I saw Gov. Nikki Haley’s response to the call to take down the Confederate Flag above the state capital in South Carolina. I believe she meant every word she said. The main purpose of her speech was to call for the overdue and hasty removal of the flag. She also said, “Whether [the flag] is on state house grounds or in a museum, it will always be apart of the soil of South Carolina;” she meant that too because the streets of Charleston are named for Confederate Generals. The fact that we have to debate about the removal of the rebel flag is a part of America’s original sin of racism…
I saw Gov. Nikki Haley’s response to the call to take down the Confederate Flag above the state capital in South Carolina. I believe she meant every word she said. The main purpose of her speech was to call for the overdue and hasty removal of the flag. She also said, “Whether [the flag] is on state house grounds or in a museum, it will always be apart of the soil of South Carolina;” she meant that too because the streets of Charleston are named for Confederate Generals. The fact that we have to debate about the removal of the rebel flag is a part of America’s original sin of racism.
This country, particularly the southern most parts of the nation, has engaged the commodification, dehumanization, and objectification of black bodies since its conception. Yes, hatred for black bodies is heritage. This country has a racist heritage.
Racism is not an attitude but an abuse of power. White people had, and still have, the power to institutionalize violence and oppression against black, brown, and non-white bodies.
Racism is a form of oppression. Being an oppressor is having institutional and structural power to discriminate and give advantages to one group and not the other. Moreover, racism is the power white people have to tell black people when white people are not racist.
This country is founded upon the violence inflicted upon people who are not white. Racism has been broadly misunderstood and conflated with bigotry and prejudice.
Bigotry and prejudice is at the root of racism but one can be bigoted and prejudiced against a different race and not be racist. Similarly, a person can be racist and not be bigoted.
White people have dominated the structures of the United States since it’s founding. White Europeans founded the first colony of Jamestown in 1607 by taking land from the indigenous population.
The settlers stole African bodies to be used first as indentured servants. Three indentured servants in Jamestown, John Punch, a black man, with James Gregory, and a man named Victor, two white men, ran off their plantation.
John Punch was the only one sentenced to servitude for life, creating a legacy of slavery in this country. From 1619 to the end of the Civil War, the majority of black people lived in slavery. They were owned. They had no agency over their own bodies; slaves were raped and sold from their families never to see their loved ones again. The institution of slavery was the fabric of early America. Owned black bodies built the aristocracy that made America as advanced as it is today.
Let’s be clear, the only difference between the flag of the United States and the Confederate flag, is the Confederate flag represents the South’s violent defense to preserve an immoral institution. The U.S. flag is stained with black and indigenous blood due to this country’s expansion “from sea to shining sea.”
Some Americans will hold replicas of the first flag sewn by Betsy Ross in a few weeks to celebrate Independence Day. At the time, Ross’s flag represented the core creed of this country that all [white and property owning] men are created equal. For the majority of the United States’ dark night of slavery, the flag of the country flew. It was an ugly reminder to the slaves living during the American Revolution that the concept of liberty did not include them. Racism is just as American as baseball and football.
The country was at a turning point and the moral question of slavery was growing more intense. When the South’s “way of life” was becoming threatened and the country elected former Free-Soiler, Abraham Lincoln, who had no initial intentions of abolishing slavery; some of the states in the South, South Carolina being the first, seceded at the threat of abolition.
They formed a new country built on states’ rights to own humans. Later in 1865, towards the end of the war, a third flag was adopted. It’s called the “Blood Stained Banner,” that is the flag above the state house in South Carolina. The nightriders and the Ku Klux Klan made that flag popular.
When it was challenged, the state of South Carolina fired the first shots on Ft. Sumter under the banner of the Confederate flag. The South fought to maintain the states rights to own people as property. Slavery was the South’s life’s blood economy and it was the country’s economy. The only real conversation about abolition was when it was harming white industrial businesses in the north and the question of how white people’s quest to expand west would affect slavery arose.
Furthermore, it was theologically justified in the “Bible Belt.” It was defended as a part of southern culture and “way of life.” It was defended so much that southern states were willing to die for it. The African-Americans who were enslaved had no agency over their body, sexuality and family. They had to endure the hardship of being sold from their family; babies ripped from the arms of their mothers, fathers from their children, and women raped. The effects of trauma the Confederate flag triggers black people and leaving it up is insensitive to the mental and spiritual health of African-American citizens.
Racism is sin because it separates the oppressor from God and humanity. It is based upon a lie that white people are inherently better than non-white people; this is called white supremacy. The Confederate Flag is a symbol of that sin. Racism is institutionalized violence and sin, and to have it flying high over a building where laws are made is intentional sin. To argue about why the Confederate flag should stay up, to deny the flag’s history, and to ignore the trigger from the trauma of slavery the flag causes black people is blatant sin. If you really want your state to start healing from this terrorist attack and begin to be redeemed from sin, take down the flag.
However, my fear is of the inevitable. White privilege is good at avoiding things. The message from white politicians is that because black people see it as a symbol of oppression, it should be taken down.
With the tragic death of the Emanuel AME 9, the removal of the flag was a reaction and quite frankly a move that was for political expediency. Removing the flag was a move because the noise black people made about the flag grew louder.
The fact that this tragedy only woke up white people to the problem of flying the flag is a result of America’s original sin. The message was give “black people what they want, so they can be quiet.” If the flag is out of sight than what the flag symbolizes will be out of mind. The Confederate flags only have a history that spans from 1861-1865, but the U.S flag is stained with more black blood from the founding of the country to now.
America, deal with that.
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Red, White and Bloodstained: America’s Heritage of Hate and Original Sin
