Week Six

This week’s discussion on Chapter 5 of Confederate’s in the Attic on the death of Michael Westerman really caused me to reflect on the racial and political climate in the area where I grew up — especially in terms of the use of and meaning attributed to the Confederate flag. I grew up on the border of Illinois and Iowa in an area that is dominated by agriculture, factories, and a United States Army Arsenal. In terms of racial makeup, the area is mostly white with a large black community and a smaller, but still significant Latino community.

While I never experienced overt violence due to being Mexican, the undercurrents of tension were always felt in casual conversations and within classrooms. Interestingly enough, this subconscious racial tension did not prevent people from becoming friends and having good working relationships. I never quite understood how so many people in my town could be friends with someone they knew was racist. I think it may have something to do with the economic aspects of my town’s dynamic, which is also where the meaning of the Confederate flag comes into play.

To a certain extent we did form friend groups and communities based on who had similar ethnic backgrounds, however it was more so that community development was based on economic background. It was the working class and lower middle class kids at my highschool who had confederate flags attached to their rusted trucks or in the background of photos they took in their room. 

I remember having a conversation with someone I met through a friend in highschool about the Confederate flag, racism, and what white privilege meant. He believed that white privilege did not exist because his family was working class and struggled to make ends meet. He could not overlook his economic background in order to grasp the concept that his race allowed him other kinds of privilege. The Confederate flag to him represented the struggle of the underdogs, and a middle finger to the government and economy that allows him, his family, and his friends to live a financially difficult life, and he claimed it had nothing to do with race. While I don’t believe that this take on the Confederate flag can override the racist undercurrents behind it’s meaning especially in light of the racial tension I mentioned earlier in my town, it helped me to understand how complex and complicated of a topic this is.