Ernest Hooper, Tampa columnist can be reached at 813 226-3406 or Hooper@sptimes.com
Posted on 02/17/2004 5:44:59 AM PST by stainlessbanner
As a child growing up in an all-black Tallahassee neighborhood, the sight of a truck rumbling up my street with a Confederate battle flag in the window made me and my friends shudder in fear.
Maybe the pickup had a reason for passing through, but the combination of the Southern cross and a gun rack always was seen as a harbinger of violence. Usually, I ran in the house.
Some 30 years later I shudder because people are still holding on to this symbol of racism. Controversy about the flag has arisen at Tarpon Springs High and Hudson High. Integration and other significant steps in racial progress have not deterred people from passing along a remarkable sign of hatred to another generation.
When people argue that the fight over the flag creates healthy dialogue, I think back to when I was given that opportunity. My boys were 5 and 7 when we went to dinner at Buddy Freddy's, on a day when a Confederate organization was meeting in the restaurant's banquet room. Ethan saw the flag in the other room and exclaimed, "Look at that cool flag."
For the rest of the dinner, I had to explain why the flag wasn't cool. Young minds, more accustomed to learning about phonics, soaked in lessons about slavery, freedom and a time when Americans killed Americans.
By meal's end, the restaurant's hostess had given the boys toys from the gift shop. I think she wanted to reward them for listening patiently as their father struggled to explain the inexplicable.
Of course, the flag represents more than just the South's struggle against the North, and some long-rooted Southerners identify with it in a way that transcends race. But, for decades, it was used by the Ku Klux Klan as a banner for segregation and persecution. And white supremacists still embrace it today.
When will I believe that this flag is about heritage and not hate? When I see people from Confederate organizations seriously confront racists who use the flag to espouse bigotry.
Those who wish to take pride in the South should find a less divisive icon. Hasn't our region evolved beyond the infighting and intolerance that the flag symbolizes? Why define the South by a dead Confederacy when we have Kitty Hawk and Bourbon Street and Memphis barbecue and Basin Street jazz and collard greens and Coca-Cola? If you want to show pride in the South, paint a plate of grits on a T-shirt and wear it to school.
Even SEC football and NASCAR, institutions once rooted in segregation, have made significant strides toward diversity. It's the progress of our present, not the failures of our past, that should be championed.
And for all the talk about fighting for liberty and American's second revolution, the Civil War was a failure. A rare and total loss of the humanity we have typically shared as a nation.
Consider the horrific Gettysburg battles that resulted in 50,000 casualties. Fields were strewn with dead soldiers, and the air held the screams of Americans whose limbs had been amputated. Maybe if the battle flag brought to mind those images, someone wouldn't have raised it over Hudson High.
Even if I could look beyond the racist overtones of the flag (and I can't), the rebel cross of stars would still represent American history's most divisive period. A different outcome could have brought dire consequences not only for this country, but for the entire world. Could the Allies have won World War II dependent on two separate nations instead of one United States?
History has proven there is strength in our unity, and now, more than ever in this post-9/11 world, any symbol that threatens that unity should be voluntarily abandoned.
It's been said that those who oppose the war in Iraq lend comfort to our enemies. Yet true comfort for the terrorists must come when they see a new generation of Americans divided over a 141-year-old symbol that should have been buried at Appomattox.
No, the Confederate flag should not be banned in schools. I would never deny a person's right to freedom of speech. But for those who feel compelled to wear it to school, I ask only one thing: Think about what you're doing.
That's all I'm saying.
- Ernest Hooper can be reached at 813 226-3406 or Hooper@sptimes.com
How do you feel about Malcom X caps? Gangsta Rap artist jackets? Che Guevara shirts?
Yet another intellectual fraud who spouts the revisionist drivel.
Teach your children well ...... home school them.
So I should not wear my cross until racist stop using it to espouse bigotry? Silly fellow.
For the rest of the dinner, I had to explain why the flag wasn't cool. Young minds, more accustomed to learning about phonics, soaked in lessons about slavery, freedom and a time when Americans killed Americans.
As he filled them with more revisionist history no doubt
Mr Hooper may wear his food well, but mine's not that becoming on me....
What a ridiculous statement!
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Early KKK poster.
Check the sign out.
Old songbook.
1960's in Birmingham, Alabama
Here's a couple more:
Is that a Canadian flag in the center?
and
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