Introduction to a Semiotic Analysis
The Confederate flag is one of the most controversial, inflammatory icons of American culture, and even has a significant presence abroad. What causes people to feel so strongly about the emblem of a regional entity that ceased to exist over 130 years ago? What relevance does such a symbol have in our society today? What insight into our culture can we gain by examining an icon such as the Confederate Flag?These are the questions I will attempt to answer with this site. First, we must understand that symbols like the Confederate Flag have no intrinsic meaning. The meanings symbols carry is that which humans attach from their own learning. Thus, any viewer of a symbol is free to assign it any range of meanings. The symbol itself, then is constant, but the value symbolized is not. Assuming that the Confederate Flag is an element of our culture, it becomes neccesary to define culture. Stephen M. Fjellman, in his book Vinyl Leaves, defines cultre as: "a public, more-or-less shared set of symbols, meanings, understandings, and beliefs people use to make sense of and reproduce their normal lives." Culture and symbols, like the Confederate Flag, can be shared on an international, local, regional, economic, racial, ethnic, or family level, all of which can overlap forming an infinite array of possibilities. Herein lies the source of controversy over the Confederate flag.Semiotics is the term for this "study of signs." Semiotics involves a sort of unpacking of signs by looking at them not as having any natural meaning, but as constructs reproducing society's beliefs. As Valetin Volosinov put it: "Whenever a sign is present, ideology is present" (cited in Chandler). For a more detailed explanation of Semiotics, see Daniel Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners.
Current Controversies
The Confederate flag still flies high above the South Carolina Statehouse,
and it has sparked an enormous amount of debate. The flag was placed above the State House in 1962 as a
response to the Civil Rights movement. Blacks in South Carolina see the flag as a symbol of racism and slavery.
Many Southern whites see the flag as a symbol of their proud, distinctive heritage and the gentility of the Old South.
In November of 1996, Governor David Beasley delivered a televised speech to the state saying he thought the flag should
be taken down. Beasley had been elected as a pro-Confederate flag candidate and strong ally of the Christian coalition.
Beasley claimed that he had had a religious experience in which he concluded that the symbol had come to be the cause of
too much strife, saying that the, "plowshare has been turned into a sword." Beasley's argument was not that the flag was
hurting business (although that could be somewhere behind his argument), but one of Semiotics. Beasley: The Confederate flag flying above the Statehouse flies in a vacuum. Its meaning and purpose are not defined by law. Because of this, any group can give the flag any meaning it chooses. The Klan can misuse it as a racist tool, as it has, and others can misuse it solely as a symbol for racism, as they have.
Beasley asserted the basic premise of Semiotics that signs and symbols have no intrinsic value but only carry that value which is assigned to them by people. Many of Beasley's fellow Republican party members like State Attorney General Charles Condon are opposed taking the flag down. Condon and other flag supporters like State Senator Glenn McConnell point to a monument on the Statehouse grounds for a definition of the flag. In the words of McConnell, the monument reads: "in the hopelessness of the hospitals, the despair of defeat, and the short sharp agony of struggle, the South Carolinians who answered the call of their state did so in the consolation of the belief that here at home, they would not be forgotten." Charles Condon says that he and the Governor both the believe the flag is a symbol of honor and does not understand the Governor's initiative to take the flag down. Religious groups have gotten involved as well, wrestling with the question of which side of the issue is morally right. Public opinion in South Carolina seems to be with keeping the flag right where it is. Many political experts in South Carolina and even those who know very little about politics expect the flag issue to hurt Beasley in his reelection campaign in 1998. Since the Democratic party wields very little political clout right now in South Carolina, Beasley's only real competition will come from his own party. Thus, the Confederate flag is fast becoming the most important issue in the race for Governor.
Controversies of the sort, though perhaps not of this scale, are visible
all over the South. University of
Mississippi football games have become a hotspot for turmoil. Ole Miss,
a name with slave connotations in and of itself, is a school rich in
Old South tradition.
Students traditionally wave Rebel flags at home football
games, but recently, some University officials have spoken out against
it. The football coach believes that a stadium full
of Confederate flags makes it difficult for the University to recruit
minority athletes. Professor of civil rights law
Barbara Phillip Sullivan feels the flag is a symbol of, "hate speech
because its use in the South was a use
intended to convey the ideology of white supremacy and the inhumanity
and subordination of African-Americans." She believes the flag makes
African-Americans feel uwelcome at Ole Miss. The Administration of the
University has asked fans not to bring their flags
to the games, believing that it castes an unfavorable image on the
school. Of course, there are the die hard Ole Miss
traditionalists who think it almost a sacrilege to have an Ole Miss
football game in Oxford without the Confederate flags waving.
History professor David Sansing sums up the situation: "There are at
least five or six different groups to whom the flag is very important,
but for very, very different reasons. It's one of the most powerful
images certainly in American history." Once again, the
heart of the argument lies in Semiotics. Controversies have also arisen
in Maryland and North Carolina over images of the flag
on special liscence plates, and in Georgia and Mississippi over the
image of the battle flag within the state flag. Countless
other individual skirmishes abound across the South. Origins
The banner which we now recognize as the Confederate flag was conceived as a battle flag after the first battle at Mannassas. The original flag, the stars and bars, proved to be too similar to the Union flag for soldiers to recognize in the haze of battle.
The battle flag
Now that we have established the technical origins of the flag, the task is to trace how it has arrived at the status it holds today. The flag was a symbol of the Confederate States of America, the losing party in the Civil War. Volumes upon volumes have been written about the causes of the Civil War, but most historians agree slavery was the one single issue without which the war could have been avoided. The war was not fought over slavery in the South, but slavery in the territories, especially those acquired from Mexicoin 1848. Southerner's feared any kind of government regulation of their "peculiar institution," and saw the outlawing of slavery in the territories as a sure sign that slavery in the South would soon end as well. Southerners became strong advocates of state's rights and sympathized with all those who were persecuted for being different, like the Mormons. Most historians will also agree that the war was not fought over concerns about racial inequality. Abolition was never a widely popular movement, even in the North, in the years leading up to the Civil War. The primary source of anti-slavery sentiment in the North grew from the fact that slavery was incompatible with free labor. If slavery was allowed to exist in the territories, working class white citizens would simply not be able to compete. What wage worker could compete with a slave? Northerners generally wanted the territories to be a place where white people could go to earn an honest living, without the menacing negroes. The South, on the other hand, looked at the "wage slavery" in the North as worse than slavery in the South. Southerner's thought that at least they took care of their slaves even in old age or when they were not able to work. So, at the time of the Civil War, the North and South were generally in agreement on white supremacy.
Resurgence
Of
course, the North won the war and began the process of Reconstruction
to bring the South backinto the Union. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution was passed and slavery was abolished.It was much easier for
Northerners than Southerners to let go of their white supremacist
notions in favor of feelings of moral rectitude when they werelooking
for a unifying purpose for fighting such and awful war. But, in the
South white supremacy remained strong. Confederatesbegan to realize
that if they could appear loyal to the Union in front of Northerners,
they would soon see the end ofReconstruction. In 1877 Reconstruction
officially ended, and the South was back to ruling itself. Almost
overnighta multitude of "Black Codes," or "Jim Crowe Laws," were enacted
to keep the blacks in the role of second classcitizens. The South made
a loyal showing in the Spanish-American war around the turn of the
century, and regionalrelations seemed to be back in order. The South
quietly went on with its segregated society (surprisingly, the photo at
the right is a postbellum one), and people came to lookat the Civil War
with a sportsman-like attitude. Both parties had fought bravely and the
stronger army had prevailed.The Confederate flag became a reminder of
this valiant effort by Confederates and a solemn memorial to the
Confederate dead. The flag was kept out of popular culture until the middle of the twentieth century. Southern soldiers waved Confederateflags in World War II, but they were merely seen as signs that the Southerners were in the war alongside Yankees and fighting loyally.The tone was different when in October of 1947 a group offraternity brothers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill brought Confederate flags and wavedthem at a football game. A month later U.Va. fans brought Confederate flags with them to a football game againstthe University of Pennsylvania. Soon the rebel flag became the rage at football games and social events across theSouth. With the coming of the Civil Rights movement came the beginnings of the controversy surrounding the flag which we know today. White Southerners believed that their exclusive culture was being threatened, andthe flag became a symbol against civil rights. The segregationist Dixiecrat party of 1948, who ran Strom Thurmond for president, took on the Confederate flag as its symbol. Anti-Civil Rights sentiment ran strongin the South, which was once again feeling imposed upon by a distant federal government. The conflict was on again.
Regionalism
From
the very beginning the conflict over the Confederate flag and that
which it symbolizes
(or those meanings that are attached to it) has been a regional one, an
emblem of the ongoing sectional rivalry. White Southerners see the flag
as a symbol of their
distinctive and proud Old South culture. Since the days prior to the
Civil War Southerners have retained ideas that the
South is a unique, leisured, hospitable and genteel place, very
different and separate from the society of the North.
Perhaps the Old South that many Southerners long for and constantly
believe is disappearing never really existed.
Many Southerners now will deny that slavery even had anything to do with
the cause of the Civil War.
As the authors of All Over the Map,
a new book on regionalism, suggest, one of the common characteristics
of regional identity is that it is usually conceived of in a past that
never was. The North, for example, may conceive
of itself as "beautiful pastoral New England" when really the pastoral
communities of that area that exist today were artificially created in a
postbellum attempt to
attract tourism. (At the top right is a Northern cartoon depicting the
burning of Gone With the Wind, the hallmark Old South culture.)
To many white Southerners there is no image so sacred and meaningful as the Confederate flag, a symbol of sacred memorial to the bravery of their ancestors. However, many other Southerners see the flag simply as symbol of "vague resistence" (Ayers 79). The flag to these Southerners is "a sign of resistance to the boss, to Southern yuppies, to the North, to blacks, to liberals, to any kind of political correctness," saying "LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!" (Ayers 79). For example, Southern Rock bands such as Black Oak Arkansas, with their rowdy, defiant, "good ol' boy," "don't tread on me," attitude embody this sense of resistence. Black Oak appeals to those who feel that the priveleged, white Southern heritage is passing away and wish to keep it and their unique sense of identity alive at all costs. One good way of keeping that ambiguous identity alive is through the use of an equally ambiguous symbol, the Confederate flag.
Northerners, on the other hand, often use the flag as a way of wiping
their hands from their own complicity with slavery. Very few
Northerners would have favored going to war simply to end slavery in the
South. The North associated the South
with being backward, slow, and a general weight to the progress of the
Nation. Slavery, Northerners thought impeded the progress
of a society. Many of these ideas about the South still persist, even
without slavery, and the persistence of the Confederate
flag in the South serves as a reminder to Northerners of that
backwardness. Most Northerners now associate the flag with the base
racism
of the South, although they too are guilty of the same crime as stated
before. To use another example from popular music, take Neal Young's
song "Southern Man,"
in which Mr. Young warns Southerners to consult their Bible and reform
their evil ways of racism. Young casts the guilt of
racism wholly on the South with the characteristically forgetful
historical memory associated with regionalism.
(At the left is a cartoon showing the Northern perception
of postbellum white supremacy in the South.) Race
The
issue of race and the Confederate flag is both the simplest and the
most important factor in the controversy.
Blacks, unlike whites, have a generally unified opinion on the matter.
They see the flag as a symbol of
a racist past, a past of servitude, slavery, and second-class
citizenship for African-Americans, and they have no
desire to revel in the so-called glory, bravery, and refinement of such a
heritage. Blacks are not apt to have any fond
idealistic remembrances of the Old South or harbor any sympathy for the
Confederate cause. The fact that the symbol
still lingers and has such a prevalent postion in society over 130 years
after the Civil War is in and of itself evidence
to blacks that racism is alive and well. The flag is the banner of
white supremacy groups in the United States,
like the Ku Klux Klan, and is even used abroad by neo-nazi skinhead
groups. African-American scholar Mwangi Kimenyi offers that,
"the Confederate flag is the semi-official symbol that represents the
mark of 'old all white' traditions and the
exclusionary feelings of whites towards blacks" (52). Blacks see the
flag as a marker that "stands in the schoolhouse door," keeping
them from having the rights that are theirs as Americans. Whites
retaliate with the argument that hate groups like the Ku
Klux Klan also misuse symbols like the cross, but that doesn't stop
churches from using crosses. Other whites claim First Amendment rights,
saying that
no matter what the flag symbolizes, the "true friend of liberty realizes
we must allow...the Confederate flag," to be flown
wherever individuals choose (Larson). Economic Interests
Although it may seem unlikely, Economics is also fast becoming an
important issue in this controversy. The South
in general is now in the midst of a rapid period of industrialization
with businesses from all over the world
flocking to set up shop there. The South offers relatively cheap labor,
cheap land, a mostly non-union work force, a low cost of living,
and a comfortable climate. BMW
recently built a large plant in Greer, South Carolina along Interstate
85, a highway nicknamed
"the Autobahn" for all of its German industry. Tourism is also a
lucrative business in the South with its abundant and warm coastal
regions. Economic prosperity awaits the South if it can clean up its
act enough to ease would be investors' fears of deep-seated
racism. In the case of South Carolina, as Daniel Pederson puts it, its
bad for business if the state gives the appearance
of being the "Cracker Capital of America." The businessmen in South
Carolina and across the South have a vested interest
in alleviating the racist image of the South. The controversy in South
Carolina has gained global recognition, with an article
about the Statehouse flag struggle apperaring in the German weekly Der Spiegel in November of 1996. German industry
is especially sensitive to problems of racism, given their past and present problems with race at home.
As Hunter Howard, president of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce,
illuminates, "Other places have church burnings, but the flag gives the impression that we condone those
episodes" (Pederson). Generation and Class
Two final categories of distinction with regards to sentiment about the Confederate flag are generation and class. These two categories seem to me somewhat less influential in people's ultimate decisions about how they feel about the flag, but they are nevertheless noticeable blocks of opinion.
First
let us deal with the issue of class. Within in the circle of
supporters of the Confederate
flag, there seems to be two different sets of ideas about the flags
place in society. It goes without saying that
the Daughters of the Confederacy support the flag in a much different
manner than does the Ku Klux Klan or the driver of an
old beat up pick up truck sporting a Confederate flag in the back
window. Returning to the example of the Southern Rock band, Black
Oak Arkansas, Black Oak envokes the flag for the purposes arousing
passionate, often violent sentiment about good 'ole backwoods Southern
culture. On the other hand, upper-class groups like the Sons of
Confederate Veterans, say or a serious group of historical re-enactors
would
prefer to reserve the symbol as a solemn memorial to those who fought
bravely and loyally for the cause they thought was right. These
upper-class groups
were the keepers of the flag during the first half of the twentieth
century when the flag was not such a part of popular culture, and
grimace at
its widespread misuse in their opinion.Along these same lines comes the distinction of age. As was stated earlier in the section on regionalism, the Confederate flag is a somewhat ambiguous symbol of resistence to any sort of authority. Thus, the flag is naturally appealing to hot-blooded youths who wish to rebel against the forces which they feel are trying to control them. Black Oak Arkansas (a bandmember rebel is shown at the left) also appeals to this crowd. The younger and lower class blocks are generally one in the same, though no doubt with some degree of separation. These are the areas of division I can see that most clearly that have influence on people's definitions of what the Confederate flag means to them. Ambiguous as the flag is, everyone has their own opinion about it. But, as a consequence, any true meaning of the flag is impossible to pin down.
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