Canoeing Past Confederates?

I grew up in California, which is about as distant from a Civil War battlefield as any American in the continental United States could get, so most of the Confederate flags I ever saw were in history textbooks. When I moved to Pennsylvania, though, I was surprised and curious when I occasionally saw a Confederate flag decorating someone’s car bumper or front yard. But years ago, when I went canoeing on a beautiful river in the northwest part of the state, I was shocked by the number of Confederate flags that were prominently displayed along the river on sites that locals refer to as “camps.”

When I was growing up, my family went camping, which meant we drove to the mountains, set up a tent (or in later years, a tent trailer) and cooked off a Coleman stove or a wood fire for a week. I learned that when people here say they’re going to their “camp,” it means something a little bit different. A “camp” here could be a small piece of property that someone owns. It might have a fairly permanent structure, like a trailer or small, often ramshackle, structure on the premises. Not really “camping,” a “camp” here is more like a low budget, non-luxury weekend getaway spot for a lot of folks.

That lovely river I was canoeing on was pretty remote and I figured the people who were “camped” along the banks had to be fairly hearty and backwoodsy themselves. There was a stretch of river where Confederate flags decorated a lot of the camps along the shore, which seemed to me to represent a strong, consistent, popular sentiment among those campers in the area. It confused me, because, to the best of my knowledge, Pennsylvania was in the Union 150 years ago and it hardly seemed likely that local folks would be displaying the Confederate flag to pay tribute to heritage and ancestry. It seemed like it was something different, something possibly racist and extremist that they were displaying so proudly. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I immediately wondered how any person of color would feel if they happened to be paddling down that river and came upon the sight of those flags. The thought shamed me.

I didn’t talk to any of those campers and even if I did, I doubt I would have asked them why the Confederate flag was so important to them. I’m not trying to pretend I understand what motivates people to proudly display a symbol that for many people represents hatred, intolerance, racism and oppression. But I guarantee that if I paddled down that river and saw flags displaying a Swastika, I would have felt just as disgusted.

***

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/17314244@N00/171226588″>Confederate Flag</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>(license)</a>