Arts & Entertainment
Heaton: A Positive Take on the Flag, Ole Miss and Race
Flag of the state of Mississippi
The rebel flag for many white Southerners is a symbol of the old South, i.e. the one before strip malls, Honey BooBoo and I-95.
To Southern African Americans, the flag represents something else entirely, but it always means exclusion.
Herein lies a major misconception of the flag – geography matters. If I see a rebel flag planted in someone’s yard in the north, my reaction is that a “white supremacist” lives there. However, in the South the same flag usually means that the owners’ family has been in this country a very long time.
Unfortunately, racism is alive and well in this country and in every country. As an Anglo-Saxon male brought up in the South, (and like all other males of majorities worldwide), racism is something I notice only if the media brings it to my attention. What you won’t see in the media is how African Americans are constantly aware of other races react to them.
I have a friend; a huge bear of a man, and the most kind and gentle person you could ever hope to meet. He is also an enigma to me. He is one of those people who only lets others see a little of himself at a time, possibly because if he opened himself up all at once it could blind a person. This man is an African American, 6-4, and 250 pounds if he’s an ounce.
After college, he had a leadership role in a major corporation. One day his Italian-American secretary walks in his office and tells him she must resign. “Why”, he asked. “Because,” She said, “My father thinks you will rape me.”
His story hit my chest like a sledge hammer. I asked him if he had ever told this story before, he said “no”, and that there was never a moment in his life where he is not made aware of his race. Throughout his life he has had the empathy to work around the small-minded people so that his skin color does not inspire dread. I don’t know what it means to be black, but I when I recall his story I can catch a glimpse of it. I hope you can too.
Americans cannot change how other countries feel about race. But let me offer this up to you: as an American you have an obligation to think differently and you have an obligation to contribute to this country. There is no ethnic group more American than African Americans. More than 80% of African Americans can trace their lineage to before 1808 when the last slave ship left Africa for the US. Since then this group has made countless contributions in medicine, science, the arts, and fought and died in every war from 1812 to the current day. In fact, the dialects of West Africa was the last major linguistic contributor to American English. Fortunately for this group of Americans, they are easy to recognize. If your ancestry is European, Asian or Latin, your family may have not been in America long enough to make substantial contributions to this country. If you are African American, your family most definitely has.
In my long ex-communication to the New York Metro area from the South, I have frequently been the lightning rod for complaints about America from other nationalities. One of the most frequent gripes is that we meddle in the affairs of others. Southerners would agree. The flag is a shown as defiance of outside opinion. The media, which is all concentrated in the New York Metroplex, and where my story took place, is not a catalyst for change, they are encouraging resistance to it.
The rebel flag became popular in the South after the Brown v. the Board of Education (1954), in which the Supreme Court declared that segregation was a violation of the Constitution. To Southerners, showing the flag was symbol of defiance to Federal authority, unfortunately without regard to how the African American community saw it. As an Ole Miss graduate, I understand symbols. When I was a student, rebel flags were given out at football games. The mascot was “Colonel Rebel”. For me it was an incredible spectacle wrapped in SEC football and tradition. I realized later that the symbols had to go for the greater good, but this was a decision the school made. It was not mandated by the government or outside pressure as integration of Ole Miss was by JFK in 1963. By the way, another black friend of mine from Hyannis Port alerted me to the fact that Boston public schools were still segregated until the busing riots of 1974. Sorry, I’m fibbing: there are no blacks in Hyannis Port.
I believe the rebel flag will come down because Southerners understand they have a rich culture without the flag, and the flag represents exclusion to that culture. For all Americans my hope is that when you see an African American, and must think anything different, that you think of the contribution that generations of his family made to this country.
Tim Heaton is a HottyToddy.com contributor and can be reached at tim.h.heaton@gmail.com. His new book, “Bless Your Heart, You Freakin’ Idiot: Southern Sayings Translated” is available on Amazon as well as “Momma n’ Em Said: The Treasury of Southern Sayings.”
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Duan
June 29, 2015 at 4:25 pm
Tim you made an interesting point when you stated – “There is no ethnic group more American than African Americans. More than 80% of African Americans can trace their lineage to before 1808 when the last slave ship left Africa for the US.”
I wanted to add the dichotomy that many african-americans with roots to the deep south are comprised of at the minimum 5% European ancestry and many with an European admixture as high as 30% (without having a parent who is directly Caucasian). There is a deep underlying story to the black people in America and who their roots in this country.
Alex Jurgens
June 29, 2015 at 4:25 pm
Thank you for this. As a white Canadian who attended Ole Miss in the 1980s I embraced the use of the flag at football games and I loved our Colonel Rebel mascot. I found it very hard to tolerate racism while I was there. It hurt me like nothing else to the point that I would not let friends make ANY racist comments without calling them out on it. They did get it. I understand and support the decision to remove the rebel flag from our society although I also understand the feelings of long time southerners who love the flag but harbour no racist sentiment. I also contend that I have met as many racist northerners as I have southerners so I cannot paint all southerners with a racist brush. I think that you have captured my feelings here.
Gina
June 29, 2015 at 4:36 pm
I am of French Ancestors and my family has been here since 1725 when they were forced by the British out of Nova Scotia and shipped to the Carolinas families broke up some dropped there and the rest in the Dominica Republic. Our family made it to New Orleans and we’re sent into tge swamp of tge Atchafalaya Basin. We were not slaves but we’re not treated any different. We were Acadian and now today called Cajuns. We had a hard life and I had a great great Grandfather who had to fight on the civil war. He had to fight for h is family. We sure did not have any slaves. We were poorer than tge slaves. We have worked our way through generations and made something of ourselves. Tge Conferderate Flag is Heritage to our Family not hate. By the way my father Norris Broussard is 82 years old and has been an Ole Miss fan for 72 years! A Cajun Ole Miss Fan! Hotty Toddy.
Tim Russell
June 29, 2015 at 5:47 pm
For everyone that thinks the civil war was fought about slavery should ask themselves why 600000.00 men died in the civil war so rich landowners could or could not own slaves. Less than 4 percent of the U.S. Population owned slaves at its peak. You could not convince that many people to fight and die on either side for that reason alone. Human nature would not allow that to happen. What you could get them to die for is States Rights which is what caused the Civil War. Anyone that calls soldiers and generals from the civil war “racist” are sadly and willingly mistaken. Give me that flag back.
Luke
June 29, 2015 at 11:27 pm
I’m a Mississippi-born white man from a poor rural ancestry, and I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I have lived with and worked alongside blacks (and other races) in the military and elsewhere, for most of my life. I treat all people with equal dignity. But I don’t believe people who truly honor the CSA flags motivated by family and homeland bonds, and not some evil motivation, should by all means have their flags and have them in peace.
“Any society which suppresses the heritage of its conquered minorities, prevents their history, and denies them their symbols, has sewn the seed of its own destruction” ~ William Wallace-1281 A.D
Jane
June 30, 2015 at 10:46 am
I never thought I would say this, but I am so glad Robert Khayat (or whoever was Chancellor then) got rid of the Rebel Flag as a symbol of Ole Miss. I was angry at the time, because I never viewed it as a racist symbol…but as a symbol of my Southern Heritage. However, now I can see that the Rebel Flag has been hijacked by hate groups, and for the targets of those hate groups, hate, bigotry, and murder are the things it now represents. If Ole Miss still used the Rebel Flag, that is all that would have been in the news media for the last two weeks. HOWEVER, the words Ole Miss to me stand for Ole Mississippi and should not be tampered with!
Bud RAY
July 1, 2015 at 1:08 pm
Your two opening paragraphs calls into question the accuracy of the rest of your article. It states “To Southern African-American the flag represents something else entirely, but it always means exclusion.” Mr. Michael C. Barefield had a post on June 24,2015 ( an excellent read) stating in the late 1990’s he was an attorney of record involved in the “Flag Lawsuit” wherein he sites the law that adopted our state flag in the 1894 Special Session. Blacks were members of the Mississippi Legislature and voted in favor of the adoption of the current flag. Just 4 years prior, an historical happening is evidence of the positive race relations experienced by Mississippians at the time. In the Mississippi House of Representatives on February 1, 1890 John F. Harris, a Black Republican delegate from Washington County rose and spoke supporting an appropriation for a monument for the Confederate dead. (read his speech, it will bring love to your heart). When he finished speaking the measure passed overwhelmingly, and every Black member voted “AYE” If the account Mr. Barefield gives is correct Blacks have been included, not excluded, from the very birth of our flag. So please don’t say Blacks are always excluded. We are in the mess we are in today because people use their (pen) writing pulpit to perpetuate division among us, when they could just as easily provide facts rather than political correctness. With the power of the pen that you have please stop beating up the flag and start helping all (Black and White) people
understand their heritage is represented in our state flag and it must be reclaimed from undesirables. Political correctness has got to stop and it can start with you. For the record, I graduated from Ole Miss
Mary
July 2, 2015 at 4:36 pm
The chancellor at the time of the removal of the Confederate flag was Chancellor Porter Fortune. I know because I handed him a “Rally ‘Round the Flag” flyer back then.. I am not a hater. I am a lover of tradition, heritage, and happy memories of growing up attending Ole Miss football games since I was a toddler. It was so very hard for me to believe the Confederate Flag would ever be banned from Ole Miss. That was 1984. After that one Ole Miss tradition after another has either been discontinued (a member of the student body dressed in Confederate uniform along side the cheerleaders); replaced (Colonel Reb the cartoonish mascot, as well as the dignified Colonel emblem from decals and other souvenires); and outright banned (the playing of “From Dixie With Love”, a song no longer allowed to be played by the Ole Miss Band). Reconstructionists are still alive and well. However, now recontructionism is called being politically correct.
Daniel
July 11, 2015 at 12:30 pm
Hopefully your next article will be why the New Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam,etc should remove their flags as they both openly advocate the killing of whites.
But I doubt it.
Tim Heaton
July 15, 2015 at 5:54 am
My next article will continue to promote the South as a unique culture, one that is far ahead of the country in terms of race relations, community pride and mutual respect. I will write about the South I know, love and miss – the one outsiders have no clue about.
asd@asd.com
October 27, 2015 at 9:37 pm
“Tim” you cocksucker, where were your african equivalents in Haiti, Zimbabwe, or South Africa when whites were systematically exterminated, targeted as outsiders and driven from power. You are a vermin and a threat to civilized white people who know what awaits them when whites become a minority in their countries. As a christian and a miral man, I issue a hearty Fuck You to you and everyone. as stupid as you on bwhalf of all the whites raped and murdered.
Bebo
January 26, 2016 at 1:35 pm
Growing up as a caucasion male in America all I see is racism and exclusionism directed at me. I was treated like an inferior race in school and now my race is attacked 24-7 on TV. By TV I don’t just mean liberal news channels but, in the very content of most of the shows. So, how am I supposed to feel about an article that starts out by painting my race as inferior and predominately racist? Also, when talking about slavery why doesn’t anyone talk about the fact that British land barons owned most of them even after both the Revolutionary war but also, after outlawing it in their own country.