Commentary:

'Southern pride' is not white supremacy

The South Carolina and American flags fly at half mast as the Confederate flag unfurls below at the Confederate Monument on June 18 in Columbia, S.C.

(Sean Rayford, Getty Images)

By Mac McCann

• Racism
• University of Texas at Austin
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Opinion
• Commentary

There's nothing inherently wrong with "Southern pride." There is, however, a whole lot wrong with using the Confederate flag — or anything related to the Confederacy — and claiming that's Southern pride.

"He had that kind of Southern pride, I guess some would say," a classmate said of Dylann Roof, the alleged killer of nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

An undated handout photo provided by the Berkeley County South Carolina Government shows 21 year-old Dylann Roof of Columbia, S.C. Dylann Roof has been identified as the suspect in a shooting at an African American church in Charleston, S.C.

(EPA)

In his profile picture on Facebook, the 21-year-old is wearing a black jacket with two flags on it: the apartheid-era flags of South Africa (1928-1994) and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) (1968-1979). Roof, it would seem, cares more about white supremacy than the American South — so it's far more accurate to call it white supremacist pride than Southern pride.

Reports suggest that this was an attack by one man — but that doesn't mean the South in general doesn't have a serious problem confronting its deeply embedded culture of racism. As journalist Chase Madar noted in a tweet, the "Governor who flies Confederate flag at SC capitol says 'we'll never understand what motivates' #Charleston massacre."

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After I recently argued in The Dallas Morning News that the Jefferson Davis statue at the University of Texas at Austin should be moved from campus, multiple readers told me the Confederate leaders are a huge part of our history, and should be honored as such.

It's true that the legacy of the Confederacy has been deeply influential for today's South. And I do embrace Southern pride. But I'm proud of the South not because of the Confederacy, but in spite of the Confederacy. I have much more pride in the Southerners who have battled racism than those who enforce and promote racism.

Steve Chapman: South Carolina should retire the Confederate flag

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that Texas may deny a heritage group the right to display its logo bearing the Confederate battle flag on specialty license plates issued by the state. A Dallas Morning News article noted: "Supporters of the flag, and members of Sons of Confederate Veterans, concede that some hate groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, have over the years appropriated the flag for their own racist purposes." But that's not entirely true.

Yes, the flag has been used for racist purposes. But the flag has not been "appropriated" for racist purposes; it was designed for racist purposes. If we equate Southern pride with Confederate pride, we're necessarily also endorsing white supremacy. The Confederacy cannot be separated from its racism.

As president of the Confederacy, Davis argued that "African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing."

In Texas we made it clear in 1861 in "A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union" :

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

In Charleston, a slaughter in the sanctuary

That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.

Black lives matter. History matters. All lives matter. But for most of the South's history, we've embraced a society "established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity."

Don't show me the Confederate flag and tell me that it's a symbol of Southern pride. Don't tell me it's about "heritage not hate" when we have inherited a world shaped by white supremacy. Don't tell me that Roof was motivated by Southern pride when the people massacred in a church were Southerners, too.

As we mourn for the people affected by the Charleston massacre, let us remember the words of my fellow Southerner, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. … I still believe that we shall overcome!"

A native of Texas, Mac McCann is a writer and student at The University of Texas at Austin. His work has been published by the Austin Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, The Austin American-Statesman and The Huffington Post.