Is the Confederate flag offensive?

Luis (No)

While it’s understandable that many have a negative opinion about the Confederate flag, the flag itself should not be considered offensive. It's a banner that has become an important symbol of Southern culture and pride instead of racism or slavery. In fact, many American Southern soldiers wore it while fighting against Nazi Germany in World War II. A famous episode was the one of the 79th Infantry Division, which pulled out the flag after liberating a French town from Nazi occupation. 

The Confederate flag has also symbolized resistance to an out-of-control federal government, considering that many people in the South see the banner as the clearest opposition to federal authority and the representation of states’ rights. These people see the federal government as having infringed on the sovereignty of the individual Southern states and overstepped its bounds in areas such as civil liberties and regulation.

Moreover, a recent study revealed that half of the country doesn’t see the Confederate flag as racist or offensive, with only one-third of Americans feeling the opposite. Furthermore, it’s unfair to portray the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism and slavery, considering that every flag group has done despicable things in the past. Following the same path with other symbols could lead to a chaotic situation where everyone and everything could be canceled.

Indeed, the Confederate flag was initially the symbol of an area of America that wanted to retain the horrible 'right' to slavery, but everything in politics tends to redefine itself eventually. Being intellectually honest is recognizing things as what they are today instead of what they represented centuries ago. And right now, the flag is not what it used to be during the Civil War.

Andrew (Yes)

The Confederate flag is a symbol that is strongly associated with white supremacy and slavery, which was the central reason for the American Civil War. Modern revisionist historians have attempted to reframe the Civil War in terms of a noble “lost cause,” when the fact of the matter is that Southern States simply wanted to be able to own slaves. Thus, celebrating this flag is equivalent to celebrating the desire of seditious Southern states and their actions to prolong slavery.

Many who celebrate the confederate flag claim it as a symbol of states' rights. However, the truth is that it was the battle flag for a group of states that attempted to disband our nation and dissolve our republic. It is frankly un-American to celebrate this sort of heritage, let alone the fact that the so-called “states rights” that these states were willing to go to war for was the right to own and enslave human beings. 

Finally, there are plenty of ways to celebrate Southern heritage without using divisive hate symbols embraced by hate groups like the KKK and neo-nazis. This doesn’t mean erasing the long and brutal history of the plantation system. Instead, we should study it, and keep an open dialogue about how these systems of oppression have continued in more insidious ways into the present era. To say that it’s OK to fly the confederate flag is to ignore the brutality of American slavery. The South has a rich history that should be celebrated, but not with this symbol.