The portrayal of the South, cancellation of the Confederacy and war over cultural iconography

For quite some time, a debate has raged over the memorialization of symbols linked to the Confederacy, i.e. the South in the 1861 - 1965 U.S. Civil War. Culture, media and academia, all in the mainstream, have played an important role, generally pushing the idea that Confederate symbols represent treason, violence, hate, bigotry and racism. At the same time, there has been visceral effort to characterize the South in a way that it could only be associated with those very same negative themes. For instance, the Boomer-era cult film Easy Rider had the hip and cool protagonists murdered in cold blood by Southerners after being told to "get a haircut":

The music industry has also played a role in the South's characterization:

More recently, in the time of the Millenials, little had changed:

Except instead of being presented as something to fear, the South was mostly just mocked as stupid and ignorant:

Some might consider the progression incidental; others, reactionary and intentionally provocative. But few could disagree with the assessment that the level of hostility has indeed increased, and that increase just so happens to coincide with a balance of power shift in the debate over what the South and Confederate-era iconography mean.  

You see, there are other ideas about what the South - and, indeed, Confederate-era iconography - mean and, while those ideas have been losing ground and now have almost no place among the mainstream, they present the South and Confederate-era iconography as an affirmative point of pride and identity:

The roots of the supportive presentation of the South and Confederacy stem from views as old as the U.S. Civil War itself. Some may say that they are 'just proud of their Southern heritage' or 'admire the sacrifice of their ancestors'. But more often than not, that view stems from a very specific culturally-reinforced and regionally-understood interpretation of the U.S. Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression or War of Southern Independence, where those who took up arms did so for reasons that lend to a positive view of one's ancestors and the sacrifice of those ancestors.

Per that narrative, the Confederacy was in a conflict against the will and military invasion of a foreign ruling elite - a scenario not unlike the revolt against British rule via the American Revolutionary War. As part of that presentation, Confederate general Robert E. Lee was often presented as the noble soul who, resisting the tyranny of invasion, was following in the footsteps of his father, "Light Horse Harry" (from the American Revolutionary War). He was also portrayed as a folk hero who had, for years, outwitted the the federal forces that had invaded and, despite the odds, remained committed to defending the South until the very end. As one Southern politician wrote:

[Lee] was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbour without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.

Of course, it is said that total annihilation at Gettysburg was "the price the South paid" to be under Lee's command. Nonetheless, hundreds if not thousands of monuments stand to commemorate him and, to this day, a number of institutions and streets are also named in his honor, not to mention a military base and combat tank. The idea of paying tribute to Lee has a long history (which we will cover shortly). But for now, knowing that this view prevails, while others see the Confederacy as nothing but a treasonous rebellion to preserve Black slavery, the great divergence in opinions linked to the presentation of the South and symbols of the Confederacy is hardly a surprise.

Interestingly, Lee also happens to be linked to one of the most iconic symbols of the Confederacy. That symbol is a banner known as the "dixie flag", "southern cross" or "rebel flag", which was raised by the ragtag collection of Southern men who fought under Lee, specifically. Because of this history, the banner has been seen as a symbol of the basic soldier of the South. But that is not the full story.

Due to the popularity of that symbol, it was integrated into a flag of the Confederate government. Called the "Stainless Banner", it was characterized in its time as a homage to the "white man", all of which is part of the debate about what the symbol represents. Not surprisingly, the banner is at the center of the push for "cancellation" of Confederate imagery, an agenda that has for quite some time been stonewalled by a great deal of resistance:

Aware of how the Confederate cause and its symbols have been portrayed in the South, one cannot be surprised by this resistance, either. But there is another layer to unpack, based on how the symbol has been used since the U.S. Civil War. Initially, it was mostly used ceremonially by those who had served, as well as the widowed and descendants. Such use continues to this day:

In the aftermath of the war, the banner also became a symbol of defiance and non-acceptance of what the forces of the U.S. federal government were seen to have done, from torching the land to permitting the looting of the South, which left an unemployed Black majority and White minority to struggle against one another on the same, miserable footing. Against this backdrop, Jesse James, a white Southerner, was immortalized as a hero for taking it to the North's railroad robber barons and carpetbaggers, all the while evading federal officers across the country. And yes - he was commemorated with the banner:

The banner also became associated with "Lost Cause" sentiment, which pedestalized everything and anything the Confederacy could have been or been seen to stand for in contrast to what came to be.

In connection with the hard times, influenced by the "Lost Cause" and fancying itself as the literal fighting ghosts of the Confederate dead, the Ku Klux Klan emerged as the organized, spiritual and vigilante wing of resistance. The Klan used the Confederate flag. By the turn of the 20th century, amidst growing, troubled relations between Blacks and Whites, the popularity of the Klan had spread to the North. Part of that was due to its positive cultural presentation, for example in D.W. Griffith's film Birth of A Nation: 

In the years to follow, at the peak of its popularity, the Ku Klux Klan used the American flag ceremoniously, as well as the "rebel flag" banner:

By the 1960s, the "rebel flag" symbol was being used by the South to resist the federal government's forced busing program and protest the federal decision to end Southern segregation:

To enforce its dictates, the U.S. government sent military forces into the South. Thus, from top to bottom, there was an overlap of motifs from the U.S. Civil War, such as self-determination, regional autonomy and opposition to federal power, all of which coincided with the centennial anniversary of the war.

But the banner's association with the South as a geographic, cultural and spiritual entity had also flourished in that same period, spanning the time in which it was used by the Klan and embraced in connection with the resistance to forced busing and segregation. Consequently, during the Second World War, the banner was used by GI's from the South, presumably as a head nod to the never-say-die and balls-to-the-wall attitude they saw in themselves and attached to their ancestors or, alternatively - like any region-specific insignia or 'shout out' - to simply acknowledge where one came from, as it was region-specific enough that it did well to suggest something unique in that sense. Indeed, for anyone who has ever been to the South, one can understand how the suggestion might quickly turn into "here I am, just a simple country boy from the sticks". In the same way, the "rebel" flag became a symbol for places with the same sort of vibe, and a symbol of agrarian society and culture as a whole:

This was quite fitting owing to the fact that, due to the South being highly agricultural, it was very likely rural farmboys who had first marched under the "rebel flag" banner.  In any case, much like the "redneck" label, the "rebel" flag came to be associated with a kind of outdoors-oriented, hunting and fishing, self-sufficient, only God-fearing red-blooded American:

The banner also appeared in the popular Dukes of Hazzard television series, representing the bad-ass "rebel spirit" of one of its characters. The bright-orange car that the symbol was painted on was known as the General Lee.

Linked to the idea of outdoor culture and independent, kick-ass spirit, the banner also surfaced in motorcycle and gun culture.

The music scene was affected as well, specifically within the genre of "Southern rock".

For quite some time, the banner had already been attached to the country music scene, playing to the simple roots and country-living vibe:

It had become a feature at concerts and used by a long list of musicians, including those who played to the "bad-ass rebel" vibe, like Kid Rock or Billy Idol, as well as bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd:

Skynyrd eventually stopped using the symbol, however, and may have been deterred by its use in association with anti-Black violence. The crowning example was the murder rampage of Dylan Roof, who is pictured below with the "rebel" flag:

The incident led to the banner being seen exactly as its detractors had argued it should be seen - as a terrorist symbol - which was the most favorable context for the cancellation crowd to capture:

Add in years of cultural persuasion as to how "ugly/dumb/whitetrash" or "inbred" the banner is, not to mention demographic shifts (Southern-born descendants not having children or being outpaced by immigration or the high immigrant birthrate) and it is clear to see how the battle over the symbol is changing. The opposition to the banner has grown more vocal, and attitudes towards free speech principles have also shifted as well. Increasingly more people view the Confederacy unfavorably, as something to protest:

In a segment typical of late 2010s modern mainstream media entertainment,
John Oliver rips on the Confederacy

Interestingly, one of the few developments Millenials had witnessed in their first decades was just the removal of the "rebel flag" banner from the state flag of Georgia in 2001. But after the Dylan Roof murders, the levee broke. South Carolina stopped flying the banner in 2015 and over a hundred Confederate monuments were dismantled. Now, Mississippi is under pressure to alter its flag to remove Confederate symbolism and, presumably, will be pushed to abolish Confederate heritage month next. To date, Left Coast states like California and Oregon have taken steps to ban Confederate iconography (1,2). 

Just as interestingly, as I write there is a new push towards cancellation, yet it comes amidst an event that did not take place in the South, involve white supremacist racism or really anything of the like. It was simply the will of a mob, said to be responding to the death of George Floyd at the hands of law enforcement in Minnesota (the North). In connection with the destructive wrath of the mob, 59 memorials connected with Confederates were reportedly "removed, renamed or relocated" in just a three-month span. The SPLC - a Jewish think tank and anti-white supremacist advocacy group - has taken a keen interest in these sort of developments, publishing an investigative report just before the mob riots under the title "Whose Heritage?", which stated:

"Now, three years after the Charleston massacre, more than 100 monuments and other symbols of the Confederacy have been removed. But far more remain. In this updated survey, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 1,747 Confederate monuments, place names and other symbols still in public spaces, both in the South and across the nation."

NASCAR recently announced that the "rebel flag" banner cannot be flown, and so has the U.S. military. The SPLC is now calling for an erasure of the names of generals who fought for the South from U.S. military bases in the South. It would seem that the multi-decadal war over Confederate symbology and its comprehension is over. Yet in spite of these developments, a resistance rolls on.

This begs the question: in view of how the Ku Klux Klan has used the American flag, and how the far-right is also using it, how long until a new front opens up in the war on historical symbols involving the American flag, fronted by the same media, academic and cultural mainstream sources that attacked the Confederacy? The reasons would be plenty: you have the conquest of the continent under that banner, mass genocide in turn, the slave trade under that banner, housing and voting discrimination, protected by the U.S. Constitution for years, as well as discrimination by law; then there is civilian bombing in Asia to consider, not to mention the imperialism there, and bloody attempts to install puppet governments from one end of the globe to the other. It is the banner under which segregation occurred and, in the military, was enforced. On top of all that, there are the white supremacist views of the country's Founders, slave owners who are still presented as folk heroes; and wait a second - was "America First" not but a Ku Klux Klan slogan (1, 2), along with the idea of "America for Americans"? Yes:

You even have the modern white resistance flying that same Old Glory banner, embodying a movement that is much more potent than anything today's cancellationists have previously dealt with concerning the Confederacy: