The Confederate flag has no place in this country
Maybe you’ve seen it on someone’s T-shirt or tattoo. Maybe you’ve seen it on a decal on a truck, a small flag flying from a car or a big flag hung like a confrontation in a window.
Why on earth would any Canadian display the Confederate battle flag, often known as the Southern Cross or simply the Confederate flag? And which is worse: Choosing to drive around Kawartha Lakes sporting the all-too-familiar blue X on a red background because you don’t fully grasp what it stands for, or because you do and you want everyone to know?
The Confederate flag isn’t at all like a pennant featuring the Welsh dragon or a cap celebrating Nova Scotia that you might see locally. It is an emblem of states that fought to secede during the American Civil War. Those states had a wide range of grievances, including unequivocal support for slavery in the face of abolition. Anyone choosing to wear or fly the Confederate flag is publicly stating that they’re okay with that — with the worst possible kind of discrimination based solely on another person’s skin colour.
Okay, so maybe they see the flag as a non-specific symbol of rebellion, as some of the convoy folks said they did during their occupation of Ottawa in 2022. Or perhaps, like some high school students in York Region in 2013 who wore the Southern Cross on their backpacks and belt buckles, they say it’s simply a way to show pride in their purported country values.
Oh, please.
Sure, there’s a historical aspect to the Confederate flag, but it’s not our history. Thirty seconds on Google would turn up an actual flag of an actual Canadian rebellion, the one led by William Lyon Mackenzie in 1837, but local Confederate-flag wavers clearly prefer to spotlight their own ignorance rather than learning a little history.
Slapping a sticker with this flag on your vehicle or wearing it on your chest is the most juvenile form of provocation there is. Rest assured that no one is impressed or thinks you’re just a lovable redneck. We’re staring because we can’t decide whether you’re a dyed-in-the-wool racist or just plain stupid.
There’s nothing juvenile, though, about the implications of the Confederate flag, no matter where it’s flown or shown. It is a direct link to people who were prepared to die for the right to enslave others. It has been adopted by the KKK and other proudly white supremacist organizations.
The overwhelming majority of people in Kawartha Lakes no doubt support freedom of expression while rejecting everything the Confederate flag stands for. We don’t need a symbol of humanity’s ugliest impulses to show pride in our rural heritage of self-reliance and care for our neighbours.
