It’s tempting to say that ‘times have changed’, but the interesting thing is that the racist connotations of the flag have not – it’s merely our desire to stomach it which has. The flag was not the flag of the Confederacy, but was actually the Battle Standard of the Northern Virginia army. The Ku Klux Klan wielded it (along with the stars and stripes). It arose again in prominence in the 50-60s – in fact the flag in South Carolina that flies now went up in 1962 as a symbol of resistance to the burgeoning civil rights movement. The flag is padlocked in place, and takes a 2/3rds vote to even take down to half mast. This resulted in one of the most incendiary images from the aftermath of last week’s horrific shooting – the American flag at half-mast over the state capital, while the rag of traitors flew defiantly at full mast.
People (myself included) have been arguing that the confederate flag has no place on state grounds for decades now. It’s the flag that represents treason instead of patriotism. It represents pride, in one of the most shameful elements of early America. It represents defiance over reconciliation and reforging of our country after war. But most of all, it represents slavery and oppression over freedom, especially if you happen to be one of the 13% percent of americans, or the 28% percent of South Carolinans, who are black. The best way to think about it is to imagine, wherever you see this, that instead you see a banner that says ‘We own you, n*ggers.” This isn’t what it looks like to white people, of course. But to the quarter of South Carolina that is black, it is a reminder that many still see them as second class citizens.
In Germany, where their free speech is far more limited than ours is, German skinheads who are banned from flying swastikas use the confederate flag instead. You know, as their BACKUP symbol for white supremacy.
Some people argue that fixating on a symbol after this horrific shooting is shortsighted and ultimately useless. I disagree. I think it’s good for the psychopathic racists who are thinking about copycat behaviors to see that Roof’s actions have rushed American discourse into a rapid sprint in the opposite direction of where they want the world to go. But more to the point, making black people feel like they aren’t second class citizens starts with removing some of the racist wallpaper that still permeates much of the south in the name of ‘tradition’.
So I was gratified to see action start to be taken on the flag. First, in Alabama. Then the Governor of South Carolina called a special session to investigate removing the flag there. And then something unexpected happened. The private sector decided that they didn’t want to traffic in emblems of hate. So you had Wal*mart, Etsy, eBay and Amazon among others all get out of the flag selling business. After all, it says something about you as a store owner if you have a t-shirt that says ‘we own you, n*ggers’ prominently for sale.
Which brings us to Apple. Eager to join in on the PR rush that the other major retailers were taking part of, Apple demanded that games and apps that featured the flag to be removed from their virtual storefront. This was particularly troublesome to the handful of developers who have Civil War reenactments on the apple store, who included the flag for the sake of historical accuracy. (The short exodus of these games from the Apple store even led to a minor boomlet of them on Steam).
This is the sort of dumb pronouncement made by Apple frequently – observers may remember when they tried to ban Papers Please for nudity. Apple is in many respects frustrating because they hold a monopoly over a distribution channel. It’s not like Wal*mart or Steam, where players can go to Target or HumbleBundle. And I generally believe that Apple’s attitudes, particular on nudity, limit game designer freedom quite a bit. I have a game design in my head that is very… let’s just say ‘not Anita approved’… that isn’t worth making because I couldn’t sell it. Similarly, Apple recently decided to kibosh App Store screenshots showing violence against humans.
Anyway, #gamerGate immediately launched into how this was a ban on games with confederate flags. Which is, of course, overblown hyperbole. Even in the original decree, a modest texture change would have needed to be done, but one developer complained about the issue publicly and then reached a reasonable compromise where only icons and screenshots visible in the Apple store needed to be changed. Apple expediated these changes through their process – normally updating a build of a game can take weeks to get through Apple submission, but in this case, the affected devs appeared to have their games back for sale in less than 36 hours.
So all in all, a minor kerfuffle, though it does highlight a need for developers to improve our communications with Apple so that we gain more freedom, not less, in the sorts of games we can make and sell and so that negotiations about bouncing games doesn’t happen on a public stage as they did here and with Papers Please. However, the ordeal did not stop some enterprising GoofyGophers from attempting to inflame the situation even more, by writing incredibly idiotic articles that highlight a complete lack of understanding of the business, and by proudly painting their mascot in front of a symbol that nearly all of America now considers too repugnant to attach to their governments, their businesses, their homes or their causes, especially within days the recent assassination of a State Senator and 8 other black people in a historical landmark of a black church.
Just throw this into the flames & make popcorn. #GamerGate #ConfederateTakeDown @Daddy_Warpig @atlasnodded @nero pic.twitter.com/cDKk4Pj0jM
— Stephane Hockenhull (@rv6502) June 26, 2015
Now, I’m sure some people will say I’m trying to ban the confederate flag. I’m not. I only personally care about whether or not the symbol flies over Government buildings, because in that instance, it acts as a state acknowledgement of White Supremacy over a minority of the population. However, I do believe that the flag is speech – incredibly insensitive, racist speech, and that if you’re not using it in a historical context, the correct response is for other speakers to point out that you appear to be a massive jerk.
The tactic I’ve currently taken with people defending the Confederate flag flying over government buildings is to ask them, “How would you feel if those government buildings also flew the Union Jack, you know, supporting our heritage as former British colonies.” So far they have all declared that idea to be down right un-American.
You gotta love how some people loudly proclaim to be proud of their heritage, but include a cutoff date for where that heritage starts.
Of course, because just as the Confederate Flag means “We own you, n*ggers”, GamerGate means “We own you, b*tches”.
You do realize that the TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard”, and the characters they portrayed, were done by Hollywood types to mock and denigrate the stereotypical southerner, right? That the “Hazzard county” of the show (named after a real county in Georgia) was a place that was bereft of indoor plumbing, whose inhabitants (including the namesake protagonists) were inbred idiots barely able to spell their own name?
Pointing to “Dukes of Hazzard” as an example of the modern South is as far off as pointing to “Jersey Shore” as an example of the modern mid-Atlantic. It was an insult, and was thought of as such by the people in the region at the time.
And yet, living in the South now, there are plenty of Southerners who look fondly on that show and think it’s a great example of being a true patriot and sticking it to the man trying to limit their freedoms.
Also, Jersey Shore was a reality show.