere in the South, civil rights groups have mobilized to remove the banner in recent years. Activists had it removed from atop the South Carolina statehouse and from other public places, saying it is an insult to African Americans and others who view it as a symbol of bigotry and state-sanctioned injustice. But that campaign has stirred a resentful backlash from groups that view it as an attack on their heritage.

''We're not in a battle just for that flag, we're in a battle to determine whether our Southern heritage and culture survives,'' said Dan Coleman, public relations director for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, one of the groups that joined the protests at Cherokee High School.

The battle over Confederate-themed clothing has made its way to the courts, which generally have sided with school dress codes that prevent items that officials deem disruptive.

In a 1969 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent Community School District that school officials could not prohibit students from wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, but only because the court found that the armbands were not disturbing the school atmosphere.

By contrast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit earlier this year revived a lawsuit by two Kentucky students suspended for wearing shirts featuring the Confederate flag. The court said the reasons for the suspension were vague and remanded the case to a lower court, where it was dismissed after the school district settled with the students.

Also, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit earlier this fall sided with a Washington, N.J., student who challenged his school's ban on a T-shirt displaying the word ''redneck.'' The student was suspended from Warren Hills Regional High School for wearing the shirt, which school officials said violated their ban on clothing that portrays racial stereotypes. The school's vice principal said he took ''redneck'' to mean a violent, bigoted person.
But the court overturned the ban, saying the shirt was not proven to be disruptive. School officials, noting the school has a history of racial tensions, have promised to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

''Since last year, we have gotten well over 200 complaints about the banning of Confederate symbols in schools,'' said Kirk Lyons, lead counsel for the Southern Legal Resource Center, a North Carolina-based public-interest law firm that works to protect Confederate heritage and is in discussions with some families at Cherokee High School. He said the center is litigating six lawsuits and that dozens of others challenging Confederate clothing bans have been filed across the country.

As the controversy grows, Confederate-themed clothing has become more popular than ever. The owner of Georgia-based Dixie Outfitters says the firm sold 1 million T-shirts last year through the company's Web site and department stores across the South. Most of the shirts depict Southern scenes and symbols, often with the Confederate emblem.

''This is not your typical, in-your-face redneck type of shirt,'' said Dewey Barber, the firm's owner. ''They are espousing the Southern way of life. We're proud of our heritage down here.''

Barber said he is ''troubled'' that his shirts are frequently banned by school officials who view them as offensive. ''You can have an Iraqi flag in school. You can have the Russian flag. You can have every flag but the Confederate flag. It is puzzling and disturbing,'' he said.

[Torie]

Some school districts have set them up. Parents can send their kids to a variety of schools with different emphases.

[Torie]

It was an elite private school. We wore white and blue checkered shirts and blue pants. The girls wore checkered skirts in the same color and pattern.

[PistolPaknMama]

After 1863, they would not have been slaves in areas where slaves had been liberated

Out of curiostity, which areas were those?.

Let's revisit the so-called emancipaton proclamation, in case you've never read it. It freed slaves only in the states in rebellion, where the federal goverment (Lincoln) had no jurisdiction at the time. Supposing that Mrs. Grant (a slave owner) visit her husband Mr. Grant at his headquarters in various places in the South where he and his troops were raping, burning and pillaging at the time, and supposing she had her slaves with her, because they were not freed but protected by the EP, then upon entering the South, would not Mrs. Grant's slaves have been freed?

Of course, considering that Mrs. Grant's slaves were yankee property..and only southern property was disposed of by Mr. Lincoln...I suppose the jurisdiction confered to the yankee government regardless of where the yankee property was located. Meaning Mrs. Grant, and her slaves, could move about freely on the northern continent as long as her slaves were considered yankee property and said ownership being protected by the United States Constitution.

[Torie]

Since slavery was illegal in the North, that would leave only the non secessionist slave states exempt in effect, to wit, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. They were dealt with pursuant to the 14th amendment, and with the proclamation the die was cast assuming the Confederacy was thereafter defeated, which by the time of the Proclamation was a good bet assuming Lincoln won reelection.

[PistolPaknMama]

Since slavery was illegal in the North

For real? I am truly interested how slavery was illegal in the north. I read voraciously and have never run across this little piece of trivia, so please let me know where you found this.

[PistolPaknMama]

Since slavery was illegal in the North, that would leave only the non secessionist slave states exempt in effect, to wit, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware.

The only problem with that is that the "emancipation" proclamtion clearly states that slaves were freed in the areas of rebellion. I don't think that at the time the north invaded the south that the territories and states which you mentioned were in rebellion.

[Torie]

The four states were not, and thus slavery remained legal there until the 14th amendment. That was my point.

[Torie]

Well, at least before Dred Scott, which helped fuel the war, and was ignored. Each state passed its own laws over time nixing the peculiar institution. Where have you been?

[PistolPaknMama]

Where have you been?

Sittin' right here.

You still did not mention the particular laws that made slavery illegal in the north. Slavery was NOT illegal in the north until Consititution amendement in 1867. I would like to see evidence otherwise. Not being sarcastic, but would be interested in what you know that I don't.

[Torie]

I referred you to the individual state laws. Maybe you don't consider those of any import.

[PistolPaknMama]

I referred you to the individual state laws. Maybe you don't consider those of any import.

No no no! I consider it very import. Just...which individual states? I don't know of any where slavery was illegal until 1867. I've asked you this twice and you can't produce the names of any states. Help me out here.

[maro]

Yeah, war is hell. I know the South suffered greatly, and I agree that many Northerners are hypocrites on race. Northern racism is in some ways worse than Southern racism. But it doesn't help for white Southerners to rally around the flag of a defunct political cause that in the modern era cannot be associated with anything other than slavery and/or secessionism. You reap what you sow. For many years slave-owning white Southerners inflicted great harm on their slaves. Why are these Confederate flag wearing yahoos so sensitive about what happened to their great-great grand daddies, but so insensitive to what happened to the slaves? It's time to let go of the past, and think about what kind of society to build for the future. How about this for a deal: white Southerners agree to not use that flag as a rallying point or symbol of Southerness and black Americans drop this reparations nonsense. Wouldn't that be a good deal for both sides, and a positive way to move forward as one nation, under God, indivisible?

[Torie]

All of them except the four I mentioned and the Confederacy. If you think slavery was legal north of the Maxon Dixon line and the Ohio River, and points West, etc, prior to 1867, well that is amazing. Is this some knuckle ball that I simply can't hit that you are serving up?

[thatdewd]

...that would leave only the non secessionist slave states exempt in effect, to wit, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware.

Lincoln also exempted the entire secessionist state of Tennessee, that part of Virginia now called West Virginia, and those parts of Louisiana and Virginia proper that were occupied by federal troops. :)

[Torie]

Thanks for the codicil.

[maro]

I'm not sure what your point is. Lincoln ran on a high tariff platform. When he won, the South feared that tariffs would be hiked. I don't know about the 75% number, but there was no income tax back then, so it is entirely possible. My overall point here is that when people say that slavery was not the reason for the Civil War, they state at best a half truth. Slavery was not a direct trigger for the War, but was the underlying cause for why the ecomomic interests of the industrial North and the agrarian South diverged so much. In that sense, the Civil War was all about slavery, both before Fort Sumter and after the Emancipation Proclamation. As for your second response, free black labor would have commanded a market price. In contrast, slave labor is inherently far beneath market. Whites who feared labor competition with blacks had far more to fear from slavery than from emancipation. Finally, there is a difference between a civil war (no capitals), which refers generically to any internecine conflict, and the Civil War, which refers to the War Between the States. Without slavery, there may have been a trigger for some other civil war, but we would have been spared the Civil War.

[thatdewd]

Thanks for the codicil.

He specifically exempted those areas when he wrote the proclamation. For some reason he didn't want to "free" the slaves in Confederate areas where he actually did have military and governmental control, so he excluded them: "which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued."

[x]

Slaves were deeded to Lee by his father-in-law with a provision in the will that they be freed after five years. They were, but this was a reflection of the terms of the will, not of any particular virtue on Lee's part.

The 13th Amendment forbidding slavery became a part of the Constitution on December 6, 1865. It was the only way that slavery could have been abolished throughout the whole country.

As I read the Emancipation Proclamation it freed "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." Just how the passage is to be read with respect to slaves brought into these areas isn't clear, but if the proclamation freed slaves in these areas and then masters were allowed to bring people from outside into them and force them to behave as slaves, it could be seen as a violation of the intent of the proclamation. It would be much harder to separate out persons of color on the basis of whether they were in the area when the proclamation became effective. There is no distinction made in the proclamation between "Southern property" and "Yankee property."

In the areas retaken by the Union Army, the institution of slavery was in chaos. And many masters and servants wouldn't know what their relationship was. Reliable investigations, though, conclude that after 1863 Mrs. Grant's Black servants were no long with her.

[lentulusgracchus]

As for your second response, free black labor would have commanded a market price. In contrast, slave labor is inherently far beneath market. Whites who feared labor competition with blacks had far more to fear from slavery than from emancipation.

To the contrary, free black labor commanded less. At the turn of the century, free white labor was worth $3/day for a 12-hour day; black labor commanded only a dollar.

Of course, this wasn't the black laborer's idea, but his white employer's.

Racism and Jim Crow worked to undercut the earning power of black laborers, and to cosset the profits of their employers, regardless of race.

More importantly, the disparity allowed employers to undercut white wages and fight unionism, by resorting to more tactics of division and manipulation.

In the "free labor market", no less. Makes you wonder, doesn't it, just how free that market was? It was certainly an oligopsony.

[Polybius]

What is important is now. What statement can a modern person be making by wearing a Confederate flag? Is he for slavery? For secession? (And yes, history and treason are defined by the winners. So what? We won the Revolutionary War, so Benedict Arnold is a traitor and Geo. Washington is a hero. Do you disagree with these characterizations?) Surely there must be some symbol of "Southern culture" that is not tainted. Isn't it really pretty much like those black Olympic athletes raising their fists at the awards podium, except that you guys are mouthing "white power." What if some Japanese exchange student wore the Rising Sun flag, or wanted to celebrate December 7, or some German exchange student wore a swastika, or wanted to celebrate Auschwitz. What if some Arab student wanted to celebrate 9/11 or wear an Osama T-shirt? It's time for white Southerners to get over the War Between the States.

It is obvious to me, maro, that you are an individual that has absolutely no concept of what military heritage is.

The Confederate Battle Flag was a battle flag just as the "Don't Tread on Me" flag was a battle flag during the Revolution. It was not a national flag nor a political flag.

To me, the Confederate Battle Flag means Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, the Valley Campaign, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorville, Gettysburg, the Wildreness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and Appomatox.

It is the battle flag flown by men that performed some of the most impressive feats of arms in American history. Men that, to this very day, the U.S. Army honors with U.S. Army bases named Fort Lee and Fort Bragg and that the U.S. Navy has honored with a ballistic missile submarine named USS Stonewall Jackson.

To you it means "white power", Benedict Arnold, swastikas, Auchwitz, 9/11 and Osama bin Ladin. Did you forget Attila the Hun?

I understand that it is now Politically Correct to demonize anything dealing with Confederates just as it was once Politically Correct to demonize Vietnam veterans as "baby killers". Once you start down that slippery slope, you had better be prepared to take up the demonization of the Founding Fathers who were slave holders and who now offend certain Blacks, the demonization of those who fought for Texan Independence and who now offend certain Chicanos, the demonization of those Black Buffalo Soldiers who helped destroy the way of life of the Plains Indians and who now offend certain Native Americans and the demonization of those who fought to save South Vietnam from Communism and who now offend Politically Correct American Leftists.

My original post merely pointed out to you that the American Civil War was not simply a war of "slavery" vs "emancipation". In this, any serious student of the Civil War will agree and point out to you that the average Union soldier fought to "save the Union" and cared little about abolition.

In response, you reply the "you guys are mouthing white power" and that "it's time for white Southerners to get over the War Between the States".

For your information, maro, I am not a Southerner. In fact, none of my ancestors lived in the United States during the Civil War.

I am a student of military history and a retired U.S. Naval Officer and I know the respect and honor that military men give to each other.

The Civil War is long since over. In 1913, 50 years after the Battle of Gettysburg, Union and Confederate veterans gathered at Gettysburg with their old battle flags to honor their old foes. The old political vitriol spewed out by politicians on both sides that had driven these young men to kill each other in the field of battle had been buried and forgotten.

In the idiom of the day, the "Bloody Shirt" that hate-mongering politicians loved to wave to stir passions had been buried.

Now, maro, 90 years after that Gettysburg re-union, hate-mongering Political Correctniks such as yoursef gleefully dig the "Bloody Shirt" back up and start waving it with all the political hatred that existed between politicians in 1860 but with additional references to Auschwitz thrown in.

I agree that someone needs to realize that the Civil war is over, maro.

That someone is you and the rest of the Politically Correct crowd.

FYI: The U.S. Navy and the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force are now aliies. At sea in joint operations and ashore at joint functions, the flag our Japanese naval allies display is........The Rising Sun, the battle flag of the Japanese Navy.

Japan American Navy Friendship Association Award Ceremony