We, the members of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature who have signed below, ask Governor Phil Bryant, the Mississippi legislature, and the people of Mississippi to remove the Confederate battle flag from the saltire of the Mississippi state flag.
As scholars of southern literature, we share a special interest in Mississippi as the home of many excellent writers and the setting of many important works of literature. We value the state's people and its contributions to the culture of the United States.
We also realize that symbols have meaning. The Confederate battle flag has been appropriated as a symbol of white supremacy, and it has often been used to intimidate or demean African Americans. To use that symbol on the state's flag signifies that African Americans, who constitute more than one third of the state's citizens, have diminished status before the state's government.
In the recent past, other southern states have removed symbols overtly associated with white supremacy from their flags and from their public spaces. This is a good sign of progress, and it has led to increased economic development and decreased political marginalization for these states. We believe that the time has come for Mississippi to make this important change.
We stand with the University of Mississippi student senate, the administration of the University of Southern Mississippi, and several other institutions and organizations in asking that this symbol be changed to a more inclusive, progressive symbol. We also support the decision of institutions and individuals in Mississippi not to display the current state flag. We hope that the State of Mississippi will soon adopt a more representative symbol of its people.
Updates
March 15, 2016
The feedback from our fellow scholars continues to pour in and highlights why this symbol must be removed from our state flag. I am currently reaching out to legislators to demand a formal response regarding their stance on this issue. Email your local representative today to insist that they prioritize this change.
March 15, 2016
The momentum behind this petition proves that scholars and citizens alike are ready to move past symbols of division. Now I need you to email your local representatives and demand they address this issue before the next legislative session.
Reached 100 supporters
March 15, 2016
22 Comments
I completed a dissertation on the legal effects of coded language in William Faulkner's work,A Rose for Emily. Faulkner wanted readers to know why the men wore Confederate uniforms to the funeral of the story's protagonist, Emily Grierson. The uniforms represented the power of the KKK to succeed in the South. Critics, generally, have missed this awesome rebuke by the Nobel prize winner. He knew that the codes of white supremacist rhetoric required the pretense by everyone that the codes did not exist. It would be a tribute to his legacy to finally say "NO" to racism.
Having worked at the University of Mississippi following spells as a professor in England and Denmark, I must say that the continuing presence of the Confederate stars and bars in the Mississippi state flag was one of the most striking and disspiriting aspects of an otherwise largely wonderful spell--or rather, two spells--in Oxford. I arrived in Oxford in 2011 shortly after a previous campaign to replace the state flag with a more truly inclusive symbol had faltered. In the wake of what has happened in the state and across the South since then, now truly is the time to follow the lead of the University of Mississippi's student senate, as well as other academic bodies throughout the state, and replace the state flag with (as the petition puts it) "a more inclusive, progressive symbol."
I stand with my African American colleagues who have said that the presence of the stars and bars on the MS flag makes it more difficult to find racial reconciliation in this country.
I love and teach many Mississippi writers, but hey, in 2016 it's well past time for this divisive, racist symbol to go. Please find a flag that represents all Mississippians.
I am a professor of Southern Literature und understand well how symbols can oppress people and even foster violence against certain populations. Please change the flag by removing the image of slavery and murder.
It looks better, snowflakes.
The war is over. Slavery is dead. The great minds and hearts of the South have written about the pain that the people have felt too long. Time for a change.
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We, the members of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature who have signed below, ask Governor Phil Bryant, the Mississippi legislature, and the people of Mississippi to remove the Confederate battle flag from the saltire of the Mississippi state flag.
As scholars of southern literature, we share a special interest in Mississippi as the home of many excellent writers and the setting of many important works of literature. We value the state's people and its contributions to the culture of the United States.
We also realize that symbols have meaning. The Confederate battle flag has been appropriated as a symbol of white supremacy, and it has often been used to intimidate or demean African Americans. To use that symbol on the state's flag signifies that African Americans, who constitute more than one third of the state's citizens, have diminished status before the state's government.
In the recent past, other southern states have removed symbols overtly associated with white supremacy from their flags and from their public spaces. This is a good sign of progress, and it has led to increased economic development and decreased political marginalization for these states. We believe that the time has come for Mississippi to make this important change.
We stand with the University of Mississippi student senate, the administration of the University of Southern Mississippi, and several other institutions and organizations in asking that this symbol be changed to a more inclusive, progressive symbol. We also support the decision of institutions and individuals in Mississippi not to display the current state flag. We hope that the State of Mississippi will soon adopt a more representative symbol of its people.
Updates
March 15, 2016
The feedback from our fellow scholars continues to pour in and highlights why this symbol must be removed from our state flag. I am currently reaching out to legislators to demand a formal response regarding their stance on this issue. Email your local representative today to insist that they prioritize this change.
March 15, 2016
The momentum behind this petition proves that scholars and citizens alike are ready to move past symbols of division. Now I need you to email your local representatives and demand they address this issue before the next legislative session.
Reached 100 supporters
March 15, 2016
22 Comments
The Confederate flag has long symbolized the refusal of white southerners and white Americans in general to acknowledge the damaging and painful legacy of slavery and racism.. Removing the Confederate battle flag from the saltire of the Mississippi state flag would signify a major step toward that acknowledgement as well as a powerful affirmation of our common humanity.
I completed a dissertation on the legal effects of coded language in William Faulkner's work,A Rose for Emily. Faulkner wanted readers to know why the men wore Confederate uniforms to the funeral of the story's protagonist, Emily Grierson. The uniforms represented the power of the KKK to succeed in the South. Critics, generally, have missed this awesome rebuke by the Nobel prize winner. He knew that the codes of white supremacist rhetoric required the pretense by everyone that the codes did not exist. It would be a tribute to his legacy to finally say "NO" to racism.
Having worked at the University of Mississippi following spells as a professor in England and Denmark, I must say that the continuing presence of the Confederate stars and bars in the Mississippi state flag was one of the most striking and disspiriting aspects of an otherwise largely wonderful spell--or rather, two spells--in Oxford. I arrived in Oxford in 2011 shortly after a previous campaign to replace the state flag with a more truly inclusive symbol had faltered. In the wake of what has happened in the state and across the South since then, now truly is the time to follow the lead of the University of Mississippi's student senate, as well as other academic bodies throughout the state, and replace the state flag with (as the petition puts it) "a more inclusive, progressive symbol."
I stand with my African American colleagues who have said that the presence of the stars and bars on the MS flag makes it more difficult to find racial reconciliation in this country.
I love and teach many Mississippi writers, but hey, in 2016 it's well past time for this divisive, racist symbol to go. Please find a flag that represents all Mississippians.
I am a professor of Southern Literature und understand well how symbols can oppress people and even foster violence against certain populations. Please change the flag by removing the image of slavery and murder.
It looks better, snowflakes.
The war is over. Slavery is dead. The great minds and hearts of the South have written about the pain that the people have felt too long. Time for a change.
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The Confederate flag has long symbolized the refusal of white southerners and white Americans in general to acknowledge the damaging and painful legacy of slavery and racism.. Removing the Confederate battle flag from the saltire of the Mississippi state flag would signify a major step toward that acknowledgement as well as a powerful affirmation of our common humanity.