Symbols of Racism

by Marcy Newman
Special to The Arbiter
January 13, 2005

Shortly before winter break I went to the Cultural Center in the SUB to grade some final papers. Two men walked in to the Center, neither of whom I had seen before. One of them asked if they would disturb me if they used the television. I looked up and noticed that the other man was wearing a jacket with one or two confederate flags on it. I found myself shocked and disturbed that someone wearing emblems of racial and religious terrorism could make himself comfortable in the one place at Boise State that is marked as an explicitly safe place for students of color.

The Cultural Center, which used to be known as the Multiethnic Cultural Center, is not only a place for students of color to feel safe and to form community, but it is also a place where dialogue about issues of racism and oppression ideally should occur. Thus, I attempted to see whether or not the young man with a confederate flag on his jacket understood the implication of those emblems on his person. His oft-repeated reply was that he maintained pride in his home state of Georgia and that is why he donned those flags. The tone and tenor of his response made it clear that he was defensive likely because this was not the first time he had been questioned about it. Given that this exchange was not about to yield a discussion about what the confederate flag really means, I told him that he would disturb me if he stayed in the Center with his jacket on.

Of course, the Cultural Center is open to the entire Boise State community. The dominant culture is always welcome there, but it is a space that was created for ethnic and minority students, thus those entering this space should be prepared to have their views challenged—especially if one chooses to wear a provocative and threatening emblem. White students who want to spend time in the Cultural Center will undoubtedly find their perspectives challenged just as ethnic students do every day in many classes and with many people they encounter outside of the Cultural Center.

But this episode is about belonging and not belonging on a much deeper level than that of who may comfortably enter the Cultural Center. Flags have always been used to both signal and symbolize—to insiders and outsiders alike—who is welcome and who is not. The particular confederate, or rebel flag, that this young man wore was initially a battle flag used by the South during the Civil War. Of course, there was an historical reason to carry flags on the battlefield; flags helped the opposing side to known who was an ally and who was an enemy. But once the Civil War concluded in 1865, Georgia, chose to abandon the confederate flag. It was not until 1956 that the Georgia state Senate signed a confederate flag back into law as the state flag.

To be sure, it probably was not a coincidence that the Civil Rights Movement’s then-recent strides in desegregating schools with Brown v. the Board of Education (1954) and desegregating public spaces with the Montgomery Improvement Association’s successful bus boycott (1955-1956) occurred at the same time Georgia legislators pushed to reinstate the rebel flag. With signs that the challenge to the long-standing social and psychological segregation of African Americans was succeeding, this flag was a means of intimidating Black men and women in Georgia. Indeed, when the Georgia state legislature finally accepted that this flag was a symbol of oppression for its African American citizens, it replaced the expressly discriminatory and oppressive confederate flag with one that would include and welcome all Georgians.

In 2001 when the Georgia state legislature adopted a new flag, its members spoke specifically about the oppression and racism that the confederate flag represents. The ideology of white, Christian supremacy woven into these flags has been used historically by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation, and Neo Nazi organizations. It is flown when African Americans are lynched and it is waved when white supremacist Christian groups march in predominantly Jewish communities such as Skokie, Ill.

For many Americans of color, the confederate flag represents this history as well as its present status. When someone wears such emblems it suggests that people of color are not welcome; moreover, depending upon where someone comes from and how well versed one is in history, that flag suggests that its bearer may be someone who participates in violence and intimidation. When someone wears such flags on their person which the state no longer recognizes it raises suspicions even more so. I do not think that the Cultural Center should be an exclusive place where only students of color are allowed. However, it should be a space in which people are respectful of these communities and their histories and as such do not bring in such emblems that would prove threatening to anyone in the Center.

Marcy Newman is a Boise State Assistant Professor of English