Race, racism and politics: What's the connection?

Chris Rock once joked that the reason why "whitey" designated February as Black History Month was because it is the shortest month of the year. Considering how often race relations has been in the spotlight, one could say that although the second month may be short on days, this year it has been long on evidence that race still dominates much of the political landscape.

One simply could not open a newspaper last month without reading one thing or another about the presidential campaign and the various candidates' views on affirmative action, racial profiling, Bob Jones University, the trial of four New York police officers for shooting Amadou Diallo and even the antics of Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker. I will admit that I am taking significant liberties by lumping all these complex cases together; however, the one constant that seems to run across each of these cases is that everyone-the candidates, the pundits and the public-is oversimplifying the problem posed by race.

Because people see race too often-and please, pardon my pun-in black and white terms, it is impossible to confront complicated issues without being instantly condemned with a label, like "racist," "reverse-racist" or "unAmerican." Pointing the "bigot finger" has even spread into other realms of identity politics, as George W. Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain traded accusations about their alleged prejudices against Catholics and evangelical Protestants.

Whatever logic prompted the McCain campaign to accuse Bush-whose brother is Catholic-of being an "anti-Catholic bigot" just because he spoke at a university that is known for its anti-Catholic (and anti-minority) policies is the same kind of semantic transformation that permitted him and other supporters of the Confederate flag in South Carolina to call it a symbol of Southern heritage. The supporters of the flag would have you believe that the Confederate battle flag has been flying in Columbia ever since the state voted for secession in 1860. They conjure up images of John C. Calhoun and Robert E. Lee-not to mention Bo and Luke Duke-when they spin fanciful tales about states' rights and keeping the rebel spirit alive. Those who oppose their position are instantly labeled "reverse-racists" for wanting to exterminate the last vestiges of Southern culture.

What they fail to tell you is that the flag was raised in the era of Orville Faubus and George Wallace, not Stonewall Jackson. It was a direct response to the passage of the Civil Rights Act and protested school integration, full legal and voting rights for blacks and the ideals of Martin Luther King Jr.-not the advance of Sherman's army. Perhaps the flag's supporters are correct in saying the flag represents the state's commitment to its sovereignty and maverick traditions, but those were the traditions that permitted it to engage in systematic racial prejudice that disenfranchised, enslaved, tortured and murdered its black citizens for nearly 200 years. But the flag still flies on top of the state capitol, representing the Palmetto State, although it is supported by only a minority of South Carolinians.

The South Carolina tourism boycott, devised by the NAACP, is a well-intentioned campaign to change the way the state presents itself to the country. It condemns the display of the flag and "[calls] for the removal and relocation of the Confederate battle flag to a place of historical rather than sovereign context." However, this position is also beset by an oversimplification of the issue of race in our society.

The whole flag debate in general could be seen an overblown exercise in symbolic politics. With or without a Confederate flag, South Carolina will still have its secessionists and Ku Klux Klan members. They are not any more or less racists because of the flag. Does the NAACP really believe that it can change their minds by changing their symbols?

After reading the text of the resolution adopted by the NAACP at this past summer's annual convention, I have concluded that the flag is a contradiction-an empty symbol, yes, but teeming with meaning. What if the swastika still flew over the Reichstag, or the old South African flag was aloft in Pretoria? To Jews and blacks in those communities, such a display would indicate that the government lacks respect for them as equal citizens by recalling and celebrating the era of their subjugation. It is no different in Columbia, and the Confederate flag must be taken down if black South Carolinians are to believe that their state government respects them as full citizens.