Royal Purple Staff Opinion

How does one create social change in the United States? Marches, protests, powerful speeches, voting? Nope. Try mass shootings and outrage on social media.

That’s about the only thing that’ll get America’s attention these days – gun violence and what’s trending on social media.

So when 21-year-old Dylan Roof brutally murdered nine people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, America was watching. And how did we respond? With a political debate about the symbolic undertones of a piece of cloth – that being the confederate flag.

Yes, in 2015 the confederate flag is still an issue, and it took a racially motivated mass shooting to start the conversation. In lieu of the shooting, Republican Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina called for the removal of the confederate flag from the state capitol and in doing so, sparked an endless stream of political memes emanating from our news feeds.

We could learn from this atrocity. We could start a conversation about gun violence, race relations or any other issue that’s actually tearing this country apart. But instead, we’re arguing about a flag. Classic America.

What can we say about this? Is the flag a symbol of racism and divisiveness? Or does it stand for southern pride? A piece of
history?

Those supporting the flag would assume the latter, claiming the Civil War was fought to preserve the union – not to end slavery. And, to the surprise of everyone else who nodded off in history class, this claim is true.

In the election of 1860, the Republican Party was a relatively new entity, but still secured a majority of electoral votes in the north. Abraham Lincoln was only able to win because the Democratic Party had split between northern and southern factions. Lincoln wasn’t even on the ballot in most southern states, and when he secured the presidency it prompted seven southern states to secede and form the Confederacy.

The Civil War wasn’t fought to end slavery. This much is true. It was fought to preserve the union. With that being said, whether or not to allow slavery in the western states was still the prevailing issue leading up to the war.

The north and the south. The union and the confederacy. And 150 years later, we’re still arguing about the symbolic resonances of the southern flag and what is and isn’t considered racist.

Now, Republicans are quick to say that institutionalized racism doesn’t exist. There’s equal opportunity for all, and the American dream still caters to everyone, but the statistics tell a different story. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 38 percent of black children are living in poverty, as opposed to 10 percent for whites.

This brings us back to the confederate flag. What does it stand for? Its meaning is subjective – it means something different for everyone. However, the legacy of slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow and segregation cast a long shadow.

As President Barack Obama said in an interview with Marc Maron, “It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years ago.”

Those confederate flags need to come down. We can’t continue to fly symbols of racism and divisiveness on state buildings. The flags belong in a museum, not a state capitol.

No one’s saying you rebels have to take your personal flags down and quit whistling Dixie, but the presence of such symbols at government buildings is an insult to the progress we’ve made as a country.

Yes, The Dukes of Hazzard got taken off the air, and we’re all sad about it, but I’m willing to give up the General Lee if it means improving race relations in our country.