On Flags
I love the state of Mississippi.
Mississippi embraced me as its own for four of the most formative years of my life. It embraced me and called me its own without hesitation. Mississippi gave me opportunities I wouldn’t have had anywhere else. For me, it was a place full of people who helped me grow, people who helped me fail (and learn from those failures), and people who loved me and invested in me. I met some of my dearest mentors and friends with whom I’m still in touch in Mississippi. Oh, and I met my wife in Mississippi.
The state of Mississippi has been very good to me, but it hasn’t been that good to everyone. The horrors of the Parchman Prison don’t loom large in my family’s memory like they do for other folks. Emmett Till’s murder was taught to me as a merely historical event, not as an execution emblematic of the Black experience in Mississippi during the 20th century. Jim Crow segregation, for the most part, was sanitized in my own personal education. For others, that sanitization isn’t an option.
All of these wounds are still fresh for many African-Americans in Mississippi. I’ve spoken with folks who were alive and cognizant in the state of Mississippi when Emmett Till was killed and thrown in the Tallahatchie River. There are people who are right around my parents’ and grandparents’ ages who drank from segregated water fountains. And what’s more, you don’t have to look very far to find the (still prevalent) evidence of discriminatory zoning laws and conventions.
A very prominent — in fact, the prominent — element of the flag of the state of Mississippi finds its origin in the Confederacy. Might this, as well, be something that keeps these wounds from healing, or perhaps inflicts more wounds on people who don’t have the luxury of mentally or emotionally compartmentalizing Jim Crow, Parchman, and Emmett Till?
Perhaps an illustration (even an incredibly flawed one) would help make my point. Let’s say you’re married to someone. One day, you come home from work, and your spouse is hanging a beautiful, ornate, elegant portrait above the fireplace in your living room. Everyone who comes into your house will see it. There’s only one problem — that painting is a painting of your spouse’s ex. Might you feel betrayed? Might you want that portrait removed? Might you want your spouse to understand the harm that the reifying of their ex has caused you?*
Now, one of the main arguments for keeping the flag consists in the fact that Mississippians, in a 2001 referendum, voted to maintain the flag. That’s certainly true as far as it goes — the only problem is that it doesn’t go very far. A lot has changed, even in Mississippi, in almost 20 years. In fact, people who weren’t born at the time of that referendum are now of voting age, and many, many more who were under 18 in 2001 are old enough to cast a ballot now.
By and large, I’m for letting the gears of democracy work things out. When Gov. Reeves says that he’s skeptical of “any attempt to change the flag by a few politicians in the capitol,” I can sympathize with the reticence to let folks from the capitol building dictate from on high terms to the people. But, given the depth and breadth of the desire to change the state flag across demographics of ethnicity and age, surely at least another referendum is warranted. Nearly 40% of Mississippi’s population is African-American. For almost half of the state, that flag symbolizes a defense of over 350 years of systematic oppression (which itself has only been followed by 56 years of hard-fought change). For almost half of the state, that flag is a portrait of the ex hanging over the fireplace. Maybe it’s time to think about a change.
*It’s worth noting that this analogy is flawed in so many ways. For one, the marriage would probably have to be an abusive one to follow. For another, that marriage would probably have to be riddled with infidelity. I’ve only used this analogy because, for many white folks, laying eyes on the Confederate flag doesn’t really do anything negative or traumatic, so it’s hard to even begin to understand an inkling of what the same visual does for a person of color. Perhaps a metaphor (even a flawed one at that) will help to move someone toward a deeper understanding.
