A stained banner of a lost cause

A review of "The Confederate Flag Debate: Hate or Heritage?"

This is a short pamphlet about the so-called Confederate Flag, Southern Cross or Battle Cross (originally the navy jack of the Southern Confederacy), easily the most controversial “heritage symbol” in the United States. The author – correctly – argues that the Confederate Flag is a symbol of hate, racism, slavery and treason. While Tom Edwards doesn't argue that private individuals, businesses or associations should be stopped from flying the flag, he does strongly hold that it shouldn't be used in official contexts. Edwards takes on the often surreal arguments raised by the flag's defenders, such as the tiresome claim that the Civil War wasn't about slavery but about “state's rights”. He points out that the Southern secessionists wanted “state's rights” precisely in order to secure slavery, and quotes various Southern dignitaries who explicitly stated that *of course* the war was about slavery.

Here's just one such statement: “As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a White Flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.” And who said this, you wonder? Well, it was W T Thompson, the actual designer of the second national flag of the Confederacy, the Stainless Banner, which spouts the Battle Cross in its upper left-hand corner! Thompson also called the Stainless Banner “the White Man's Flag”. Case closed, as it were.

Many other arguments made by Neo-Confederates are either irrelevant (“there was slavery in Africa, too”) or quite simply wrong (“many Northerners owned slave long after the Civil War ended”). The author also points out that only 50 Blacks volunteered when the Confederacy, at the very end of the war, decided to arm some of the slaves in a desperate last ditch attempt to fend off the Union armies. The claims that “thousands” of Blacks fought in the rebel army is bogus.

The author concedes that many plain folk who use the Confederate Flag may not be racists, but asks them to reconsider what “Southern heritage and history” really means. The Confederate States of America were established with the explicit aim of preserving the enslavement of Blacks. Later, the South imposed Jim Crow a.k.a. race segregation. What kind of heritage are the flag-wavers really defending? Tom Edwards believes that the Southern Cross is too tainted by its association with the KKK to ever become a colorblind and neutral symbol for “the South”. It's interesting to note that Edwards isn't a 100% politically correct liberal, being a member of the NRA and supporting the U.S. war in Vietnam.

“The Confederate Flag Debate” could have been better written/edited, and the anti-Confederate arguments could have been expanded upon, for instance by discussing the abolition of slavery in the few slave states fighting on the Union side. I suspect it was written recently and in a hurry, since it mentions Amazon's recent decision to pull Confederate flags from its shelves. However, I will nevertheless give it three stars. It's a good introduction to the subject. If it can convince anyone south of the Mason-Dixon line, is perhaps another matter entirely. I mean, the so-called “Southern heritage” have been reeking with White racist supremacy for a very, very long time…