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The Stars and Bars–No Longer on Cars (Or Anywhere Else?)

The Stars and Bars–No Longer on Cars (Or Anywhere Else?)

Last updated on: July 2, 2015 at 5:41 pm by Kathy Schiffer

The Stars and Bars–No Longer on Cars (Or Anywhere Else?) 2015-07-02T17:41:37-05:00 Kathy Schiffer

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The Confederate flag has to go! That’s a popular sentiment among some Americans in the aftermath of the Charleston church shootings on June 17, which left nine African-American Christians dead at the hands of a deranged and racist young man named Dylann Roof. Investigators later found the Confederate flag among photos and racist imagery on Roof’s website.

Indeed, the Confederate flag has been associated with racism, slavery and white supremacism.

But is the connection between “racist hate” and “Southern pride” so inextricably linked that the Confederate flag should be criminalized or obliterated from our American story?

South Carolina Governor Wants to Tear Down the Flag from the State House

Among the first since the Charleston shootings to call for the historic but controversial flag’s removal from public places in the South was South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. In a press conference June 22 in the South Carolina statehouse, Governor Haley, flanked by both Republican and Democratic legislators, called for the flag to be removed by the state legislature. Acknowledging that the Confederate flag had been an integral part of the South’s past, she said that it does not represent the future of South Carolina. “We are not,” Governor Haley said, “going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer.”

I’ve been reading Governor Haley’s compelling page-turner of an autobiography, Can’t Is Not an Option; and I can see how her own experience as a member of the first Indian family in the small town of Bamberg, South Carolina, may have helped to shape her sense of justice and her desire for unity among peoples of different races and colors.

Nikki Haley’s parents, Ajit and Raj Randhawa, faced ignorance, prejudice, and sometimes blatant hostility–but they taught their children that they should never think of themselves as victims. The Randhawas believed that if you work hard and stay true to yourself, you can overcome any obstacle. And Governor Haley, seeking to unite the races, called for the Confederate flag to be removed from the State Capitol grounds.

Propaganda at University of Memphis: “Whiteness” = “Terrorism”?

The University of Memphis apparently fired assistant professor of sociology Zandria Robinson for taking her revulsion for the Confederacy too far with a series of tweets, alleging that the Confederate flag is:

“more than a symbol of white racial superiority. It is the ultimate symbol of white heteropatriarchal capitalism.”

Robinson went on to assert,

“The flag thus is a direct symbol of race, class, gender, & sexuality oppression. We need a more nuanced intersectional reading of the thing…. This isn’t to say that the American flag does not represent such things, but the Confederate flag only represents those things for whites.”

But if Professor Robinson’s tweets linking the Confederate flag to racism, sexism and every bad thing were too a bridge too far even for liberal academia, there are plenty of others who also have fled the controversy by pulling the Confederate flag off their shelves or off their network or out of their designer clothing line.

The End of the “General Lee”

Why, it wasn’t long after the Charleston shooting that TV Land announced it was pulling reruns of the 1980s TV series “The Dukes of Hazzard” out of their line-up. That’s because “General Lee,” the orange 1969 Dodge Charger that was the fence-jumping, hot-rodding star of the show, featured the Confederate flag emblazoned on its roof.

Shortly after that, Warner Brothers–which owns the rights to “The Dukes of Hazzard”–announced that it will no longer manufacture toy models of the General Lee.

Walmart and eBay both announced that they would no longer sell model cars, t-shirts, toys or other items which bear the “Stars and Bars.”

The banning of the Confederate flag by the Politically Correct crowd has been met with animus by others, who see the whole thing as silly and who believe that the Stars and Bars represent something positive in American history. The original stars of “The Dukes of Hazzard” were quick to weigh in:

Ben Jones, who played Cooter Davenport and then went on to serve in Congress from 1989 through 1993, posted an angry all-caps message on Facebook on June 23. Jones said:

“I think all of Hazzard Nation understands that the Confederate battle flag is the symbol that represents the indomitable spirit of independence which keeps us ‘makin’ our way the only way we know how. That flag on top of the General Lee made a statement that the values of the rural South were the values of courage and family and good times.”

And Jones’ co-star John Schneider slammed TV Land’s cancellation of the show in a July 1 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Schneider said of the cancellation,

“ ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ was and is no more a show seated in racism than ’Breaking Bad’ was a show seated in reality.”

Referring to Dylann Roof, Schneider went on to say he was

“…saddened that one angry and misguided individual can cause one of the most beloved television shows in the history of the medium to suddenly be seen in this light.”

Amazon’s Political Correctness Has Its Limits

Next the on-line bookseller Amazon pulled merchandise bearing the Confederate flag from its digital shelves. CNSNews reported, though, that while the retail giant will no longer offer the Stars and Bars, shoppers can still purchase flags for Hamas and the Shi’ite group Hezbollah, as well as armed “Taliban” action figures from the Amazon store. (Also available are Hitler youth knives.)

The National Cathedral’s Confederate Flag Windows

Meanwhile in our nation’s capitol, the Very Rev. Gary Hall, dean of the National Cathedral, has announced that he hopes to remove two stained-glass windows which were installed in 1953 to honor “the lives and legacies of Confederate Generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.”

Reverend Hall, in his Sunday sermon, said that the windows, which were proposed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, had been intended to “foster reconciliation” between the North and South; but they also sought to “reframe the Civil War and present these two generals as saintly exemplary Christians.” In reality, Rev. Hart said, these two generals were ardent supporters of an unjust cause: the sin of slavery.

According to a report on CNN, Rev. Hall said, “We can live with some contradictions until we can’t.” He insisted that the cathedral serves as a house of prayer for all people, but that this goal cannot be met “while the Confederate battle flag shines in our windows.”

Reverend Hall believes that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism, slavery and oppression, and that there is no excuse for the nation’s most visible church to display this symbol.

Memphis Mayor Wants to Throw Confederate General Out of Town

Perhaps the strangest of the anti-Confederacy stories going around this week is that of Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton. Mayor Wharton wants to dig up the bodies of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, currently buried in a city park, and move them to an inconspicuous spot in a cemetery. Mayor Wharton, who is African-American, called the interred corpses “relics, messages of this despicable period of this great nation.” He also wants to tear down a large statue of General Forrest, who was involved in organizing the Ku Klux Klan.

This is not the first step to eliminate institutionalized racism in Memphis. In 2013, Memphis city officials renamed Forrest Park, which is now called Health Sciences Park. They also renamed Jefferson Davis Park and Confederate Park.

Opposition Among the Citizenry

But while government leaders in South Carolina, Alabama and elsewhere have acted to take down the Confederate flag in the wake of the Charleston church shootings, polls show that American citizens are sharply divided over the issue. A USA Today/Suffolk University Poll showed no national consensus, with 42% believing that the Confederate flag is racist, and an equal number (42%) believing that it is not. A majority of Americans stated, in the same poll, that tighter gun control laws would do nothing to stem mass shootings.

In South Carolina, State Senator Lee Bright, a Republican representing Spartanburg County in the Upstate, is one of the Legislature’s most ardent supporters of the Confederate battle flag. Senator Bright has taken to social media (including his personal Facebook page) and an on-line petition in support of legislation that would allow the voters of the state to decide whether or not the flag should be removed.

The Confederate Flag In Modern Day Usage

The flag of the Confederacy is represented, in all or in part, in the state flags of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. A reverse image of the flag appears in the state seal of Texas, and it’s one of six flags flown over Austin, Texas, representing the six nations which have held sovereignty over the state. Its saltire is included on the state seal of the state of Alabama–representing one of the five governments which have held sovereignty over that state in its history.

And on car license plates? Well, vehicle owners in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia may request a “Sons of Confederate Veterans” logo on their license plates.

According to Wikipedia:

In 1998, a North Carolina appellate court upheld the issuance of such license plates in the case Sons of Confederate v. DMV, noting: “We are aware of the sensitivity of many of our citizens to the display of the Confederate flag. Whether the display of the Confederate flag on state-issued license plates represents sound public policy is not an issue presented to this Court in this case. That is an issue for our General Assembly.”

In 2015, the dispute over Texas vanity plates that would have borne the logo ended up before the United States Supreme Court, in a case pitting nationally famous free-speech advocates against those who view the battle flag as a symbol of hatred.The United States Supreme Court ruled that license plates are governmental speech, and the government may decide what to have printed on the license plates. A state may choose not to have a certain message on vanity license plates that it issues.

Patriotism

Confederate Flag

Dukes of Hazzard

General Nathan Bedford Forrest

National Cathedral

Nikki Haley

Sen. Lee Bright

The Very Rev. Gary Hart

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