I still remember how badly I wanted a specific t-shirt when
I was in school. It was grey. It had a bucolic country scene with hound dogs
and an old farmhouse. It also had a confederate flag and the words “Dixie
Outfitters” across the top in old west typeface. They sold them at a small flea
market near where I camped with my family and it seemed like a lot of people at
school had them. (I’ve learned that perspective when you are 12 can be extremely
distorted, so who knows if my memory on this is accurate.) My father said no. A man who very rarely had an opinion on what I
did, where I went, or whom I was with, flat out denied my ability to buy this
shirt. I only remember him strait up telling me no on a couple of occasions, so
I just trusted him.
It has been a decade and a half since the last time I
remember my dad putting his foot down. It took me a long time to understand,
but I think I do now. I argued about heritage and freedom of speech and
enthusiastically supported the move to add the confederate flag back to the
Georgia flag. My father patiently endured those efforts, but when it came to
plastering it on my clothing. The answer was no.
I know now what I didn’t know then. My associations with the
confederate flag had never been tied to race. It was cultural symbol in my
mind, a link to my past, a link I saw many around me desperate to hold on to.
What I didn’t see at the time was the world my father had lived in. My
father lived through a time where it was the symbol of those who would do harm.
(A time that I can no longer convince myself is over based on the events of the
last few months.) It stood beside burning crosses as an omen of things to come. It
was held up by those preaching that they were superior simply based on the
amount of melanin within their skin. My father tried to help me see. He told me
of a trip to the courthouse as a child. He had looked up to his father and
asked him why the water fountain was marked “Whites Only.” His father explained
to him what segregation was and why it was so evil. As he told me this story,
he reminded me once again that everyone is made in the image of God and must be
treated with the respect and dignity deserved by someone who images the
almighty.
And now I sit here watching the news of a massacre at a predominantly
African American local church. The man who did this had a “Sons of the Confederacy”
emblem on the back of his car, the same flag that I wanted to wear on a
T-Shirt. I’m so embarrassed. I realize that my “heritage” is one that is marred
by painful, oppressive injustice. Injustice committed and defended by those
that held that flag and I know that my father was right. This particular part
of my heritage is something I should remember only as a warning to not repeat
it, not as an emblem of pride.
I realize that, only by the grace of God, I do not have to
bear the weight of the sins of my fathers. I realize that, only by the grace of
God who gave Christ to die on the cross for my sins, I do not have to bear the
punishment for my own sins. I do not have to pay the penalty for my failure to
love those made in God image by defending a symbol of oppression and hate. I realize that my own desire for conflict and
entertainment led me to defend South Carolina waving said flag at their state
house, and it was a sinful manifestation of a heart that desired chaos over
order. Much more tangible than that was my desire to avoid parts of the city
that I deeded unsafe because a concentration of people that didn’t look like me
lived there. The harsh words I have spoken about entire groups of people that I
had never interacted with are an embarrassing testament to my own sinful heart
that seeks to put myself above others. My heart is one that would seek to make
myself look better by making other look worse. I have a heart that would rather
ignore the image of God placed in all people that is a means to bring God
glory. A heart that, I pray, is being transformed to be more like the Christ
who has bought it with his blood. Jesus didn’t allow ethnicity, gender, or past
transgressions to get in his way of loving his neighbor. He didn’t hold his
Jewish pedigree over the head of the Samaritan woman when he sat down to speak
with her. The Samaritans and the Jews did not have a story of peaceful race
relations. They were rivals, but Jesus endured scandal to make the Good
Samaritan the hero in his story. He collected those that lived on
the periphery of society around him.
I do still believe that individuals have the right to fly a
confederate flag. In the same way I believe that they should be able to tattoo
a swastika on their forehead if they really want to. But the Christian should know
that it is sin to consider your own opinion of what it means above a brother or
sister who is hurting. For me to obey the command to love my brother and
sister, I must lay down this flag. I don’t want to tarnish the name of Christ
who I claim to follow by intentionally aligning myself with a symbol of hate
and oppression. For this reason, I write my apology letter to those I may have
hurt. My defense of this flag was public, so now is my grief over it. To those
I may have hurt in the rebellion of my youth, I’m sorry, please forgive me.
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