Much Ado About Cloth

There are calls today to stop displaying the Confederate Flag as anything other than an ancient historical relic. Many of these calls are coming from unquestioned Conservatives like Rod Dreher. He thinks it "has become impossible for most people to see as symbolizing anything other than white supremacy."

My problem with flags is that I always think people treat them as too significant, acting like to burn the American flag is to somehow destroy America. Naah. You could burn ten thousand American flags and while it would insult and pain people, they'd remember that America is a lot more than a piece of cloth. After 9/11, it bothered me that a lot of people stuck a $2.98 American flag (probably made overseas) on their car for a week or two and acted like they'd struck a meaningful blow against the terrorists. Yeah, like that would show 'em.

I think there's a lot of real racism out there in this country today and we're not going to eradicate it by denying it exists. Many people want to, as witness the extraordinary somersaults that some politicians and pundits have gone to, trying to deny that Dylann Storm Roof — you know, the guy with the racist manifesto who announced he wanted to kill blacks — was motivated by race. My fear is that if the Confederate Flag is taken down, all the folks who need to face the reality of racism will say, "But we eradicated racism! We took down those flags!"