My Dad's Confederate Flag
And learning to let go of parts of our Southern "heritage."
BY TRAE CROWDER
AUG 24, 2017
One of my favorite pictures I've ever taken is a shot of my late father holding my oldest son, who was only two at the time. Two of the most important people in my life, smiling broadly: a photographic representation of What It's All About. I love that picture ... and I never show it to anyone.
Not because I consider it too personal to me, or too painful since my dad passed away. I never show that picture to anyone because it was taken in my dad's bedroom, and behind them in that photo, displayed prominently on my father's wall, hangs the Confederate Battle Flag.
I'm from Celina, Tennessee. You probably don't know me, but if you know me at all, it's likely from these silly ass videos. I get asked a lot, "Why are you what you are?"
The very concept of a "liberal redneck" doesn't make any sense to many. I always tell those people a lot of it is because of my dad. His parenting philosophy was pretty simple: he raised me to ask questions and love people.
There wasn't a hateful bone in his body. In fact, he was one of the most loving people you would ever meet. He loved me and my sister, he loved his gay brother, he loved weird art and foreign movies and David Bowie. And he also loved the Confederate Flag.
See, what you have to understand is that the flag has meant a lot of things to a lot of people. To my dad, it mostly meant Lynyrd Skynyrd and a middle finger to The Man.
To many others (ok, most others) it's a symbol of hatred, repression, and literal crimes against humanity. Still, because of my dad and other Southerners I have known like him over the years, for a long time, I harbored some sympathy for those that defended the relics of the Confederacy, giving them the benefit of the doubt when they would say it was about "heritage, not hate."
When I first heard rumblings years ago of removing Confederate statues and renaming streets, while I wasn't adamantly opposed to it, I wasn't for it either. I kept thinking about the old adage referring to the consequences of forgetting your history. "Doing that is the same thing as acting like it never happened at all, and that's a bad idea," I used to say.
But not anymore. Not for a while now. I'll never know this for sure, but I'd like to think that if my dad had not passed away in January of 2013, that he would have taken that flag down off his bedroom wall by now. I think he would have taken it down on June 18, 2015, the day after the Charleston church shooting, and the day that for many Southerners the flag was pronounced well and truly dead.
My dad would have realized what I myself realized a while ago, what I hope any of the remaining good-hearted Southern holdouts who still defend the statues and the flag will soon realize ...y'all, we have got to move on.
We can and should remember our bloody past, but we have got to stop celebrating it. There are plenty of things to be proud of about being from the South, but that goddamn war is not one of them. We were defeated in humiliating fashion while fighting a war for slavery. That really ain't anything to be proud of.
I think most Southerners know that, though. I don't think there are many Southerners left who support the flag or the statues for genuinely benign—if naive—reasons, because they've finally seen the truth, which is that it doesn't matter what these things may have once symbolized in their eyes, it matters what they mean to the rest of the country.
And today, right now, all any of it stands for is hate. This shit isn't about history. Hell, most of these monuments were built in the 20th century and the stars and bars isn't even the actual flag of the Confederacy. Also ... swastikas? Really? Look I don't know who raised these assholes but I'd think their papaws wouldn't appreciate that Nazi shit.
And it's not just the South. The Charlottesville rally was an excuse for bigots all over to come together and be terrible, serving the ever-popular purpose of allowing the rest of the country to act as though racism is a Southern problem, instead of an American one.
But that's another article for another time. I guess for now I should be kind of grateful to the alt-right. After all, they're accomplishing something that not even 10 years ago I would have told you was impossible: they're getting those stupid fucking monuments taken down.
Through sheer force of their repulsiveness, they have motivated cities all around the country to tear down their statues. And by forever associating the Confederacy with Nazis and swastikas and many other things Southerners were raised to despise, they also are turning many stalwarts away from their beloved rebel flag. So, you know ... thanks?
I wish my dad was still here. For a lot of reasons, obviously, but right now so that I could see where he stands on all of this. That flag is still there, by the way. His mother, my mema, she hasn't touched anything in his bedroom since he passed, including the flag on his wall. It hangs there now, but not for much longer.
When I go back home for the holidays, I'm going to go in there and take it down myself. Because I know my dad well enough to know where he would stand today. Because however he may have felt about the flag and for however long, as of right now it's a piss-poor representation of the kindest, most loving man I've ever known. So I'm getting rid of it. For good.
And learning to let go of parts of our Southern "heritage."
BY TRAE CROWDER
AUG 24, 2017
One of my favorite pictures I've ever taken is a shot of my late father holding my oldest son, who was only two at the time. Two of the most important people in my life, smiling broadly: a photographic representation of What It's All About. I love that picture ... and I never show it to anyone.
Not because I consider it too personal to me, or too painful since my dad passed away. I never show that picture to anyone because it was taken in my dad's bedroom, and behind them in that photo, displayed prominently on my father's wall, hangs the Confederate Battle Flag.
I'm from Celina, Tennessee. You probably don't know me, but if you know me at all, it's likely from these silly ass videos. I get asked a lot, "Why are you what you are?"
The very concept of a "liberal redneck" doesn't make any sense to many. I always tell those people a lot of it is because of my dad. His parenting philosophy was pretty simple: he raised me to ask questions and love people.
There wasn't a hateful bone in his body. In fact, he was one of the most loving people you would ever meet. He loved me and my sister, he loved his gay brother, he loved weird art and foreign movies and David Bowie. And he also loved the Confederate Flag.
See, what you have to understand is that the flag has meant a lot of things to a lot of people. To my dad, it mostly meant Lynyrd Skynyrd and a middle finger to The Man.
To many others (ok, most others) it's a symbol of hatred, repression, and literal crimes against humanity. Still, because of my dad and other Southerners I have known like him over the years, for a long time, I harbored some sympathy for those that defended the relics of the Confederacy, giving them the benefit of the doubt when they would say it was about "heritage, not hate."
When I first heard rumblings years ago of removing Confederate statues and renaming streets, while I wasn't adamantly opposed to it, I wasn't for it either. I kept thinking about the old adage referring to the consequences of forgetting your history. "Doing that is the same thing as acting like it never happened at all, and that's a bad idea," I used to say.
But not anymore. Not for a while now. I'll never know this for sure, but I'd like to think that if my dad had not passed away in January of 2013, that he would have taken that flag down off his bedroom wall by now. I think he would have taken it down on June 18, 2015, the day after the Charleston church shooting, and the day that for many Southerners the flag was pronounced well and truly dead.
My dad would have realized what I myself realized a while ago, what I hope any of the remaining good-hearted Southern holdouts who still defend the statues and the flag will soon realize ...y'all, we have got to move on.
We can and should remember our bloody past, but we have got to stop celebrating it. There are plenty of things to be proud of about being from the South, but that goddamn war is not one of them. We were defeated in humiliating fashion while fighting a war for slavery. That really ain't anything to be proud of.
I think most Southerners know that, though. I don't think there are many Southerners left who support the flag or the statues for genuinely benign—if naive—reasons, because they've finally seen the truth, which is that it doesn't matter what these things may have once symbolized in their eyes, it matters what they mean to the rest of the country.
And today, right now, all any of it stands for is hate. This shit isn't about history. Hell, most of these monuments were built in the 20th century and the stars and bars isn't even the actual flag of the Confederacy. Also ... swastikas? Really? Look I don't know who raised these assholes but I'd think their papaws wouldn't appreciate that Nazi shit.
And it's not just the South. The Charlottesville rally was an excuse for bigots all over to come together and be terrible, serving the ever-popular purpose of allowing the rest of the country to act as though racism is a Southern problem, instead of an American one.
But that's another article for another time. I guess for now I should be kind of grateful to the alt-right. After all, they're accomplishing something that not even 10 years ago I would have told you was impossible: they're getting those stupid fucking monuments taken down.
Through sheer force of their repulsiveness, they have motivated cities all around the country to tear down their statues. And by forever associating the Confederacy with Nazis and swastikas and many other things Southerners were raised to despise, they also are turning many stalwarts away from their beloved rebel flag. So, you know ... thanks?
I wish my dad was still here. For a lot of reasons, obviously, but right now so that I could see where he stands on all of this. That flag is still there, by the way. His mother, my mema, she hasn't touched anything in his bedroom since he passed, including the flag on his wall. It hangs there now, but not for much longer.
When I go back home for the holidays, I'm going to go in there and take it down myself. Because I know my dad well enough to know where he would stand today. Because however he may have felt about the flag and for however long, as of right now it's a piss-poor representation of the kindest, most loving man I've ever known. So I'm getting rid of it. For good.
