Driving home from daily Mass last Thursday, we followed the mail carrier up our road. Since it was slick and snowy, and the roadway was necessarily narrower, I didn't pass her truck. Passing on these narrow, overgrown, windy county roads is a bad idea even in the best of weather. So we idled along behind the white 4X4 Ford F-250 with a rear window tinted like a Confederate Battle Flag. During this creeping drive, I could not help but to shake my head and inwardly chuckle at the irony of a United States Postal Service worker delivering mail from a vehicle emblazoned with the Confederate Flag.
Now to some this flag (also known as the "Southern Cross," the "Rebel Flag," the "Stars and Bars," and the "Navy Jack") is a simple show of pride. To them it's about southern heritage. It's about rooting for the underdog and going against the current. Perhaps to the politically minded it's even about the Jeffersonian ideals of state sovereignty. But to others (myself included, since I grew up in the upper midwest) the Confederate Battle Standard is, despite about 150 years having passed since the end of the Civil War and about 50 years having passed since the "textbook" end of African American Civil Rights Movement, a complicated and incendiary symbol of slavery, a bloody civil war, segregation, and "white supremacy".
Perhaps the latter view is due in part to the fact that the Confederate Battle Flag has been appropriated by the Ku Klux Klan and other "extremist" groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, more than 500 of these groups use the Southern Cross as one of their symbols! I suppose no matter what the naivety or intent of the person who displays this standard, once certain meanings are attached to the flag they endure in the minds of some.
Generally, rural mail carriers are required to use their own vehicles for mail delivery. They receive an equipment allowance in addition to regular pay since they're providing their own transportation. Their conveyance just needs to be insured, dependable, and in good working condition and not bear any commercial advertisements. But they are still entitled to their "free speech"! So there's absolutely nothing wrong with what I saw. I just find it incongruous and comical that the vehicle is unmarked by anything that would make it noticeably a USPS delivery vehicle, but it's entire rear window is covered with a controversial flag for a region of the US that tried to secede. It's like I'm getting mail from an agency of the Confederate States of America rather than the United States of America.
Faith: Having grown up in Virginia and but having ancestors that fought for the Union, I was always fascinated with the Civil War. Even though I lived in Virginia, I could not fully comprehend the widespread use of the Confederate Flag. I now live in Kentucky which never succeeded but never freed their slaves either. It is even more of a contradiction and even more fascinating. So when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, it did not include the slaves in Kentucky, but only those in states that were in rebellion. It still amazes me that even moreso today we are all one country with so many different ideas, views and ways of thinking (or not thinking as the case may be).
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, with the problems the USPS is having, I wonder if the stars and bars on the back of the mail delivery vehicle was a harbinger of things to come with that particular "arm" of the government?
Hope you and your family are well. God bless you all--Joan Stromberg