Today, I'm going to talk about a major double standard in American society. But this one unlike those involving skin color, gender, and even class by and large goes unnoticed and unquestioned. This double standard is about political views, and goes to the heart of how love of one's country is seen is contemporary-especially post Vietnam War-America.
Of course, there's been a lot of talk over the past three decades, probably too much talk, about the so called "white working class Republicans". Why too much talk? Because above all, it's a bit of a Red Herring. Sure it is possible to find poor and working class Caucasians who vote Republican, but they are in reality a small minority. As statistician Andrew Gelman demonstrated very well in his book "Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State", voters in nearly every state and demographic become more likely to vote Republican as their incomes rise. However, this increase is simply much steeper among whites than minorities, among Red State voters than Blue State voters, men than women, rural than urban, and among heavily observant Protestants than everyone else. It is certainly true that many blue collar voters are do in fact vote Republican against their economic interests and that many liberals are well off or even rich-also against their economic interests. But both of the above represent visible minorities rather than the norm. After all, if 70% of all low income white voters are primarily democrat and if George Bush got 60% of all high income voters, the minority 30% and 40% will still amount millions of people-plenty enough to feed the common stereotypes if one is determined enough!!! But on the whole most of the conventional wisdom over how income, education and religion influence American voters should probably be thrown out with the morning trash.
The differences between "liberals on the coast" and those with "heartland values" is not a class struggle so much as a regional difference between people who are mostly middle to high income.
Now we've gotten the idea of class resentment out of the way, as an explanation:Why is it that so many people would question the patriotism of anti-war protesters without knowing their intentions? But yet, the same people would take for granted that the much talked about "guys with Confederate flags" are the most patriotic Americans of all-despite any reactionary politics-even though that flag symbolized an attempt to succeed from the United States? I've thought about this a bit, and could not escape the conclusion that this is either about regional power struggles or it is about a double standards that systematically finds ways to judge the right as more patriotic than the left.
"Wait a minute!" some readers may say, "Aren't Southerners often unjustifiably labeled as ignorant, backwards, or racist?". The answer to this is "Yes. It happens all the time." Sometimes even very progressive and/or educated Southerners are misjudged completely. Regional conflicts often do cut both ways. However, this might not be a purely regional conflict. After all, Confederate flags have become common in places other than the former Confederacy. I've been told by multiple sources that the Confederate flag is much more common in much of Pennsylvania than in most of the South. Personally, I didn't see much of it, during a brief time period spent in Georgia, but have seen it all over the place in Washington towns-not too far from notoriously liberal Seattle.
So if the Confederate flag is no longer confined to regions of the US that were once a part of the Confederacy, what exactly is being asserted against "political correctness", liberalism, and "big government"? For many the answer to this is simple: racism. But is it that simple?
Often the flying of the Confederate flag DOES raise some very emotional debates from the racial angle. But even when this happens nobody decides to question the patriotism of conservative white males in the way that anti-war protesters are ASSUMED to at least be a "less patriotic" class of Americans. And when people are called out for not only flying the stars and bars, but also doing other things that romanticize the Southern cause, such as claiming that their favorite book and/or movie was "Gone with the Wind", generally their patriotism won't be questioned even if their racial sensitivity is. Could it be that there's is a certain ideological bias and not just a regional one? Probably considering how rarely Southern or Texan accents are shown on TV, movies, or in the media. And most likely that ideology would tend to involve certain things like relative hawkishness, a distrust of big government, contempt for liberals, boosterism for "traditional" family values, and so on.
In fact, sometimes the inequity in how Confederate flag flyers and "Gone with the Wind" lovers are treated compared to protesters goes deeper than that. It is not unusual for diversity training as it exists in some segments of the left to portray Confederate flag flying or enjoying "Gone with the Wind" as "typical of white people". And any white person who grew up in a family/community where none of this is the norm will often be told how blind or sheltered they are and even firmly told not to "put themselves above" the guys with the Confederate flag. So in the context of diversity training anti-war protesters are often told not to put on any snotty airs about being less racist than those who express some level of "Confederate pride" or "rebel pride", and that yes of course, they are just as racist if not more so. They are just too lacking in self-awareness to see that what they think is greater tolerance is really just an uppity look down attitude on more open working class whites.
And yet, the minute the context shifts to the topic of patriotism they are automatically labeled as "lesser" Americans. And told that they "failed" to appeal to the "guys with the Confederate flags" because they supposedly didn't fly the American flag quite enough.
However, having been to a number of protests I can tell you that American flags actually are a fairly common feature. And no. The overwhelming majority of them are NOT burned, defaced, or presented upside down. Of course, some people have suggested that we should replace a number of other symbols with the stars and stripes. Among those things include the UN flag, Peace Symbols, images of Iraqi people and/or their suffering, signs, slogans, and even the rattlesnake with the "Don't Tread on Me". Also many suggested getting rid of the puppets, the street theater and costumes used for political commentary, and even the bandannas some people bring in case there's tear gas.
So should a protest look like a 1970's Nixon rally? One important thing to consider is that these rallies are not just watched by "Middle America", but by people all over the world. And if the anti-war movement presents itself as only concerned about American death, that could look less than empathetic towards other people around the world. And it is. At this point we unelected an administration who horrified, enraged, and even scared large number of people around the world with this behavior. And in many other countries people who will be watching these protests in the US, are also seeing much more of the carnage in Iraq than is typically shown on US television.
Perhaps the solution to a lot of public perceptions about anti-war protests is that perhaps more people should just try and see a few for themselves. After all, the whole society has been filled with images and stereotypes since the 70's. And what better way to replace stereotypes than a little reality.
But either way, we'll think about replacing the peace symbol when The Confederate flag is no longer sold as a bumpersticker.
Say Goodnight Readers!
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