The Confederate Flag: Communication Concepts in Racism and History

     On April 17, Mississippi voted to retain the Confederate flag as part of their stage flag. The state's flag has the Confederate battle flag in its upper left hand corner. The Confederate presence on the state flag has been assailed as a symbol of a racist and violent history. Other states, including Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina have all taken action to reduce the visibility of the Confederate flag as a state-endorsed symbol in their state. But, these actions were all taken by legislative and executive sections of state government - it was never put before the people for a vote. This controversial step was taken by Mississippi. The vote to get rid of the Confederate flag failed by a margin of nearly 2-1.
     Whether to replace the flag was the only issue on the referendum. The ballot showed two color pictures. One showed the current flag, which has red, white, and blue stripes and the Confederate flag in the upper left hand corner. The other picture showed the new, proposed flag which is identical in design except that in the upper left hand corner, instead of the Confederate flag, there is a blue field with 20 white stars signifying Mississippi as the 20th state to enter the Union.(Gettleman)
     Letters to the Editor of USA Today, published on April 23, delineate the polemical nature of the issue. Joseph George Amato of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, writes that it is a shame that the Confederate flag will continue to fly in Mississippi: "African-Americans may have lost their fight to remove Mississippi's Confederate-battle-emblemed flag, but it will fly over the state as a constant reminder of the state's more than 100 years of dehumanizing the black race... It is a shame that such bigotry still exists in our country" (USA Today).
     On the other side of the issue, Gordon V. Mueller, from Reisterstown, Maryland, expresses thanks that Mississippi retained the Confederate symbol as part of their flag. He maintains that the cross of St. Andrew is a symbol of history and heritage and that it is pessimistic special interests that are trying to expel the flag from Mississippi: "Some people who dislike that we support displaying symbols of our Southern past will say we are racists. Where I stand, the only racists are the ones who wish to impose their wills on us and strip us of our rich, Southern history" (USA Today).
     The Independent, a major newspaper in London, added some credence to Mr. Mueller's argument as it said that the Confederate flag "summons up those other great virtues of the South: splendid architecture, mint juleps, sentiment, solidarity, fried chicken, loyalty to lost causes, and people who sound just like Vivien Leigh, or Clark Gable" (Independent). But, it immediately adds, in language that shows the publication's detachment from the immediacy of the issue for those of us in the United States, "Just a pity about the means of cotton production, the fiery crosses, those funny white hats, and the only recently abandoned methods of instant justice involving rope and trees" (Independent).
     However, a survey of the major daily news publications of the United States showed no sentiment of favor for the Confederate flag. Newspapers from both North (Pittsburg Post-Gazette, New York Times) and South(Baltimore Sun, Atlanta Journal and Constitution) of the Mason-Dixon Line, from the nation's Capitol (Washington Post) and the west coast (Los Angeles Times) all indicate that the Confederate flag is indeed a symbol of slavery and all but the New York Times and Los Angeles Times expressed regret that it was not taken from the Mississippi flag. But, neither of those newspapers said that it should be kept. The Los Angeles Times showed their distance from the situation by covering it with an unusual amount of objectivity and the New York Times took an academic approach which said that the desire of the South to divorce the Confederacy from ties with slavery is a sign of progress.
     The decision to put this issue to referendum is decried by some. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution expresses this point of view. They write that the positive outcome of reducing the visibility of the Confederate battle flag in their state came from the action of their own Governor, Roy Barnes, making unusually quick political moves. The changing of the flag is not the only issue that they think is right to be changed without referendum. "Had integration and the scrapping of Jim Crow laws depended on public ballot rather than federal courts, there would probably be regions of the South today where black and white students would be forced to attend separate schools and drink from different water fountains" (Atlanta). In response to lawmakers that still insist that such important law changes should go before the public, they point out that those lawmakers never find any need to put other important changes, such as income tax rates or their own pay raises, before the public. This major national newspaper from Atlanta appears to construct an argument that says that the intent of these lawmakers is to strategically put divisive racial issues before the public vote for the purpose of the intended outcome that successively arose in Mississippi - a racist status quo.
     The Baltimore Sun treated Mississippi's failure to rid their flag of the Confederate symbol as a missed opportunity. The Sun points out that Mississippi is among the worst states in the nation at providing services such as literacy and library support, teacher salaries, patient to physician ratios, and preserving the well being of children. The Sun called the Confederate flag the moral equivalent of the swastika, and writes, "erasing the Confederate battle emblem from their state flag was an easy way for Mississippians to prove they're not the hicks everyone thinks they are. It was a chance to prove their ignorance is not conjoined with bigotry, a way to quiet some of the national laughter at their backwardness" (Baltimore). Instead of having a flag the represents them as the 50th best state in the Nation, says The Sun, they could have changed it to a flag that represents them as the 20th to enter the Union.
     The Washington Post said that black people in Mississippi who voted to keep the Confederate flag are crazy and that to keep that flag is to naively ignore its symbolism of slavery. The flag, they say, "became the preferred banner of white terrorists who continued to lynch, burn and bomb black people long after the Civil War was over" (Milloy).The Post even goes so far as to say that those who voted for the flag acted "like slaves" and that the boycott of Mississippi being planned by the NAACP is a good thing, but that what really needs to happen is an emphasis in school books about the role of racism in the Civil War.
     The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that Mississippi will be, and should be, condemned for their decision to keep the Confederate flag. "Mississippi's decision to keep the battle flag of the Confederacy as the official banner of the commonwealth will go a long way toward confirming the state's reputation as a race-relations backwater" (Pittsburgh). With similarity to the Baltimore Sun, the Post-Gazette treated this decision as a sort of missed opportunity. They emphasized the effect of racial division on the vote and indicated that possible effects of the decision may not be regretted by the rest of the country: "If a symbol of division is more important to that state's people than high-wage jobs, then so be it" (Pittsburgh).
      It is notable that all of these opinions were written by journalists. When a more academic approach is taken, a different philosophical outcome is found. Case in point, the New York Times had an editorial written by Robert S. McElvaine. McElvaine is not a journalist. His background is quite different from that of the American University journalism major, for example, which would include only one American history undergraduate course, which can easily be taken on a period of American history that will not touch on the Civil War. He is a Professor of History at Millsaps College. When looked at through educated lenses, McElvaine finds that the desire to keep the Confederate flag but claim that it is a symbol of prideful heritage and not of slavery is a great step forward. He says that before the Civil Rights movement, southerners would have openly embraced the flag as well as the racism that it represents. He claims that the desire to recognize the heritage of the Confederacy is a more or less innocent desire to preserve their identity, but that they have taken a big step by divorcing that heritage from slavery.
      With another highly academic perspective, Professor Ed Smith, director of American Studies and founder of the Civil War Institute at American University, supported Mississippi's retaining the Confederate flag. "I have no problem with it," said Smith, a black man who grew up in Washington D.C. Smith often claims the role of slavery in the South around the time of the Civil War is misunderstood. He has pointed out to Civil War students that there were black people who served in the Confederate army and that, though the Civil War started in 1861, citizens of Washington D.C. legally had slaves until 1863.
     All of this public discourse has come in response to the decision that the voting citizens of Mississippi made to retain the Confederate flag as part of their state flag. Barring the possibility of a new referendum, or other such policy changes, the issue is no longer immediately open for change. But, the momentum of the public debate continues, and it's complexity is clear. "No doubt there was more than one motive at work," declares the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But, "Motives ebb and flow." (Pittsburgh) In this we can see the stages of group development based on research by Bruce Tuckman in 1965 as discussed in lecture on March 26 and depicted in figure 10-1 of the textbook. (Wood) In past months and years Mississippi was in the Prestage, with many perspectives causing many different beliefs pointing in different directions. Then each side entered a Forming stage in which each side, one in favor of the Confederate flag and one in favor of the new design, become acquainted with one another and defined their purpose. Following this is a Storming stage in which each side undoubtedly struggled with conflicts of goals, personalities, information, and power. In this phase the pro-Confederate flag group surely ran into a struggle between those who were openly racist and those who decried racism but supported the Confederate symbol as a piece of heritage and history. In the ensuing Norming stage the beliefs are aggregated and members of each side set out guidelines, rules, and roles to regulate how, or if, they interact. Finally, as the referendum drew near it was time for each side to enter the Performing stage. Here members of each side settle into the business of pushing their cause. In this particular case, members of the pro-Confederate flag side had some individuals stand on street corners waving Confederate banners while the anti-Confederate flag benefited from attempts by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to get the vote out to black communities that they believed would support their cause. (Gettleman)
     This debate can be looked at in terms of Hate Speech as discussed in lecture on April 19th and 23rd. The pro-Confederate flag side is promoting an essentially Libertarian argument. In effect, they are saying that there should be no limit on what can be expressed by their state flag. Those arguing against the Confederate flag are taking a form of the Egilitarian argument. They certainly do not go so far as to say that anything that offends should be prohibited, but they say this one thing that offends should be prohibited.
     The flag is a form of nonverbal behavior - an artifact that is used to "announce...identities and personalize...environments" (Wood 114). The debate surrounding this nonverbal behavior exemplifies the features of communication that were discussed in lecture on February 5th. As a form of nonverbal communication, the Confederate flag is arbitrary. It has no intrinsic meaning. It was arbitrarily chosen to represent the Confederacy. It is also ambiguous. What exactly it means is unclear. To some it represents a documentable history of secession and reunification and to others it simply represents slavery. The ambiguity of its nature as communication allows for this debate. In addition to these things, it is also abstract. The flag itself is not the Confederacy. Neither its form nor design encapsulate the Confederacy, or anything else. Rather, it is an abstract representation of whatever ambiguity it is arbitrarily chosen to represent.
     The fire of this public discourse is certainly also fed by the effects of prototypes, personal constructs, stereotypes, and scripts as discussed in lecture on February 1st. Prototypes are "knowledge structures that define the clearest or most representative examples of some category" (Wood 41). In this instance, the easiest example of someone in favor of keeping the Confederate flag may be members of the Ku Klux Klan running around in white hoods, burning crosses, and lynching black people in response to Reconstruction. Certainly not all Confederate flag supporters, though, fit this prototype. Simply classifying all people into a category like this may keep us from learning that there are some Southern people who are very racially and morally accepting, but simply hold pride in the heritage that their family was once a part of the political movement of the Confederacy.
     Personal constructs are "mental yardsticks that allow us to measure people and situations along bipolar dimensions of judgment" (Wood 42). Therefore, people who are against the Confederate flag may look at Confederate supporters somewhere on a scale of racist-nonracist or intelligent-unintelligent. Personal constructs are simplified tools of judgment that help us make assessments of qualities we perceive.
     Stereotypes are "predictive generalizations about people and situations" (Wood 43). To form a stereotype we subconsciously consider the prototype we have created for the situation, compare it to the personal construct that applies to the situation, and make predictions on the future based on these categories and measures. For example, someone who is against the Confederate flag may look at supporters of the Confederate flag and decided that their prototype for pro-Confederates is that of a "redneck." They will then measure where on their personal construct of racist-nonracist individuals under this prototype are and therefore make the stereotypical prediction: These pro-Confederates will use the Confederate flag as a form of hate speech to terrorize and intimidate black people in Mississippi. This stereotype may be accurate or inaccurate, but is certainly based on distortably selective and subjective feelings.
     Scripts are sequences "of activities that define what we and others are expected to do in specific situations" (Wood 43). For instance, a black person in Mississippi may have perceived the script to vote against the Confederate flag as this is what was expected of them because that is how society feels black people should react to the legacy of the Confederacy.
     After surveying the major newspapers from across the country and investigating how this discourse is affected by the factors of Communication we have learned this semester, I feel that, as an outsider, it does not bother me that Mississippi has the Confederate symbol on their state flag. I do not find any reason that the Confederate flag should be seen as a symbol of slavery. The Confederacy existed for only 4 years and the flag represented it for only 2 of those years. It is true that slavery was a major part of the Confederacy's economy during that time. But, from 1784, when the United States Constitution was written, till 1861, when South Carolina seceded from the Union to form the beginning of the Confederacy, the land that would become the Confederacy was a part of the United States. And, the United States was a slave country. Slavery existed throughout the Union. Even after the beginning of the Civil War, Washington DC was a slave capital for two years. When Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, he left in bondage all the slaves that belonged to United States supporters throughout the Union. I will not go so far as to say the flag of the United States should be condemned as a symbol of slavery, nor will I deny that the Ku Klux Klan did adopt the Confederate flag as a symbol of their violent racism. But, the fact that KKK claimed that abstract ambiguity to mean one particular thing does not mean that that is the only possible, or likely, meaning for that symbol. If the KKK were to begin wearing men's dress neckties as a symbol of their racism, we would not expect the rest of society to stop wearing neckties in deference to the KKK's claim that neckties symbolized racism. Academic sources claim that the Confederate flag is not as evil as is sometimes claimed. "The mistake people make is to compare the Confederate flag to the swastika. That's just not right" (Smith). When looked at under the measures of hate speech as discussed in lecture on April 16, I find that the Confederate flag, in many situations, has no intention of harm, its content serves definite purposes other than harm, and that it is difficult to define any form of harm that is caused by it. Therefore, I would take the Libertarian stand that it should be allowed to stay on Mississippi's state flag.
     All of this, however, is from the perspective of an outsider. I feel that if I lived in Mississippi I would have voted for the new flag design in order to rid the state image of the negative aspects of the Old South. Being aware of the effect of prototypes, personal constructs, and stereotypes I would find it quite embarrassing to live in the only state in the country that keeps the image of the Confederacy on its flag. I would know that I am not racist, but would be afraid of the perception or assumption from outsiders, or those who are offended, that I was indeed endorsing a symbol of racism.

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WORKS CITED

"A FLAG NOT FURLED." Editorial. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 23 April 2001: A-12.

"Banner of racism, ignorance." Editorial. The Baltimore Sun. 19 April 2001: 14A.

"Flag debate won't tarnish Southern roots." USA Today. 23 April 2001: 11A.

Gettleman, Jeffrey. "MISSISSIPPI VOTES TO KEEP CONFEDERATE BATTLE CROSS ON STATE'S FLAG." Los Angeles Times. 18 April 2001: A1.

"LOOK AWAY!" The Independent (London). 19 April 2001: 3.

McElvaine, Robert S. "For an Old Flag, A New Rationale." The New York Times. 21 April 2001: A15.

Milloy, Courtland. "Blacks Helped Keep Old Flag Waving In Mississippi." The Washington Post. 22 April 2001: C01.

"Mississippi will suffer for its Legislature's cowardice." Editorial. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. 19 April 2001: 22A.

Smith, Ed. Informal interview and class lecture. Civil War History of the City of Washington, Hurst Hall, American University. 25 April 2001.

Wood, Julia. Communication Mosaics. 2nd ed. United States: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001