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On the Mississippi Flag

by Tom Lowe

June 10, 2001

Several weeks ago we Mississippians voted to keep the Confederate battle flag in the corner of the Mississippi flag. As one who voted for the new flag--and was disappointed with the result--I've done my best to be philosophical in dealing with things I cannot change, and to ponder the significance of the decision.

Clearly, the Confederate battle flag has a racist history and racist connotations. It was one of the flags of a confederacy of slave-holding states. It was put into the Mississippi flag by the Constitutional Convention of 1890, the convention that rolled back Reconstruction and ensconced the white planters of the Delta in control of the state. It also enacted the Jim Crow laws that oppressed blacks and kept them second-class citizens for many years. The Confederate battle flag has been the preferred banner of the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens' Council and the Counsel of Conservative Citizens.

The Jackson Progressive received many letters to the editor on both sides of the controversy, but wasn't able to post them at the time Some of the most sincere, poignant and well-reasoned letters were written by proponents of the old flag. That the flag arouses such different emotions in different people bespeaks of a far more complicated matter than one would originally suppose. The Mississippi psyche is a bundle of contradictory and irreconcilable beliefs, and the collective personality that is the result of these beliefs is exceedingly complex as well as dysfunctional.

The dominant white culture in Mississippi casts a dark shadow--an African shadow. Indeed, our cultural forms, the songs we sing and even the food we eat is profoundly influenced by the African, which is why we must defend the "white" culture from the African influence. I have been told the story of visitors in Africa entertained by African royalty, who served them a native "African" meal which included okra, black-eyed peas and collards, foods on which many, if not most, white Mississippians were raised.

And what can we say about music? Elvis Presley conquered the popular music world by with a variation of the blues that originated among African-Americans in the Mississippi Delta.

The author, after much thought on the subject, has reluctantly concluded that keeping the old flag was an act of honesty, even integrity, on the part of the voters. It is an admission that a deep ambivalence about race still permeates the state and its citizens. The new flag, in retrospect, would not have expressed the soul of this state: a highly individualistic culture with deep roots in conformity; the white matriarchy that skilfully disguises itself as a male-dominated macho regime; the denigration of the African-American that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy countless times in schools, businesses and courts of law; and all obscured by a cooperative denial of reality that occasionally makes the state resemble a mental institution, rather than merely a political subdivision.

No, we did not make a mistake in voting for the old flag; it is an apt symbol for where we are and who we are as a people. No longer can we pretend that we are something that we are not. Keep the flag! Embrace it! Let it serve as a reminder of the formidable task ahead of us. To change it would be dishonest, to indulge in false advertising.

Perhaps a time will come when we have truly put aside our nasty streak of racism. When that time arrives, maybe we will choose to replace the flag with something more representative of our ideals. On the other hand, when we reach that point, we may no longer care about the symbolism of the Confederate battle flag. Or perhaps we will keep it for another reason: to make those of us that are white humble by reminding us of our less than honorable past.

The problem with flags is the problem of the human condition. Your editor has exchanged correspondence with two U.S. representatives, Sonny Montgomery and Ronnie Shows, on the matter of a constitutional amendment prohibiting the desecration of the U. S. flag, with neither side yielding his position even slightly. Flags, we maintain, are symbols. They are not what they represent. Desecrating the flag is not tantamount to desecrating those who fought under it. Flags are only as important as people think they are, no more. Further, only a fool would risk his or her life for a mere flag. At their best, soldiers risk their life for what the flag represents: their nation, their loved ones and their land. All too often, though, soldiers risk and give their lives for little more than symbols. The English poet Wilfred Owens (1893 - 1918) who died in WWI described it very well: