Reply #109: Most of them ... [View All]

In fact, the heritage crowd is pretty much responsible for what anyone knows about the other flags associated with the Confederacy since they tend to be the ones that preserve them, display them, and recount the history of them. It's people who know little of the Confederacy or of the historical South generally who tend not to realize that the battle flag was not the Navy Jack and that the Stars and Bars was neither.

As for the "X," I might suggest picking one without it has little to do with whether one can legitimately "claim heritage." The "X" is a modified St. Andrews Cross and has its own history apart and distinct from that of the Confederacy or the South. It was adopted as a Southern symbol due to cultural ties.

Finally, I could think of few things worse than picking just "any other flag" besides the soldier's battle flag for claiming a celebration of heritage as the reason for displaying a Confederate flag. The battle flag is claimed as a flag of heritage because of what it represented originally, soldiers going into battle, sometimes against their will, in defence of what they viewed as their homes and family. One could easily choose to display the flag of the so-called Orphan Brigade, the Cherokee battle flag, or some such thing, but other, more common flags associated with the Confederacy would be horrible choices for claiming heritage, namely the Stars and Bars or the 2nd and 3rd National flags. These represented a government, one created almost soley for the purpose of perpetuating slavery. The political flags, to address a complaint offered by some, are what represent treason. The reasons the individual soldiers fought was not necessarily the reasons the government fought, and that is an important difference.

That said, the battle flag, or more accurately the Naval Jack, has been corrupted as a symbol of heritage by what happened with its use after the Civil War, most famously during the era of struggle against the KKK, lynching, and for civil rights, but in other contexts as well that are arguably more important. Ironically, though, more common symbols of organizations such as the KKK, to wit the American flag and a Christian flag, are not equally corrputed, which is what pisses off a lot of modern self-proclaimed heritage defenders.

And that said, clearly a sizable portion of these "heritage defenders" don't have a problem with what the flag symbolized during this era, which is why I understand completely the tendency to view it as a racist symbol and avoid its display except in certain, clearly defined contexts.