Message of stars and bars nothing to be proud of
This New Year’s, I attended Columbia’s Famously Hot New Year Celebration on Main Street, which the city has turned into one of the premier holiday celebrations in the South. This year, the temperature was nowhere near hot, and the event itself was well orchestrated and very entertaining.
I came specifically to see the headlining band, ’80s R&B sensation Kool and the Gang. Their performance was absolutely amazing and the crowd was extremely diverse and vibrant, yet something still seemed off.
The main stage was positioned along Gervais Street in front of the State House, and for the entire concert, I was distracted by the Confederate flag, which stood sentry over the stage and, in some ways, the entire state and this region.
The argument has raged for years, but it’s time for South Carolina to bury the stars and bars.
To understand why the flag must come down, you must understand why it went up in the first place. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, doing so a full five months before North Carolina, the last state to secede, joined.
Thankfully, the state issued an official declaration that clearly spells out the exact rationale for the move. While it is true that the delegation believed that the federal government had broken its contract and essentially released South Carolina from the Union by failing to honor the constitution, every grievance listed is directly related to slavery. The document makes it understood that the Southern way of life was being threatened by the federal government, and slavery was that way of life.
So why do we insist on honoring the losing side of a war fought specifically to keep an entire race of people in forced servitude? It was an extremely significant event in the history of the South, but not one that any Southerner should be proud of. This doesn’t mean we should forget about the tremendous loss of life that the South faced, but we need not memorialize them on the grounds of the State House.
I was born and raised in the South, and I proudly consider myself a Southerner. But the Confederate Flag represents the racism that can still be found across the South today and excludes a significant number of Southerners with its hateful associations.
This isn’t just conjecture or opinion, it’s established fact. It has been adopted by many racist groups and organizations, and it was conceived to represent a failed state that specifically existed to protect the institution of slavery.
There are many emblems that could represent the essence of the South without perpetuating racism and hate. But as long as that flag stands, it will cast a shadow that spans the whole state, reminding everyone that the dream of an antebellum South, one that would render a full 30 percent of the state back into bondage, a dream still exists and is supported by our elected officials.