Paul Hedreen

Dixie and Southern Pride: The Limit of Symbolic Reclamation

This piece was originally written as an essay for a course at Borough of Manhattan Community College taught by Ina Litera.

American culture is ever shifting, and it is changing at an ever increasing rate. The internet and other globalizing technologies mean that things come in and out of fashion at an alarming rate, and that is not just limited to clothes and music. Language and culture have long been understood as fluid, and words are invented, transformed, rejected, and reclaimed all the time. They are reflections of a certain nation or people which itself is constantly evolving. Percival Everett’s story titled The Appropriation of Cultures tells the story of Daniel, a young black man living in South Carolina, who attempts to and succeeds at adopting the Confederate flag and the song Dixie as symbols of black southern heritage and community. This seems to me an example not of appropriation, which has a connotation of a community with power extracting something from those without it, but of reclamation. Reclamation is the process by which a marginalized group can take a word or symbol that has previously been used against them, and turn it into a badge of honor, or a source of pride. Everett’s story, a successful tale of reclamation, may be empowering, but ultimately it leaves unresolved the distinction between a symbol and the message or ideology it represents. 

The aim of reclaiming a hateful word or symbol is not to eradicate it, but instead to change its meaning from something denigrating to something empowering. In Everett’s story, Daniel does succeed in this aim. By the end of the story, the usage of the Confederate flag in Columbia, SC has flipped from a symbol for whites to assert dominance, to one for the black community to express pride and solidarity. What presumably has not changed, and what is left unsaid, is that many whites (especially those who sound like Travis and Barb in the recording,) still harbor racism in their hearts, and still yearn for a time during which Black people were explicitly considered second class citizens, if citizens at all. 

The Confederate flag and, to a similar extent, the song Dixie are considered offensive by many. This is not because the flag contains offensive imagery, or because the song lyrics are racist in themselves. Instead, it is because they are both symbols of a political and military movement that sought to continue the enslavement and subjugation of Black people in the US South. The reason the white people in the story are prideful of these symbols is because that ideology resonates with them, and they wish to communicate and promote said ideology. Daniel is free to see a different meaning in these symbols, and use them for his own purposes, which he does successfully. However, the appropriation of those symbols is just that: a re-definition of what the symbols stand for. The underlying ideology that we associate with Confederate flags and the song Dixie still exists, and can be expressed with other flags, songs, slogans, and any number of cultural markers.

That is not all to say that reclaiming a word or symbol is futile, and not worth doing. The LGBT community has successfully reclaimed the word “Queer” to the point that many young people do not know that it was once a hateful slur. Reclamation can help heal wounds within the marginalized community, and promote a more understanding and less closed-minded world. However, homophobia is still rampant. Reclaiming the word “Queer” from someone who may have once used it as an insult is not bad in and of itself, but I find it more likely that that person will just use one of many other anti-LGBT slurs that are still considered vulgar and offensive. 

I do not think that Daniel’s efforts are useless. However, I think the story conflates too easily the use of symbols to represent hatred with the hatred itself. I would have liked to see an exploration of how reclaiming those symbols changed the minds (or didn’t change the minds) of the black and white communities of Columbia, SC. There is an increased awareness in the last couple of years of the futility of performative antiracism. Where a corporation may have been lauded for a progressive commercial twenty or even ten years ago, there is now an expectation that they must walk the walk, with real commitments to equity and inclusion in their business operations. This story is very well written, and it does prompt deep thinking by the reader on our preconceived notions of symbols, and the fluidity of symbols. But, it falls short in the question of real ideological change.

There are some areas of the United States that have a high proportion of Confederate flags hanging on houses. If those areas of the country are also the most racist, is it because those flags are flying? The Appropriation of Cultures challenges the notion that white people have a monopoly on the Confederate flag, Dixie, and Southern Pride in general. However, Percival Everett’s story fails to address the racism that underwrites, and yet is distinct from, those symbols. Daniel has dissipated the meaning of the Confederate flag, but he has not dissipated the hatred and racism that the flag once signaled.