If At First You Don’t Secede (Redux) …

and

Just a reminder of secession silliness.

The Humiliation of Heritage: The Flaggers’ Big Fail

And so, here we are, observing the fallout on the day after the Flaggers’ big moment. Although, given the height of that flagpole, maybe not so big.

The Flaggers are frantically trying to press the reset button on this affair. Now we hear that this is just the first stage … that it was a dedication, not the finished product … that the lighting, fencing, and cameras designed to fend off vandals are still to come … that the Flaggers will sacrifice more trees as Grayson Jennings gets some work out of his machinery.

A Day Like Almost Any Other …

I awoke this past Saturday at about 6:30 AM. My task for the morning was to go to Arizona State University, where I work, and hold a class session for parents to demonstrate how we teach discussion classes for entering first year students at Barrett, The Honors College, where I do most of my teaching. I was planning to hold a discussion about the Gettysburg Address.

As I started to prepare for the day, I remembered that some three time zones away, the Virginia Flaggers would at long last have their day in the sun as they dedicated their new flagpole along I-95 welcoming commuters and visitors as they drove north to Richmond. When the project was announced in early August, I scoffed. Oh, sure, the Flaggers would succeed in this endeavor. How could they fail? After all, they had secured a piece of private property where they could erect the flagpole, so there was no way anyone could stop them, and I for one was not interested in stopping them (although I knew they so dearly needed to believe otherwise).

In the weeks to come I found that the story built its own momentum. I had always treated the Flaggers as something of a bad comedy act, a parody of serious heritage endeavors, populated by some mean-spirited people who struck me as pathetic. The notion that they wanted the flag to welcome people to Richmond struck me as ludicrous. The notion that they were going to stick a flag out by an interstate, shorn of all context, and claim it honored Confederate heritage impressed me as at best highly unoriginal and at worst a joke, because without any context people would make of it what they would. After all, free speech allows people to make fools of themselves, and what else could one expect from a group that treasures Tripp Lewis? And who could forget Tasergate?

Then things got more interesting. The Flaggers bragged that they were going to place their flag on historic ground, but they really didn’t seem to care whether in the process they might damage valuable historical resources … or worst. Then I learned that many of the Flaggers embraced white supremacist Matthew Heimbach, with Lewis calling him a “good guy” and with Grayson Jennings, Karen Cooper, and Lewis considering him a friend, as well as the leader of the Flaggers, Susan Hathaway, who invited Heimbach to today’s annual Flaggers picnic.

Then I wondered why Hathaway herself had fallen silent. She’d never been shy in front of a microphone or camera before, and she was far more articulate than either her male counterparts or her self-appointed “heavy hitter,” the screeching and screaming Connie Chastain. Before long one learned that it was because her visibility with the Flaggers might complicate matters between her employer, a prestigious architectural firm in Richmond, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a prime target of Hathaway’s ire, for the firm had been contracted to renovate another historical building with ties to Confederate veterans on the VMFA’s property. She continues to maintain a low profile, suggesting that perhaps her commitment to honoring Confederate heritage is less than absolute, while the Flaggers, so loud about anything else, refused to say a word of protest about whether her employer should compel her silence on pain of losing her employment. Apparently their commitment to honor is conditional, too: they might look into contacting other people’s employers or post personal information, but they could not wrestle with this revelation and its implications. We’ll see how those Flagger efforts at harassment turn out.

Moreover, I was aware that in this instance other people, including people I had never met and people who had never before become involved in what some might call “the heritage wars,” took offense. They did not want their community to be represented by a symbol that was divisive. They understood the other associations people make with the Confederate flag, and it was reasonable to assume that the Flaggers were no different after they embraced Matthew Heimbach. These people came to me as someone who knew something about the larger historical implications of Confederate heritage as well as someone who knew how the Flaggers operated. One result of this is amusing: the Flaggers, who always craved publicity, now have it, as well as the scrutiny that comes with it. Another result is rewarding: those Richmonders, many of whom had never known each other until now, have formed a network of community activism that promises to do much good for all Richmonders in particular and all Virginians in general. As a graduate of the University of Virginia, I could not be more pleased with that development. It’s a diverse, inclusive, and united group of people, and I’m glad I could do what I could to help them out.

But all that didn’t seem to matter much this past Saturday morning. I had a very good idea of where the Flaggers would place their flagpole, as did some other people, but I thought it best if I did not publicize that fact too much, lest someone commit an act of vandalism (or unless the Flaggers followed the example of Rob Walker and faked an incident). After all, they were entitled to fly their flag, even if upon inspection it looked slightly off in the eyes of some. Better for me to concentrate on the task at hand, and teach the Gettysburg Address.

Now, here’s something I’ve never revealed before. I find it very difficult to read the entire Gettysburg Address through without choking up a bit. It is one of the most moving pieces of prose in the English language, and it is an exemplar of the American genius in literature. Now here I was, in front of the parents of our students at Barrett, discussing the address and its context for nearly an hour. I was aware that as I was doing so that we are a nation at war, and that every day we have to consider the sacrifice of our fighting men and women. And so, as usual, it was with some difficulty that I made my way through some portions of the address, even though I would read a sentence or two and ask for comments, pause for discussion, answer questions, or provide commentary. I discussed the controversial nature of some symbols, including the very flag that would go up that flagpole that day … and was doubtless now up as I spoke. The parents were engaging and insightful, and it was a rewarding session.

That’s what heritage means, Charlie Brown.

After doing some errands in the afternoon, I came home, and prepared to recommit myself to some writing projects. Upon checking my e-mail, I learned I had to tour several blogs. So I went here. And here. And here. Even here. Later I came here.

Wow.

Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine someone being so stupid and incompetent. The pole (as I suspected) was too short. It’s already masked by trees. It’s right by an underpass, so in one direction you can’t see it driving unless you jerk your head to the right immediately after the underpass. The pole appears to be set in a depression in the ground, almost as if someone was too embarrassed to display it.

Wow.

Even when the Flaggers are in a position where they can’t help winning, they lose … and this time, they have no one but themselves to blame. It’s bad enough to find yourself on the losing end in struggles with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of the Confederacy, and the city of Lexington, Virginia. But this self-inflicted wound beats them all.

I can’t wait for the night lights and the security cameras (apparently they aren’t in place yet). Please, folks: let this monument to the futility of the Virginia Flaggers stand for all to see. If anyone’s going to take it down, it won’t be people who are doubling over with laughter, but people who are sincerely committed to Confederate heritage.

And that, in the end, makes me a bit angry, too. This typical Flagger antic is in fact a humiliation to the memory of the Confederate soldier. It makes a mockery of who they were. To fly a half-hidden flag smacks of embarrassment and even shame for what they did. This is no way to pay proper homage and respect to Confederate soldiers if you want to show them respect. It is, however, an ideal way to behave if you want to make fun of them and denigrate what they did.

The Virginia Flaggers achieved one thing on Saturday. They have wrested a most valuable title from another group whose tomfoolery, stupidity, ignorance, and bigotry has often been highlighted on this blog. They now bear the title of …

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Lessons in Photography

No matter how big you want to make something appear …

… slowly the truth will come out …

… and before long everyone will know it …

… and they’ll know it’s not nearly as big as the real thing:

The Flaggers’ Big Moment in Historical (and Hysterical) Perspective

 

 

 

After all those expectations … today’s revelation of the Virginia Flaggers’ latest mockery of Confederate heritage reminds me of this 1872 cartoon by Thomas Nast that appeared in Harper’s Weekly. It marked (and mocked) the nomination of B. Gratz Brown as Horace Greeley’s running mat on the Liberal Republican ticket of 1872. In truth, Brown deserved a better fate in terms of his historical reputation, whereas the Flaggers’ fate today befits them.

Eventually the Flaggers will realize that they managed to muff an ideal opportunity to rescue their organization from a record of repeated failure. At that time, I expect Hathaway, Jennings, Isenhour, Jones, and Tripp Lewis as the Beaver will look something like this, as they recall whose should be blamed for this fiasco:

Meanwhile, Elsewhere in Richmond …

 

… one sees a real flag put up by real Americans who honor their country and what it stands for. No need to hide it in a clearing off an interstate where no one can see it.

The Flaggers got pwned, man. And bad.

All That Fuss … For This?

Really, Virginia Flaggers? REALLY? This is … it?

You must be kidding. What a limp effort.

Of course, we had already identified the site (look for the first overhead image in a post on the subject … where I wanted to show them I was close by posting just south of where the flag went up) and had it confirmed when a Flagger let slip that it was near a VDOT traffic camera (that Flagger attempted to say he was trying to dupe people, but the only person duped appears to have been Connie Chastain, who believed his claim).

This is victory to the Flaggers? Well, I guess after losing to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of the Confederacy, and the city of Lexington, you take what you can get. But this is embarrassing.

A note of caution to drivers on I-95: I wouldn’t go looking for this flag unless you know precisely where it is and can glance over at it for a second. Otherwise, you’ll take your eyes off the road for too long. Don’t risk harm to yourself for the chance to chuckle at this feeble effort to honor Confederate heritage, which serves only to humiliate it.

Should We Honor Confederate Soldiers? How?

Sometimes it’s the tough questions that don’t get asked, because we are afraid to ask them … and even more afraid to answer them.

The question is simple: how should we treat the service of those who served in the Confederate military. Should we recognize it? Respect it? Honor it? Why? And please don’t tell me that they fought for what they believed in, because the problematic nature of that claim should be readily evident as soon as I recall for you that other fighting men fought and died for what they believed in, and we would not think for a second about honoring them. We’d have to defined what they believed in, and that’s where the difficulties begin.

What are appropriate ways to go about such treatment? Should Confederate flags be flown, and which one(s) should be flown?

My own take on this is that quite often the way we answer these questions say something about the importance we attach to reconciliation as a necessary process in order to forge a sense of national unity and purpose. That is, we often offer answers that reveal our need to move beyond and to move ahead, as opposed to refighting the war endlessly. Saying we honor someone for their service or for fighting for what they believed in may be heartfelt and respectful, but it also manages to sidestep other issues. As Americans we have not always been this way. Many Americans decried the service of US military personnel who served in Vietnam because of perceptions about their conduct and the cause for which they fought. Now people will thank US military personnel for their service while reserving commentary about the war in which they served.

We need to be honest about this and discuss issues of ambivalence and contradiction as opposed to simply ignoring them.

For some people, of course, there’s no contradiction between honoring someone for their service and praising the cause they served, although defining that cause is where things become contentious. In many cases we actually don’t know why someone served or how they defined the cause for which they served, and so those claims say something about us, not them. We’ve also battled over distinguishing between why soldiers fight and why nations (or other collective actors) fight. Simply put, telling me why you believe a Confederate soldier fought (and the number of people who admit that their Confederate ancestors owned slaves is right up there with the number of people who admitted voting for Nixon in 1960) is not the same thing as explaining why there was a Confederacy in the first place, what it stood for, and why it went to war.

These questions reach far beyond Confederate military service and how we today view it, but, as it seems that a discussion about Confederate service and how we do (and should) view it is most likely to bring these issues into sharpest relief, I begin there.

The floor is open.

The Political Legacy of Slavery and Racism

This study ought to spark a little discussion about the relationship between historical circumstances and present attitudes.

Old times there are not forgotten?

h/t to a good friend. 🙂 Hockey season’s almost upon us.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Confederate Flag

It’s in response to the Brad Paisley discussion, but it applies to other issues.

Nothing is changed by banishing the Confederate Flag out of a desire to be polite or inoffensive. The Confederate Flag should not die because black people have come to feel a certain way about their country, it should die when white people come to feel a certain way about themselves. It can’t be for me. It has to be for you.