Judson Abraham

Abstract

This article uses the cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s work to examine how one group of white leftists, the Young Patriot Organization (YPO) and their splinter organization the Patriot Party, attempted in the late 1960s and early 1970s to rearticulate the Confederate battle flag as a non-racist symbol of working-class empowerment, Appalachian regional pride, and cross-racial solidarity and egalitarianism. The Patriots’ failure to bestow the flag with a lasting anti-racist meaning despite their public alliances with the Black Power movement suggests that the flag has such an ingrained racist connotation that is almost entirely irreconcilable with progressive, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist politics. Nonetheless, among people who do claim the flag as their own, the flag is often embedded in a meaningful subcultural context. I make the case that attempts to discourage people from embracing the flag should speak directly to their cultural situation and politics of class in addition to criticizing the flag’s racist and violent history.

From: New Political Science 2021 43 (2)

Editor: Wang Yi