I collected Hotwheels, Matchbox cars, Sizzlers, AFX, and Tyco slot car tracks my entire childhood. I remember going through the Sears Catalog and circling all of the race tracks, and Evel Knievel stuff I could find. I religiously watched Batman, the Adam West version. I never missed an episode. I took baths with my Batman and Robin speed boat and sat as close to the TV as I could to watch Speed Racer and Racer X. I watched anything that had fast cars in it. Smokey and the Bandit, Knight Rider, Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angel's Mustangs, and of course Magnum P.I's Ferrari.
So when I saw a TV show about two boys with an orange Dodge that drove fast, jumped ponds, did burnouts, and had multiple car chases every episode, I was hooked. So when I walked into the kitchen and announced "I wanted to get that flag on the top of the Dukes Of Hazard car", you can only imagine the shockwave in my house that night. My older sister said, "we need to talk."
With the recent social unrest, the removal of confederate flags from Nascar, and confederate statues being torn down like Saddam's statues after the liberation of Iraq, I thought this might be a good time to share my perspective. I know this post will ruffle some feathers. It may even deeply wound others. Please know this is not my intention. I am simply speaking out about my experiences. How I perceive things and how they have impacted me in my 54 years as an American.
On a drive from Pittsburgh to Virginia, with my wife, we stopped at Antietam. Antietam was one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war.
I walked the battlefield at Antietam for at least an hour. I touched the ground where so many soldiers on both sides lost their lives. I starred across the once battlefield and wondered where Robert Gould Shaw may have fought. Shaw would go on to command the Mass 54th, the first black fighting regiment that turned the tides for Blacks to serve in combat roles in the military. Not just support roles. My wife and I walked over to the small white barn and peeked through the windows to see where Clara Barton, the future founder of The Red Cross, would have tended to the wounded fighters.
You see I love history. Especially if I can touch it. I feel connected to it when I do. It is why I love old cars, old clocks radios from the 1940's . I almost got kicked out of the Titanic exhibit in Cincinnati for trying to touch the steel cranes that lowered the lifeboats into the water.
But I want to talk about the Rebel Battle Flag and the "N" word. As a Black man, the image of the confederate flag on the General Lee in Dukes of hazard represented two well mannered young men, who seemed to be trying to do the right thing and avoiding the law that was always out to get them.
But the Dukes of Hazzard, or Molly Hatchet and Lynard Skynard record covers was not the only time I saw that flag that was on top of the General Lee. I am aware that Anthony Hervey a Mississippi resident and a black man flew the flag proudly and didn't have a problem with it. The Rebel Battle Flag is still a part of the state flag of Mississippi so there's that.
But before I dive into that I want to talk about the "N" word. The "N" word is arguably the most inflammatory word in the English language. The mere accusation of that word, end's careers, even ends ownership of businesses, closes stores, starts boycotts, and makes national news. Yet you will hear the "N" word in casual conversation among Blacks. You will hear it in music, in film, and even as a greeting between two black men. My sister who teaches in Houston says it has crossed over to other cultures when she overheard two Asian students greet each other using the "N" word in terms of endearment.
I believe the displaying of the Confederate Flag and the use of the "N" word are opposite sides of the same coin? It is pride and ownership.
The "N" word is something that blacks can own exclusively. No one else can say it to us without the fear of life and career-ending consequences. The "N" word is ours and ours alone, and it's exclusive.
It communicates the existence of an inner-circle like some kind of secret fraternity handshake. Anyone outside of that fraternity attempting to use that word is immediately aware they don't belong.
Personally, I hate the word. I watch the film 42 as Jackie Robinson steps to the plate and hearing the "N" word makes me cringe. Then in another film, I am busting out laughing as it is used between two black comedians in a film. Speaking of comedians Richard Pryor used that word all the time. Then he took a trip to Africa and said he didn't see any there. Then he announced he would never use that word again.
Does the Rebel Battle Flag carry a similar experience? Does it communicate ownership in an exclusive fraternity? Is it something that no else can display? Does it communicate the existence of an inner-circle?
I believe the "N" word should not be used because it represents polar opposites and there is no way of finding a common ground in communicating with it. I believe the same about the confederate flag.
Statues and memorials honoring slaves traders, and confederate generals cause blacks pain because, it says, this part of our culture still exists. Moreover, we are proud of it and celebrate it. Especially when these symbols are on state flags, in the courtyards of the state capitals, or the revisionist historians try to overlook the pain caused by these men.
When I see that flag, I see 2% Dukes of Hazard or I hear "Flirtin with Disaster by Molly Hatchet. However, don't see a flag that screams southern pride. I see a flag that screams with the blood of thousands. I see a flag that is present in the photos of my history books when blacks were burned alive, a flag present at mass lynchings, a flag that is still present at Ku Klux Klan rallies, and a flag that is now being waved by white supremacists and Neo-Nazis. Most of these occurring after the civil war. Friends of mine have posted on social media what the confederate flag stood for claiming it had nothing to do with racism and slavery, and proclaiming its Christian values and symbols of unity. All the while, ignoring the fact that free black men who fought against the south were warned if they surrendered or were captured by the armies of that flag, they would be forced into slavery. Not held as prisoners then returned to the north as free men. It is hard knowing that free black men not only risked their lives but knowingly risked becoming slaves to be a part of the narrative that is the story of the United States Of America. I think that flag divides, as easily as the "N" word. The fact that I can't even type it for fear that my social media pages will be shut down, is proof enough how potent that word is.
I had a professor at the University of North Texas in Dallas. After a class discussion about this, he pulled me into his office. He said the stars and bars, or what most call the confederate flag, is not the flag of the confederacy at all. It is the Rebel battle flag flown in combat over the southern armies in the civil war. The actual flag of the confederacy looks a lot like a mix between an old American flag and the Texas flag. I took a seat. A one on one history lesson. My love language.
I left class that day with a very different perspective. It has been stirring ever since because I finished high school in Germany. In Germany where I played on soccer fields in Nuremberg Stadium. Fields where just 40 years earlier I would have been shot. Where 40 years earlier Hitler's armies stood at formation on those very fields as he addressed them from the steps. The steps I was climbing with my friend Sean at that very moment. There were no statues, no flags, no more panzer tanks anchored into the perimeter of the stadium for display. All of the Swastikas had been ground off the cement walls of the stadiums.
When people ask me, do you think it is offensive when you see a Rebel Battle Flag? Or they say it's just a show of southern pride, so what's the big deal? My response is simple.
The Rebel Battle Flag, to me, will never be a flag flown to signify Southern Pride, any more than the Swastika or Nazi flag is flown to signify German pride. It will always be the battle flag of the SS and Nazi soldiers responsible for countless horrors. To fly that flag today, and claim German pride would be viewed as insensitive at least and at best an atrocity. It would signal to all those wounded, killed, and to the survivors and their families, that this element of our culture still exists and we are proud of it, and celebrate it. There are more than 700 Confederate monuments in public parks, courthouse squares, and state capitals nationwide. (They're not all old, either — North Carolina has added 35 such markers since 2000.) The Confederate flag still waves high above some statehouses in the South. - The Washington Post. To me, that flag represents a defeated army during a time of civil war, at a cost of great life, human life. The wounds of that war run so deep it will take generations to unpack it.
I visited the Lorraine Motel in Memphis where MLK was shot and killed. The motel is now a national civil rights museum. I was able to stand in between the two rooms where MLK stayed and look out on the balcony where he took his last breath. But the museum was very graphic. I didn't want to have to explain the Grand Wizard's Klan Uniform hanging up in the glass case to my young girls. I didn't want to explain why there was a trash truck in the middle of the museum symbolizing where black men were crushed alive. They were too young. But I wanted them to know years later that they were there.
So I had my wife bring them directly to that room and bypass the museum. I don't fly a black power flag, or black panther flag or even a Black Lives Matter flag. Heck I don't even fly an American flag where I currently live.
But I am proud to be American, I know the story of our country is still being written and compared to countries around the world we are still infants. Sadly we often act like infants. People say if we don't remember history we will repeat it. But that’s what museums are for.
Should these statues be destroyed? I don't know? Should they move them to a Confederate Museum? Does that museum then become a shine for those wanting to return to those days? All I do know is this. When a slave trader trafficks 84,000 slaves and passes on his generational wealth to the city to have streets and buildings named after him, hopefully, you can appreciate the gravity of the situation. It will be hard to move forward. It will be hard to engage in really tough conversations. And right now the scabs on unhealed wounds are being removed forcefully.
We can learn and grow from this, or we can let pride, selfishness, and entitlement mentalities lead us back into a civil war. That is a history I do not wish to see repeated. However, I don't believe celebrating those histories with monuments, flags and statues are preventing anything from being repeated. If anything it is making it harder to heal.
I want to be better. I want to understand. And if you want to be better and want to better understand, then we all need to seek first to understand then to be understood. I'm sharing my personal experiences so those of you that know me, can see through my eyes. I know I have filters based on what I have experienced, the way I've been responded to, and the expectations that I've had. I'll say it again. Let's be comfortable being uncomfortable so we can learn to change.
The pastor in me says that change requires asking God to reveal things to us that we have hidden in our hearts. Then give us the grace and strength to drag it into the light and deal with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment