The Damaged Minds of White People

One of the things I love to do when the weather is nice is venture to far-flung points of Minnesota and visit small towns. Usually, we’ll hit up a brewery or a distillery and grab lunch in a local restaurant. I like to see new places and experience this state that has become my adopted home. Oftentimes, this requires a trip through very rural parts of Minnesota. This weekend was no exception when we visited Isanti and Bethel. On the trip up, I was alarmed at the number of Trump flags I saw. It’s been months since he lost the election and yet his supporters seem even more emboldened than ever. Trump flags are usually accompanied on a lot of these properties by other flags. The US flag is usually there. The Gadsden flag is there (if you don’t know what that flag looks like it’s the yellow one with the snake that says “don’t tread on me”. More shockingly though is that right next to the American flag I often see a Confederate flag. This is puzzling for a number of reasons.

For starters, Minnesota supported the UNION during the war. They contributed tens of thousands of troops, many of whom lost their lives to preserve the nation. So the notion that there is any historical excuse for flying the traitor’s flag is absurd. We’re about as far away from “Southern Heritage” as you can get. It’s a disgrace to the sacrifices American soldiers made to fly that flag anywhere in the country, let alone in northern Minnesota.

And so, for the people who do choose to go out and buy a Confederate flag, install a flag pole, and then fly it, there must be something else going on. What could it be?

There are two main things that the flag represents: Southern Pride and/or white supremacy. Since we’ve already established that Minnesotans do not have the same claim to “heritage” as someone from Mississippi that really only leaves one option. It’s a way for white people to let everyone know that they believe in supremacy and hold racist views while attempting to maintain some kind of deniability. This is a physical representation of the white person’s tantrum against civil progress. This flag represents the enslavement of human beings and the systemic destruction of their culture. It is not debatable. The Southern states rebelled against the Union to maintain the system of free labor that enriched the white slaveholders. Any other interpretation of why the Civil War started is a false white-washing of history.

The damage caused by white supremacy and privilege upon the minds of white people is evidenced by someone flying an American flag right next to a Confederate one. Not only are those flags representative of values that are at direct odds with each other, but they are the symbols of two enemies. Can you imagine someone flying an overtly Christian flag next to an ISIS flag? A Nazi flag next to one of Israel? It’s ludicrous. But the damage within the white person’s mind goes so deep that not only does the obvious contradiction make sense to them, it emboldens them and infects others around who see it and think “yeah, that guy knows what’s what.”

I would love to know why people choose to fly the Confederate flag. Especially when it’s next to American flags. Is there a genuine desire to secede from America? If so, then why fly the flag of the country you want to leave? Some might say it’s a symbol of Southern heritage and pride. Take that another step. Pride in what? The heritage of what? You’ll hear southerners wax nostalgic about the good old days and how things used to be. What they are talking about, in reality, is a time when white supremacy was the law and enslaved people made white lives a lot easier. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone go to your job all day while you cash the paycheck and reap all the benefits? That’s what they desire, whether they know it or not. They seek the assured comfort of supremacy, a time when there was one race and gender in power and their authority over others was absolute.

Don’t take it from me. Listen to the people who fly it themselves.

It is convenient for white people to divorce themselves from what the Civil War was truly fought about. It was not their ancestors who were held in bondage. It was not their families that were systematically torn apart. It was not their bodies who were beaten, raped, and violated in all manners imaginable. At worst, when a white person thinks about slavery today, they identify with the people holding the whips. The discomfort this creates within them is soothed by the message white supremacy has whispered in their ears for centuries: that they are good, noble people who have nothing to do with the past.

This is called cognitive dissonance. In the simplest terms, it’s when someone holds two thoughts within their minds that are inconsistent and disagree with each other. For instance, compare the idea that America is the cradle of freedom and democracy, and also that America was built upon the backs of people who were denied freedom and a voice in that democracy. Here’s a quick primer on how it works:

For white people, acknowledging and accepting that America was not a place of freedom for many people while also believing in those values creates significant discomfort. Rather than confront the ugly truth, white people will excuse or justify the reality of our shared history. I remember learning in school when I was young that many slaveholders were kind, genteel people who treated their slaves nicely. We learned that our founding fathers were “farmers” with no mention of the people who did the actual work or accrued the vast sums of wealth that would be passed down to their white children. We were taught about slave rebellions and how they were crushed with brutality — but always from the perspective of the slaveowners. I distinctly remember one high school teacher framing it as ungrateful slaves rebelling against their aggrieved masters. They had food and shelter, how dare they complain. It wasn’t that bad.

This is not an accident. White people, generally white men, are the ones who decide what is taught in our schools and the context in which that history is presented. To soothe their discomfort about supremacy, they constructed an alternative history (read: lies) to ease the pain of reality. Millions of American schoolchildren have been poisoned with these false histories. And now that we have a genuine movement to introduce truth into schools (some might call it critical race theory) it is no surprise nor coincidence that it is white people who have the most discomfort with this. As an example, in Texas, before they passed legislation to ensure the power outage that killed people during winter never happen again, they ensured that white children will never be taught their actual history. The priorities are clear. It is more important to preserve the lies of white supremacy than to protect their people.

It was not an accident that the Trump supporters who stormed our Capitol and attempted to prevent democracy from happening carried American, Confederate, and Trump flags. In their damaged minds, they are all the same. America is a place of freedom. The Confederacy represented a push back against federal tyranny. And Trump is the golden idol (literally) who will protect and ensure that white people will remain the powerbrokers of America. What they leave out of their thinking process is that freedom was only for white people, white men to specific, and the pride they supposedly have for their heritage is stained with the blood of systemic racism that carries on to this day and is rooted in the evils of slavery. This is white supremacy doing the work for them and it is their privilege and confidence in the historical lies they were taught that allows them to ignore the obvious inconsistencies in the symbols they use to represent their thoughts.

How do we fix the damaged minds of white people? We begin with education. Allow American children to know and understand the full history of this nation. Do we really want to join the ranks of authoritarian nations who raise their kids to think that their country emerged from the aether as a perfect thing? Isn’t the true story of America so much better? For all the people who say that racism isn’t as bad as it once was or that we’ve made progress, I would like them to answer this: from what have we made progress? Doesn’t the true appreciation of the American spirit derive directly from our beginnings?

Appreciating and honoring the blood and sweat spilled by the slaves who built this nation does not cheaper us. It strengthens us. Cowards are the ones who cannot face the truth. It is the liar who seeks to rewrite history. Which shall our nation be?