New York Times Op Ed, April 21, 2001

April 21, 2001

For an Old Flag, a New Rationale

By ROBERT S. MCELVAINE

JACKSON, Miss. -- Can you imagine, in the year 2001, a state actually voting to have a Confederate symbol as part of its flag? Once again, Mississippi performs its national service as scapegoat. People across America, no matter how bad racial problems are in their localities, can once again breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Look at how horrible those people in Mississippi are!"

Yet Tuesday's vote in Mississippi to retain the Confederate battle emblem is actually an indication that racism in this state is growing closer to the national white norm.

There are, to be sure, still more than a few racist yahoos in Mississippi. To them, the Confederate flag still stands for white domination. Waving it allows some white men, who feel they have lost too many contests, to reclaim their manhood and send a message: "This is still a white man's state!"

But there was none of that rhetoric in the campaign run by supporters of the old flag. Rather, they employed the new mythology that the Confederacy had nothing to do with slavery -- indeed, that the Confederate cause was a struggle for freedom. This is, of course, historical nonsense. But it also a clear sign of progress.

Such organizations as the Sons of Confederate Veterans have woven their own version of "history" so they can take pride in their ancestry. This neo-Confederate feel-good history has much in common with the more extreme claims of Afrocentrism. The reason many white Southerners have developed a mythologizing approach to the past so similar to that of an oppressed minority is that the South has long been to American regions (and Mississippi has been to American states) what blacks have been to American ethnic groups: the most disrespected. Most white Southerners have been taught by the majority culture to feel ashamed of their

heritage. "Redneck" may be the last of the derogatory terms for groups of people that is still acceptable in polite company.

This palpable sense of being condescended to has fueled a simmering resentment. For some, the assertion that the Confederacy was about liberty, not slavery, is an awkward attempt to say "I am somebody!"

A few decades ago there would have been far less argument from most white Southerners against the assertion that the "liberty" their ancestors were defending was the "right" to own slaves. Racism was accepted, and there was no shame in defending slavery. In 1939, white Southerners raised no objection when Gerald O'Hara was depicted in "Gone With the Wind" proclaiming: "We've borne enough insults from the meddlin' Yankees. It's time we made them understand we'll keep our slaves with or without their approval."

In this revered film depiction of the Old South, it was accepted that the Lost Cause was about defending slavery.

Since the civil rights movement, however, a new generation of Confederate descendants has been brought up on mixed messages. Southern whites have come to understand that racism is wrong. But they are still taught that the Confederacy is their heritage and should be honored. The easiest way to reconcile the acceptance that racism is evil with continued veneration of the Confederate past is to separate the Lost Cause from slavery.

The divorce of slavery and racism from what is honored as part of the Southern heritage is a huge step forward, even though it has left a sizable number of people clinging to a pseudo-historical mythology. A majority of white Mississippians showed on Tuesday that they are not ready to accept the truth about their history. But the fact that the supporters of the Confederate flag argued that the flag does not represent slavery and hate indicates that racism in this state has now taken on the more subtle form in which it is seen in the rest of the country.

Mississippi today is not as different from the rest of the United States as those outside the state would like to think.

Robert S. McElvaine is a professor of history at Millsaps College. His latest book is ``Eve's Seed: Biology, the Sexes and the Course of History.''