Wiedmer: Time to put Stars and Bars away forever

Maria Calef holds a sign in front of the Confederate monument outside the South Carolina State House in Columbia after the state House voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State Capitol on Thursday.(Stephen B. Morton/The New York Times)
Maria Calef holds a sign in front of the Confederate monument outside the South Carolina State House in Columbia after the state House voted to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State Capitol on Thursday.(Stephen B. Morton/The New York Times)

It would be difficult to find a more powerful and well-respected football coach to represent the Southeastern Conference regarding the Confederate flag controversy than Alabama's Nick Saban. Four total national championships won at two SEC schools over a span of 13 seasons will do that for a guy. Especially when the West Virginia native works in a state that recently removed the flag from state government grounds.

So it's more than a little timely to repeat his thoughts on the subject during his turn Wednesday at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala.

photo University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban speaks Wednesday at SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala.
photo Mark Wiedmer

"My opinion is that anytime we have a symbol that represents something that is mean-spirited or doesn't represent equal rights for all people, I'm not for having that symbol represent anything that we're involved in," Saban began.

"It's not my decision as to what the governor does, or my decision what our university does. It's just my opinion about the way I feel about symbols that are not positive towards human rights and everybody having equal opportunity."

We've all seen them flying from cars and trucks throughout the South in recent weeks. Flying with defiant pride and prejudice, the Stars and Bars in all its woefully misplaced glory.

You can say the individuals flying them aren't necessarily racists, and you might well be right. Attaching any label to someone you don't personally know is both dangerous and wrong. They may be doing no more than exercising their freedom as Americans, however much others may disagree with their actions.

Or maybe they view the Civil War battle flag differently than those who proclaim it a racist symbol only, as hurtful and evil as a Ku Klux Klan pointed white hat. Perhaps they see the Stars and Bars as representative of the South so many of us love, one framed by sweet tea, porch ceilings painted robin's egg blue, stately magnolias, grits, ceiling fans, red clay, gospel music and peach cobbler.

No one knows for sure what's inside another person's head or heart unless they ask. And few ever ask. Fewer still accept an answer that doesn't square with what they expected to hear.

But ever since a demented and disturbed punk with a gun chose to massacre nine African-Americans in a historic black Charleston, S.C., church on June 17, that flag has drawn justifiable ire from a concerned and wounded nation.

Accused killer Dylann Roof's decision to circulate over the Internet at least one picture of himself wrapped in the battle flag only days before the massacre has understandably added to the outrage.

And because so many in the South have stubbornly clung to their beliefs that the Stars and Bars nobly honors their ancestors who died fighting for the Confederacy, the flag has long graced or disgraced (depending on your personal views) so many of the region's state government buildings.

Yet as new SEC commissioner Greg Sankey sagely noted Monday in referencing South Carolina's decision to remove the battle flag from state capitol grounds, "The times, they are changing, and the times will continue to change as we move forward."

The South often moves forward at the pace of blackstrap molasses. It's one reason why SEC football Saturdays are like no other, built on decades of history, everything from tailgating to fight songs to rivalries older than a woman's right to vote.

And because of that, so many symbols of Southern pride, however wrongheaded or wretched, have been too slow to disappear, the best and brightest among us unwilling to embrace Saban's belief that any symbol that's not a positive for human rights needs to positively be removed from any public structure.

photo Mississippi coach Dan Mullen speaks to the media at the Southeastern Conference NCAA college football media days Tuesday, July 14, 2015, in Hoover, Ala.

Not that it's easy. Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen received a small amount of media criticism after his Tuesday turn with the league's media for not strongly condemning his state's reluctance to design a new state flag, since the current one prominently features the Stars and Bars in the upper left corner.

Mullen instead adhered to his administration's recent line that MSU is already "the most diverse campus in the Southeastern Conference."

The Pennsylvania native even joked, "We're so diverse, we have a Yankee as a head football coach."

Bulldogs senior defensive back Taveze Calhoun - who is black - of Morton, Miss., also declined to share an opinion, saying, "I'd rather let people from our school a lot more powerful than me discuss that."

You can't blame them. Unless you have Saban's clout - and Mullen's 22-26 record in league games entering his seventh season strongly suggests he doesn't - how many coaches would do otherwise?

Yet South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, perhaps the only other SEC coach with close to as much clout as Saban, did just that.

"All of us in college sports, we know the importance of equality, race relations, everybody getting along," said the son of a Presbyterian minister. "So I think all the coaches all over were happy to see the flag come down."

But just in case you want the perspective of someone other than an SEC football coach, consider these words from Gainesville, Fla., native Tom Petty, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who once flew the Stars and Bars during his 1985 Southern Accents tour.

"I was pretty ignorant of what it actually meant," Petty told Rolling Stone magazine on Tuesday. "People just need to think about how it looks to a black person. It's like how a swastika looks to a Jewish person. It just shouldn't be on flagpoles."

Or pickup trucks. Or anywhere else where its presence could offend those unable to avoid viewing it.

Only then can the South keep moving forward from its troubled past.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

Upcoming Events