As we lament the murder of nine African-American men and women in a South Carolina church and debate the need to remove a divisive symbol of hate, we cannot disregard the context in which the Confederate flag took prominence in the capitol of that state.
This is not an issue of state’s rights, it’s an issue that affects the freedom and liberty of every man, woman and child in each of these United States. This is not just about a flag, it’s about the very mindset behind legislation consistently gutting the pursuit of happiness for millions.
Immediately upon capturing Mount Suribachi in Iwo Jima, the Marines raised the American flag as a symbol of victory. The photograph won a Pulitzer Prize and became the most reproduced photograph in history. As to the import of a flag, that picture speaks a thousand words.
Flags have always been the heart and soul of battles fought. Seen as far more than symbols, they represent ideologies for which people have died. Flags embody a message that, in the absence of words, is still conveyed. But there is no eloquence in the language of hate, and even less dignity in its practice.
As in any other battle where surrendering the flag is a hallmark of defeat, so it was with the Confederacy. It was not until civil rights gains of the 1960s that those committed to racial hatred and segregation chose to raise the flag over the South Carolina capitol in brazen defiance of racial progress.
We cannot remain silent as if we have no power. These things are not ordained. Yet, in the face of violent aggression, too many sit silently waiting for a just world to spontaneously rise from a putrid stench of evil. Millions have suffered and died as they waited. Though righteousness stood on their side, they succumbed to a passive hope.
Rarely does a disease left untreated abate. Instead, it metastasizes and gains strength. As we sat by passively allowing the hard-won vote to crumble, those crippled by the disease of hate have infected generations unborn. But when the battle cry has already sounded, there is no choice but to fight to the end. To do anything less establishes the very supremacy the Confederate flag represents. This is not just a flag, this is our future.
We need no reminders of hate flying above the very state grounds that tax dollars support. Those reminders are in the eyes of every child living in poverty, they’re in neighborhoods shuttered and destroyed, they’re in prisons filled with our sons and daughters and banks filled with the spoils of our labor. We don’t need a flag to remind us of the hatred that still exists; we need courage to demand that it no longer rules.
Christi Griffin is founder of The Ethics Project, a non-profit organization addressing the impact of crime, injustice and incarcerations, and author of “Incarcerations in Black and White: The Subjugation of Black America.”
