Don’t get me wrong. I have been opposed to the flying of the
Confederate flag for decades. I immediately become disgusted, make that
physically revulsed, when I see the blue X with white stars across a field of
red—the central motif of the flag of the American slave republic—branding belt
buckles, tee-shirts, banners, jackets, bandstands, caps or state flags.
Despite protestations to the contrary through the years, the
Confederate flag is an inherently racist symbol. I can’t possibly imagine anyone displaying
Confederate iconography except for racists, those who want to get the votes of
racists or those who want to do business with racists using racism as a common
affinity between seller and buyer.
There is no doubt that flying the Confederate flag on government
or public property is and has always been an act of treason, since the
establishment of the Confederacy was an act of treason. And there is no doubt
that the United States is a better place when the flag of the American slave
state is marginalized: when candidates don’t wrap themselves with it pretending
it’s a symbol of states’ rights; when it is not readily available for purchase
in large national chains; when the consensus opinion is that people who display
the Confederate flag are as anti-social as those who revel in Nazi iconography.
While I think brandishing the Confederate flag is protected speech under the
First Amendment, I am glad to see that we as a nation are finally saying that
it is an anti-social and explicitly racist act.
But the swiftly spreading collective movement to end the
flying of the Confederate flag in South Carolina and elsewhere in the country
is a bit disconcerting, because it’s another example of the United States
addressing the wrong problem in a crisis. Just as we attached Iraq instead of
going after Al Qaida in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, so are we trying to
curtail flying of the Confederate flag as a means to stop single-shooter mass
murders. It’s an example of an
entire society exhibiting what psychiatrists sometimes call displacement, which occurs when the mind substitutes either a new aim or a
new object for goals felt to be dangerous or unacceptable. We have displaced
what should be a concern for gun control with a concern for one of many symbols
of the force that motivated this particular mass murderer.
Let’s be clear about what has happened: The shooting of nine
innocent people during a Bible study session at an old-line black church by a
lunatic who was also a racist has had an earthshaking impact on the country—our
people, our leaders, our news media. Most of us are horrified and crying out to
do something in a way that’s reminiscent of the country’s reaction after the first
Selma March or the killing of students by National Guard soldiers at anti-war
demonstrations at Jackson State and Kent State universities.
But where have our politicians and the news media pushed us?
To attack one of many manifestations that Dylann Roof hated African-Americans.
If Roof had not fetishized the Confederate flag, he would still have displayed
virulent racism: He still would have subscribed to the ideas of the white
supremacist group, Council of Conservative Citizens. He
still would have frequently used racial invectives when speaking with friends.
He still would have written his sick manifesto.
The Confederacy wasn’t even the only racist country
whose flag Roof incorporated into his self-expression. He also displayed parts
of the Rhodesian and the Apartheid-era South African flags on his clothing.
To be sure, Dylann Roof reminds us what an
embarrassment it is to the United States that the flag of enemies of freedom,
defenders of slavery and traitors to the United States still flies on public
property. But taking it down will have at the most a very minor impact on the
rate of mass murders in the United States. At best, racism will become somewhat
less socially acceptable, which may lead to several mentally ill people having
one less reason to pick up a gun and hunt the innocent.
But far from every case of mass murder has had to
do with race. Spurned love, mommy issues, peer rejection and social isolation
have all compelled wackos to kill. But virtually all mass murderer in recent
years (as opposed to terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh and the Al Qaida
operatives) have had two things in common: 1) They’ve been mentally ill; 2)
They’ve gotten hold of one or more guns.
Clearly we have to do something about the ease at
which mentally ill people can legally obtain arms and the type of high-grade
military arms available for purchase by the public. We have to expand gun
registries, increase the waiting time for gun sales, toughen laws regarding
keeping guns in households where mentally ill people live, end the sales of
automatic weapons, and ban all firearms in schools, universities, government
buildings, restaurants, theatres, libraries, arenas, stadiums and any place
where the legal occupancy is more than 10 people.
But we’re not considering any of it, not even talking about
it. Instead of going after the major tool that psychopaths use to commit mass
murder, we’re going after one of the many symbols employed by one mass murderer
to express the reason that motivated his horrific action.
Ending all mainstream glorification of the Confederate flag
is a great thing, even though extreme racists will continue to revel in its
symbolism. But it has nothing to do with preventing more tragedies like the
Emanuel AME Church massacre. If we want to end mass shootings, we have to take
the view of private ownership of guns shared by the rest of the world and
toughen gun laws.
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