The Mississippi House and Senate voted June 27, 2020, to change the State Flag rather than putting it to another popular vote. Personally, I would have loved for the flag resolution to have been put to a popular vote to see if and how much the vast majority of Mississippi’s white population has “progressed.” However, let’s see if the vote to change the state flag will lead to a vote to fund public education fully or to change police policy or to implement ways in which black businesses can get loans and more access to capital. I just think that it is interesting that the same man, Mississippi House Speaker Phil Gunn, who fought to ensure that Mississippi public schools are not properly funded is now saying that today’s “vote was a victory for Mississippians.” Other than the economic disadvantage that the Confederate Flag has now become, it’s difficult for me to believe that Gunn is now someone who believes that Black Lives Matter when he has a long history of authoring and supporting legislation designed to perpetuate the second-class citizenship of Afro-Mississippians. Thus, changing the state flag merely enables white businesses to profit off cheap black labor under the guise that things are different. As usual, black folks get the symbolism that they desire while white wealth and oppression remains the same. In the words of that great philosopher Vanity, “wake me when you’re done.”
The Confederate Flag is the primary symbol of American white supremacy and not just southern white supremacy as many northern whites supported the Fugitive Slave Act. So, it’s interesting to me when white northerners act appalled at the Confederate Flag or at southern racism when white police officers have been killing black folks as readily in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and LA as they have in Jackson and Atlanta. And, let’s not forget that it was white East Coast liberals who forced Richard Wright to remove the second half of Black Boy because Wright refused to paint the North as Negro Heaven. Still, when I’ve seen the Confederate Flag flown in Mississippi, I understand it for what it is: the symbol of the hearts and minds of the vast majority of white Mississippians. To the liberal white Mississippians who want to debate me on that issue, in 2001 when the state voted whether or not to change the state flag, 90% of white Mississippians voted to keep the flag. What more empirical evidence do y’all need to tell y’all that the vast majority (not all but certainly the vast majority) of white Mississippians are racists? If you don’t understand that fact based on that vote, you might just be allergic to logic and empirical evidence. Yet, another example is that after years of electing a white male democrat as Attorney General, when given the choice between a white female republican with a racist past (Attorney Lynn Fitch) and a qualified black female democrat (Attorney Jennifer Riley Collins), Mississippi chose the racist. This shows that it is still impossible for an Afro-Mississippian to be elected state-wide, and the same would have been true if there would have been a state-wide vote on the flag.
Now, let’s evaluate some numbers, something at which my wife is much better at doing since she is a political mapmaker whose map was used to create the first district in Clinton, Mississippi, in which a black candidate could be elected. In 2001, whites were 61% of Mississippi’s population, African Americans were 36%, and the rest were you other mofos. Don’t get upset at me for referring to my Hispanic, Asian, Arab, Indian, and Native Mississippian brothers and sisters as “other mofos;” the battle in Mississippi has always been racist white folks versus everybody else so you mofos have always been a part of the “everybody else,” whether you wanted to be or not. So, let’s move on. In 2020, just before the next Census, the white population dropped to 59% and a lot of black folks began feeling real froggie about the possibility of changing the state flag. (For white folks, “froggie” means ready to jump into action.) Over the past two years, there have been several state-wide events, led mostly by the state NAACP, to create enough support to change the state flag. This is important because I hate the bullshit narrative that folks outside Mississippi must always come to Mississippi to help the downtrodden black Mississippians. That’s never been the case, be it Freedom Summer or anything else. If dumbasses would read books, such as Local People, rather than watching bullshit films like Mississippi Burning, they would know the truth.
Now, here is where I disagree with many good local people down here. The Confederate Flag is to white supremacy as the rattle is to the rattlesnake. Thus, when one is in the woods and hears the rattle of a rattlesnake, that may be a good thing. Hearing the rattle means that one has not been bitten and that one has the chance, though slight, to escape the rattlesnake. The same is true of the Confederate Flag. The flying of that Flag signifies the hatred that the vast majority of white Mississippians have for African people. Period. Again, if you don’t understand that, then you are just effin’ stupid. As such, I like seeing it fly because it continues to affirm for me what I know to be true about the vast majority of white Mississippians. Removing the Confederate Flag will not change their hearts and minds. It will only create an illusion for cowardly and self-hating black folks who want to integrate into white institutions because they have no faith that African Americans can create their own great institutions. They so hate themselves and so love whiteness and all that whiteness creates that they will inflict themselves with the daily hell of being in the presence of white folks who hate their very being. As noted poet, playwright, and activist Kalamu Ya Salaam states in What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self, “…no matter how successful a Black person is while working within the system, his or her success does nothing to answer our people’s need for radical, systematic change…We become cynical because we realize that the better we do our jobs, the more difficult it will be to overthrow the system.” To be clear, there are people that I respect and love who work at several of Mississippi’s HWIs/PWIs. I’m not going to name them because I don’t want them to be forced to answer for my words. But, Salaam is right that their genius at their jobs simply serves to make those institutions greater, which simply serves to perpetuate the second-class citizenship of Afro-Mississippians. If one analyzes the white legislators of Mississippi, understanding where they attended school and from where they get their funding, it becomes clear that every touchdown scored by Ole Miss is a touchdown for white supremacy, every three-point basket made by Mississippi State is a three-pointer for white supremacy, and every home run hit by USM is a home run for white supremacy. I’m not saying that every person affiliated with these institutions is knowingly working for white supremacy. But, again, following the money and the legislation, all roads to maintaining white supremacy lead to these three institutions. That’s why I never understood black folks who attend or work at Ole Miss complaining about the Confederate Flag. That just didn’t make sense to me. It’s like dating someone who tells you that they are a polygamist and becoming upset that they are sexing other people. How crazy can you be? We all make decisions about whom we desire to be and what we desire to do, which includes where we desire to work. I don’t deny that many folks who attend or work at Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and USM are doing their best to change those institutions from within. Yet, again, as Salaam indicates and as history has shown us, it is often too little too late, and, often, their work is to the detriment of black institutions.
Several years ago, I published an essay explaining that, while I respect them, Jackie Robinson’s and Tiger Wood’s work to “integrate” white institutions did more to increase the profits of racist whites than it did to improve the lives and profits of black folks. While that statement may anger folks because it bursts their bubble of integrated illusion or delusion, no one has any facts that can prove me wrong. Before Robinson integrated Major League Baseball, there was a majority of black ownership of professional teams in black leagues. After Robinson integrated the Major Leagues, there is minimal black ownership of professional teams. Furthermore, since their heyday of the 1960s – 1980s, the percentage of African-American major leaguers has continued to decline since MLB decided to pursue Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban players rather than African-American players because they are viewed as more docile and easier to control, and these are the words of MLB superstar David “Big Papi” Ortiz. Again, Robinson’s courageous act helped everyone except black folks. How many people know that Jackson State University, an HBCU, still holds the record for the most players from one team being drafted into the NFL in one year? So, when legendary University of Alabama Head Coach Paul Bear Bryant demanded that his recruiters get him a nigger who can catch the nigger playing for USC, that didn’t help black people; it simply enabled the SEC to do what white people have always done—use free black labor to earn billions of dollars. And, now, y’all Negroes want to remove the Confederate Flag so that y’all don’t have to face your own hypocrisy of knowing that Salaam is correct “that the better we do our jobs, the more difficult it will be to overthrow the system” I have accepted the fact that white folks’ money is some good/beautiful/handsome money. It must be because it constantly seduces black folks to reject and deny ourselves and our best interest just to get a taste of it. Yeah, that white folks’ money gots to be good for so many of us to be willing to close our eyes and hold our noses just so we don’t have to see or smell the poison that we are willing to swallow. Yet, my question is: how do y’all deal with the taste because, the last time that I checked, excrement still tastes like excrement?
Further, what affirms my resolve for self-determination is the ongoing communication that I have with white allies who, for whatever reason, feel comfortable enough with me to be truthful regarding just how dire white supremacy is in their own community. In the past month I’ve had at least eight white allies tell me that they hear their white neighbors say things, such as “niggers are not fit to be equal,” “they [black folks] should be more concerned with how many of them kill each other rather than crying about the police,” and, my all-time favorite, “no matter what, we still got the guns.” (Shout out to Killer Mike for being adamant that black folks must embrace their Second Amendment right as well.) All of the people who have shared this information with me are folks that I have known for five to twenty-five years. As such, unless there is some elaborate state-sanctioned plan of misinformation directed at me, I tend to take their information as very reliable. Additionally, I don’t think that they shared this information to scare me or to dissuade me but more to inform me just how much work is still needed to transform this country by transforming the citizens. But, I share this information with y’all because a great deal (not all) of black folks seem to think that removing the Confederate Flag or black folks being allowed to score touchdowns for white schools constitutes substantial “progress.” Yet, this honest white communication seems to make it clear that, after 155 years, America seems to be in no better a place than it was after the Civil War because black folks are still in the position of begging white folks to be nice to them rather than putting themselves in a position of power over their own lives so that how the mass of white folks feels about them means absolutely nothing. Therefore, I wish that more white people would communicate honestly with their “black friends” so that their “black friends” would truly understand just how dire these times are. This type of honest communication will ensure that black folks understand the real “racial mountain,” to use Langston Hughes’ term, that they are trying to climb. It will clarify for them just how deep and entrenched white supremacy is in the white community. And that’s essential if we ever want to “change” America because only then will the mass of black folks realize that true equality only comes when one has one’s own rather than begging someone else to allow one to be a part of their “dream.” So, while there is a lot to learn from Dr. Cornel West’s impassioned words to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, affirming the strength, love, and creativity that is in the DNA of African peoples, I hope that most black folks learn that we have the morality, internal fortitude, and intelligence to liberate ourselves, but we must first learn to love ourselves as much as we love our oppressors to become free enough to fulfill our potential. This game of mother…err I mean “white folks may I” has continued for far too long. As long as one must ask someone for permission to breathe, one will never be free.
Returning to the history of Afro-Mississippians fighting against the perseverance of the Confederacy, it’s great to see current Afro-Mississippians continuing that fight. Here is a link to a joint statement of forty District Attorneys and Attorney Generals condemning the murder of George Floyd and police violence. I’m ecstatic to see the name of one of my former students, Jackson State University English major and current District Attorney of the Twenty-Second Judicial District, Mississippi, Attorney Daniella Shorter. Attorney Shorter was a brilliant JSU English major who often took me to task on any number of issues that we discussed in our world literature class. I still remember her midterm research paper on Antigone in which she asserts that it is the responsibility of Christians not to submit to oppressors (Creon/Trump) but to fight against them, accepting whatever punishment is “meted out” for the sake of justice. She is now representing JSU well as she seeks justice and rehabilitation in her community. I’m also happy to see the name of Hinds County (Mississippi) District Attorney Jody Owens as well who comes from a long line of Civil Rights attorneys and judges, being the nephew of Attorney Bob Owens (JSU) and Judge Denise Sweet Owens (Tougaloo College) and the nephew of Attorney Dennis Sweet, III (Tougaloo College), all HBCU grads who have dedicated their lives using the courtroom to make life better for all people. These are the types of first steps that will be needed to deconstruct a system rooted in white supremacy to rebuild a system rooted in justice. Always remember that what separates a thug from a revolutionary is the rebuilding. A thug destroys merely to destroy. A revolutionary destroys an evil system to rebuild a just one. Yeshua was a revolutionary who whipped ass in the temple as both Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold of the revolution that must occur for corrupt systems to be transformed into just systems.
So, that’s my take on the Confederate Flag, and it’s the same one I’ve had since that 2001 vote. Y’all continue to do what y’all feel is best about the state flag. I’m going to continue making sure that every word that I write and say serves to inform African people of their history, strength, beauty, and creativity, hoping that one day African people finally realize that we have all that we need to be self-sufficient and sovereign peoples. As I recently stated to a young scholar, “people love a good story, even to the detriment of the truth. As such, they will react negatively to anyone forcing them to face the falsity of their feel-good story.” Of course, I don’t disagree with people who state that “small steps are better than no steps,” but I also realize that, often, steps can be false steps or just illusion. Therefore, only history will know if this “step” is what many think it is or if it is just another game of smoke and mirrors. All one can do is present one’s position with as much logic and evidence as one can and allow people to receive or reject it as they will. Other than that, one must find peace in one’s ability to be logical and truthful, even when logic and truth are not popular.
C. Liegh McInnis is a poet, short story writer, editor, and instructor of English at Jackson State University.