Recently the American South has had to do some serious soul searching. A white man entered a black church killing nine men and women. The reaction was swift with the usual clamour for gun control, a dead issue, literally and figuratively in the U.S. But what did come of it was the flag, called the “Stars and Bars” that can be found on state flags and flying over the capital building. To some thinking, it is like the NAZI flag, a symbol of hate and slavery. The white oppression continues to this day and as such, it is time to come down. To others is means no such thing, but a symbol of the undying southern spirit of America. Historically, this flag was never the flag of the South, it was the battle standard. This distinction, while real, is of no matter, no real value is shown by this difference. It was flown in the Civil War. It is, as such, a part of the history of the South and can thus be claimed as such. After the war, all but forgotten, its use was revived by the Dixiecrats, a racist offshoot of the Democratic Party in 1948 with stated policy of non desegregation and opposition to granting the Afro-American full citizenship and equal rights. It was adopted on state flags as their battle flag, to say we are at war with the federal government, war with the blacks and at war with any attempt to allow people still living as little more than slaves to have the chance of becoming better off than they have been.

No one plays the villain in their own story. So father to son, mother to daughter, they never said we fly that flag so that Afro-Americans will know their place under the white man’s boot, living in poverty and shame, without a chance to have their own part of the American dream. No, that sort of talk would make them the bad guys. Instead they retreated from history and reality into talking about patriotism, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” said Samuel Johnson. And here it comes. The flag was about Southern Pride, and Southern Liberty and being of the South! It had nothing to do with Blacks, Afro-Americans, de-segregation, slavery or such like. Nope, the Stars and Bars is part of Southern heritage.

It has been almost 60 years since the days of the Dixiecrats. Now they are a boring subject best left and forgotten in the past for truly they are not who the South is, proclaims to be or even who they want to be. Over the last three or four generations, the people having been told this lie have come to accept is as if it were true. This flag is their symbol of their heritage of being from the South. Having become their symbol of Southern Pride and of their true Southern Heritage they see nothing derogatory of flying it proudly. The South was never defined by the slavery issue and racism. No matter how people try to box them in to that narrow definition. The Civil War was about states’ rights, one of the important of said rights was slavery, but when 90% of your population did not own slaves, only the very rich did, you would never get them to rally to an issue that did not affect them. So the Civil War was framed to be about state’s rights. Just as today, there are still racists running around the South and the ever haunting KKK, they are on the fringe of society. As one of the friends of the accused in the church shooting said, paraphrasing, “We knew he was a racist and we knew he was crazy, what we did not know was that he was that racist and that crazy.”

Today, removing the Stars and Bars is not about losing a part of their heritage, it is about reclaiming their true heritage. The South has always been an open, welcoming, friendly place. That flag has turned from the symbol of hate to the heritage of the south and Southern Pride.

So when you hear people supporting the flag Stars and Bars, they may not be racists at all. So don’t hate, instead explain and relate. It is for this very reason that the flag must come down. Because of its history of hatred, it blocks the true South heritage of neighbourly people trying to get along with everyone. While the flag is a small part of the heritage, it is blocking the Sunlight shining on the even more important and more welcoming, true spirit of Southern Heritage; their pride in being tolerant and open to new people, new ideas and accepting them for who and what they are. Judging by the content of their character, not the colour of their skin, or the flag they fly.