Emerson Brooking | In defense of Dixie

When I came to Penn freshman year, I brought my Confederate flag with me. Growing up in the Georgia heartland, the Confederate flag had been a constant presence, gracing T-shirts and garnishing license plates. It embellished Dixie-themed trinkets and toys, and often flapped proudly alongside the Stars and Stripes. To me, the flag represented a taste of home, one I wanted to hold on to as I braved the great northern unknown. My freshman hall saw things differently. To them, the flag embodied generations of pure racism, and they convinced me that hanging it in my room would be a very poor career move.

That episode acquainted me with the "other" view of the Confederate flag, widely prevalent above the Mason-Dixon. This view unapologetically ties support of the flag to the remaining vestiges of American racism. When President Obama was asked where it might be permissible to display the Confederate flag, he answered, "in a museum." Writing during last year's heated primary season, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert decried the flag debate as, "a disturbing example of how difficult it is . to dispose of the toxic layers of bigotry that have accumulated over several long centuries."

But just as national memory of the Civil War differs from that of the South's, so too have the South and the nation at large diverged in their interpretations of the flag's message and meaning. Youth today owe their views of the Confederate flag to the South Carolina flag controversy of 2000, which inundated the evening news with stories simplifying the issue to a purely racial conflict. It's little wonder, then, that my hallmates regarded my intentions with such dismay.

It's easy for most Penn students - and anyone else raised outside the South - to misunderstand the value that Southeners place in this contentious symbol. It's often repeated that the South never forgot the Civil War, and to an extent, that's true. But the significance of the Civil War comes in the aftermath: Almost 300,000 Southerners fought and died under the flag of the Confederacy, and the resulting Reconstruction altered the course of the South's economic and cultural development, creating a depression that would linger for generations.

While the flag may remain inextricably linked to the blight of slavery and segregationist preaching of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace, it's silly to contend that this is all it has ever represented. The flag - and its history - is more complicated than the labels of "heritage" or "hate" that follow it.

It took roughly half a century for the Confederate flag to first emerge as a symbol of racial divide. For decades after the Civil War, the flag sat in dignified retreat, emerging primarily to commemorate the funerals of Confederate veterans. Its association with the terrible deeds of the Klu Klux Klan was blurred at best. Starting in the 1940s, the twin blue bars of the Confederate flag could be found on merchandise from California to Canada. It was only in the 1960s that the flag became regularly regarded as a symbol of hate, and it was as late as the '90s before it became common to protest or sue for the removal of the flag from public places.

Its present reality is equally nuanced. During the election, the media made a big to-do about an incident in Virginia in which an Obama sign was stolen and replaced with a Confederate flag as a racial dig at the candidate. But less publicized were the incidents where Southerners displayed the flag alongside the candidate's banners as a sign of solidarity. The flag represents more than its racial legacy. It's possible to have voted for Obama and to still honor the Southern legacy. Similarly, it's possible to condemn racism while still paying credence to the Confederate flag.

When I came back to Penn last year, I brought another Confederate flag. This time I hung it up. My decorating decisions have elicited some puzzlement from guests, but they've elicited some good discussions, too. The Confederate flag remains a complex and contentious issue, but shouldn't be condemned - or celebrated - outright.

Emerson Brooking is a College sophomore from Turnerville, Ga. Southern Comfort appears on alternating Wednesdays. His email address is brooking@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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