This report from the Australian edition of The Conversation may be timely.
Most Australians—aside from a few groups dedicated to reenacting American Civil War
battles, and history buffs, were not familiar until recently with the charged history of the
flag of the Confederate States of America. In America, the flag has long symbolised
defiance, rebellion, an ideal of whiteness and the social and political exclusion of non-white
people—in a word, racism. It represents the Confederate States of America, or Confederacy,
created in 1861 when 11 states seceded from the 85-year-old nation.
Why is the Confederate flag so offensive?.
In a polarised political and media environment, many white Southerners continue to defend
their allegiance to the Confederate flag. They claim the battle flag represents their Southern
heritage, as if that heritage comprises an innocent history of mint juleps and church-going.
The problem with that claim, as the history of the use of the flag demonstrates, is that the
heritage it symbolises is also that of enslavement, inequality, violence and gross injustice.
—Anybody from one of those Southern states care to comment?
Most Australians—aside from a few groups dedicated to reenacting American Civil War
battles, and history buffs, were not familiar until recently with the charged history of the
flag of the Confederate States of America. In America, the flag has long symbolised
defiance, rebellion, an ideal of whiteness and the social and political exclusion of non-white
people—in a word, racism. It represents the Confederate States of America, or Confederacy,
created in 1861 when 11 states seceded from the 85-year-old nation.
Why is the Confederate flag so offensive?.
In a polarised political and media environment, many white Southerners continue to defend
their allegiance to the Confederate flag. They claim the battle flag represents their Southern
heritage, as if that heritage comprises an innocent history of mint juleps and church-going.
The problem with that claim, as the history of the use of the flag demonstrates, is that the
heritage it symbolises is also that of enslavement, inequality, violence and gross injustice.
—Anybody from one of those Southern states care to comment?
I'm a creationist; I believe that man created God.
