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Michael Shaw

Dr. Hope Willoughby

COM 415 I A

30 November 2016

Its Heritage and Hate: Semiotics and the Confederate Flag

Introduction

The Confederate battle flag entered back into heightened public scrutiny in 2015 after a

South Carolina shooting. The debate that followed has shown that national conversation over the

symbol is far from over. On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, an armed attendee at a Bible study in

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church stood and fired at others in the church, which

killed nine people including the reverend (Dicker 4). The suspect, Dylann Roof, confessed to the

crime and said that he wanted to start a race war (Dicker 12). According to the New York Times,

a website was found soon after the shooting with pictures showing Roof holding a Confederate

flag (Robles 3). Passionate discourse on the Confederate flag flying over government buildings

soon followed, and at the core was a debate on whether the flag is a symbol of hate or heritage

(Henderson 20, 23). Common ground appears difficult to imagine, much less reach.

In the United States, the division is racial and educational (Agiesta 2). According to CNN,

72% [of African Americans] see the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism, [but] just 25% of

whites agree, but for whites who have college education, the divide is 51% for pride to 41% for

racism, and for those who do not, the divide is 73 to 18% (Agiesta 3-4). Regardless of the

differences, every ratio shows that people are split on the issue.

Because it is an issue of symbolism, my research involves the use of semiotic concepts,

which have to do with anything that can be used to stand for something else, to analyze the
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Confederate flag and its history (Berger 22). A semiotic lens allows a framework to explain how

a flag can be considered a symbol of heritage by one group and a symbol of hatred by another,

and furthermore can help those of us engaging in the discussion to advocate positive change and

non-inciting symbols at public buildings. Because of the fresh wounds the Confederate flag has

once again opened, I seek to answer the following research question: what dominant ideology

has the flag represented at its three prominent moments in history: the Civil War, the Civil Rights

Movement, and following the 2015 South Carolina shooting? Through semiotics studies and

articles highlighting the history of the flags uses, I will argue that though varying with its

reconstruction, the symbol has carried inciting dominant ideologies of racism with it that

overshadow its use for purely memorial means. From this perspective, I argue for the removal of

inciting symbols from state grounds and the use of a new, more unifying symbol to

commemorate Southern bravery and reflect Southern pride.

Semiotics Literature Review

Charles Sanders Peirce Icon, Index, Symbol

Charles Sanders Peirce laid the groundwork concepts of icon, index, and symbol (Atkin 15).

An icon has a shared quality to the thing it represents, for example, a picture of a hand

representing a hand (Atkin 14). An index is connected by being related to the thing it represents,

for example, the relationship between a murderer and his victim (Atkin 14). Last, a symbol has

a manmade representation drawn from observed general or conventional connection between

sign and symbol, for example, a flag (Atkin 14).

Ferdinand de Saussure Signifier, Signified

Next, Ferdinand de Saussure introduced the concepts of the signifier and the signified, which

collectively make up a sign (Griffin, et al. 328). The signifier is the object or thing being
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observed, while the signified is the meaning attached to the signifier; the two combined make a

sign (328). Roland Barthes used the example of the bad guy wrestler in a wrestling match

being a combination of his body (signifier) and the abstract idea of badness (signified), making

the wrestler himself a sign (328).

Roland Barthes Denotative and Connotative Sign Systems

Barthes also introduced concepts to semiotics that focus on the appropriation of signs,

defining them within the two categories of denotative and connotative sign systems (Griffin 331-

332). In a denotative system, the signifier has a signified with an original historical

understanding. For example, Griffin discusses the yellow ribbon in the song Tie a Yellow

Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree (329-332). In the song, a man who spent time in jail tells his

wife that if she were to put a yellow ribbon out on the tree in front of their house, when the bus

passed by, he would know he could come home (330). If there were no ribbon, it would spare

him any extra pain and he would keep moving (330). When the bus arrived, the tree was covered

in ribbons; she had forgiven him and wanted him to come home, so the ribbon had a signified

meaning of forgiveness of wrongdoing, and it continued to have this meaning for people who

understood the cultural grounding of the sign (330-331).

On the other hand, in a connotative system, the original sign (combination of signifier and

signified) becomes the signifier (331). The symbol is all but stripped of its historical

understanding; one could say the cultural origins are faded but not erased (332). The signified,

then, is a new tangential understanding. That is to say that it probably reflects the spirit of the

original signified, but has been reattributed to a distinct meaning. In the case of the yellow

ribbon, it became a symbol of honor for troops (330). In fact, it was a celebratory sentiment that

beckoned for heroic soldiers to come home (330). Gone was the element of wrongdoing from the
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denotative sign (332). To Barthes, a shift like this occurs because signs always reflect the

dominant ideology in a culture (333). In the yellow ribbon example, the dominant ideology of

using the ribbon as a symbol of pride left the denotative meaning behind.

Arthur Asa Berger Semiotics and Society

When it comes to applying semiotics today, culture informs meaning. At the conclusion of

his article recounting core figures of semiotics, scholar Arthur Asa Berger makes the conclusion,

If the meaning of signs, and, in particular, the relation between signifiers and signified is based

on convention and is not natural, it means that we need society and its institutions to teach us

how to interpret signs and symbols (Berger 26). The fact that society ultimately decides

symbolic meaning over the individual is an important point at which the literature culminates.

Even the notion that society is an illusion, Berger points out, is one taught through society itself

(26). Since society creates meaning in signs and these meanings can change, the question of a

symbol is one of societal meaning, rather than what one person or another may think (26).

Whats Missing

While these studies are useful, there is a gap in the theory due to both the timeliness and the

uniqueness of the issue of the Confederate flag. First, the most recent scholarly article on this

issue through a semiotic understanding dates back to the 1990s and only covers reconstruction

through the mid-20th century (it will be used in the analysis section). No studies using a semiotic

standpoint have tried to make sense of the third, most recent resurgence in the flags prominence.

My analysis addresses this gap. Furthermore, however, the situation is also unique. The

Confederate flag is so divisive that it gives one the impression he would be unable to point at it

and say, it means this, without a fierce debate following. My analysis will address the gap

opened by the passing of time and by the distinct nature of the Confederate flags history.
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Methodology

My paper follows the method of textual analysis. The central artifact is the symbol of the

Confederate flag itself because it is the focal point of the debate, but my analysis applies

semiotics texts to both the symbol and the debate surrounding it. The text A First Look at

Communication Theory, and the article Peirces Theory of Signs by Arthur Atkin, which

provides a foundation of the history of semiotics and its notable scholars, are needed because

they give the lens of the theory through which I analyze the artifact. In addition, Semiotics and

Society by Arthur Asa Berger and The Confederate Flag and the Meaning of Southern History

bring contemporary understanding to the table. Alongside these, the news articles that lay out the

use and discussion of the flag in society are needed and relevant. They bridge the gap from

theory to the artifact.

Analysis

The Confederate flag itself has a complicated history, one of three identifiable periods of

prominence: the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, and the South Carolina shooting. Starting

from the beginning, Barthes concepts of denotative and connotative sign systems will be applied

to each period, with the end of the analysis including Kevin Thorntons semiotic interpretation.

Part One - The Civil War and the Denotative Sign

According to Barthes, the first use of a symbol combines sign and signifier into a denotative

sign system (331). In the case of the Confederate flag, the beginning is the Civil War. That said,

what we refer to as the Confederate flag today was not the actual national flag of the

Confederacy, but rather a battle flag flown by Robert E. Lees battalion, among others, during the

Civil War (Brumfield 16). Because it was a Civil War flag, it links to the cause of the Southern

states.
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To understand the denotative sign system, then, it is important to identify what the Southern

cause was during the Civil War, which was at least partially, if not primarily, about slavery. The

primary documents appear to proclaim slavery as the most prominent issue to the Southern states

(Pierce 3). In their Articles of Secession, each of the four seceding statesMississippi, Georgia,

South Carolina, and Texassaid that slavery was a reason for their withdrawal, with states

rights being the other main issue (Pierce 4). In fact, South Carolina said in its declaration, ...

an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has

led to a disregard of their obligations , and similarly, Mississippi said, Our position is

thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world,

and CNN notes, Georgia named slavery in the second sentence of its declaration (Brumfield

24). The following graph by the Civil War Trust shows this element best, with the red sections

being the number of

words dedicated to

discussing slavery in the

Articles of Secession.

Three of the four seceding

states dedicated over

half of their Articles of

Secession to the issue of

slavery.
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To be clear, there is division over whether the Southern cause was mainly about slavery or

simply states rights, just as there is division on the Confederate flag itself (Pierce 2). Despite the

split on the issue, though, the presence of slavery is embedded within the seceding states own

documents. Slavery was part of the Southern cause.

Establishing this helps to establish the denotative sign system of the Confederate battle flag

at the time of the Civil War, which is one involving a signifier of the flag itself and a signified of

the battalion representing the Southern cause, combining into a sign that reflected an ideology of

holding onto the institution of slavery, or in Mississippis words, the so-called greatest

material interest of the world (Brumfield 23). That is to say, a person of color, even one born

in the Southern states, would have been hard-pressed to receive this as a positive, unifying

symbol of Southern pride. The denotative sign is a cause with its fingers wrapped around slavery.

Part Two - The Civil Rights Movement

The flags second prominent period in history came in the mid-1900s in the midst of the civil

rights movement (Brumfield 28). Jessica Taylor of NPR notes that following the war, two uses

for the flag emerged, one as a source of Southern pride and heritage, as well as a remembrance

of Confederate soldiers who died in battle, and the other as a divisive and violent emblem of

the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist groups, due to the racism and segregation in the one
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hundred years that followed (Taylor 6). This period in history shows the use of the flag within a

connotative sign system.

To understand what sign system is at play here, the flags primary uses must be considered.

Contributing to the racist use of the flag, a group known as the Dixiecrats broke from and

oppose[d] civil-rights platforms of the Democratic Party in 1948, using the Confederate flag as

their symbol (Taylor 6). This was the possible first burst of the flags resurgence (Brumfield

28). Furthermore, after Brown v. Board of Education, a decision that moved the nation toward

school desegregation, the flag appeared in higher frequencies as a reaction and response to the

nations progress (Brumfield 32). This trend only continued. Notably, in 1962, the flag was

raised above the capitol building of South Carolina to mark the centennial of the start of the

Civil War, but many saw it as a reaction to the civil-rights movement and school desegregation

(Taylor 8). A simple recurrence shows itself throughout this messiness; groups used the flag as a

reactionary symbol to civil rights progress (Thornton 236). The raising of the flag over the South

Carolina capitol brings up the split of the debate; in this scenario, the flag was allegedly raised

for heritage, but it received criticism for being hateful.

This situation contained a connotative sign system in which the original denotative signthe

flags war cause fighting for the institution of slaverywas the new signifier. The new signified

for those who flew it was quite simply racism. The signifier and signified combined into a new

symbol of resistance to civil rights progress.

The other proposed view, that the flag symbolizes heritage, will be best understood once the

third period is discussed.

Part Three - The 21st Century

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The final period of prominence is the response to the 2015 South Carolina shooting. The

following Google Trends graph for the search term Confederate flag from 2004 to July 2015

(the month after the shooting) helps to validate this as another resurgence of the flag.

The general timeline of events started with the shooting and Roofs subsequent racist

comments and the revelation of his white supremacist manifesto with accompanying pictures of

him with the flag. Following this, the Confederate flag flying outside the South Carolina capitol

was unable to be lowered because it was fastened to the pole, rather than hoisted up the

traditional way (Moyer 23).

There is an odd phenomenon in the 2015 CNN poll on the Confederate flag. On the one

hand, A majority favors removing the Confederate flag from government property that isnt part

of a museum: 55% support that while 43% are opposed (Agiesta 6). On the other hand,

however, 57% of Americans see the flag more as a symbol of Southern pride than as a symbol

of racism (Agiesta 7). This reveals the peculiar situation in which the nation finds itself. Some

people want the flag to be their symbol of the South, but they understand its likelihood to offend,

recognizing it still has ties to a past of racism.

The connotative sign system today, then, is one that takes the defiance sign of the 1900s and

makes this its signifier. The new signified is still one of resistance, perhaps not to civil rights
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itself, but to change, namely, the allowance of a new symbol to represent all Southerners. As race

historian Matthew Gutterl puts it, if you want to celebrate the South, there are a thousand things

you can pick up, and put out on display, without pissing people off or gesturing to the history of

racism in this country (Ferdman 26). That is the difficult part of this conversation, that When

people say heritage not hate, they are omitting the obvious, which is that that heritage is hate

(Ferdman 8). In the case of the Confederate flag, heritage and hate are less like oil and water and

more like a thorough mix of water and Kool Aid powder. At this point, they cannot be separated.

Kevin Thornton The Heritage and Hate Debate

Until now, things have appeared consistent; it would be easy to cry racism and close the

book on the issue, but that would be to gloss over the debate. Thus far, those who have flown the

flag and gotten the most attention have been inciters, American racists (235). There are others

that do not fall under that category, however, who thus have a different connotative sign system,

which claim that removing the flag would be dishonorable to those who fought for the South,

and this claim cannot just be ignored. The aforementioned 1996 article by Kevin Thornton

provides a balanced semiotic lens through which to understand this dilemma. It is still a debate,

after all, and there are those who claim that the Confederate flag simply means heritage.

Thornton takes a broad look at the Confederacy itself, and he makes two claims that aid in the

discussion.

His first claim is advantageous for those who argue for the interpretation that the flag is

racist. Addressing what he calls the moderate viewwishing to just remember heritage and

not hate Thornton charges that the racism of the Confederacy cannot be erased, no matter how

much someone wants to only remember bravery of the men that fought; in other words, this

moderate position seeks to distill an essence of the southern past and southern identity that is
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unarguably good (Thornton 240). As nice as that would be, the fact is that Lees republic was a

slave society, and the centrality of that fact should not be deemphasized if discussions of the

Confederacy are to rise above mythology (240). As stated before, one cannot separate good

elements of Southern history from the bad one when flying the Confederate flag; to do so would

be a symbolic non sequitur, or at the very best, wishful thinking.

On the other hand, though, Thornton asserts that viewing the Confederacy solely in terms of

slavery is to create a counter-myth to the Lost Cause, and to cast southern history solely in the

satisfying, though inaccurate, terminology of good and evil (241). In other words, while it is

unfair to try to ignore the Confederacys ties to slavery, it is also unfair to ignore any of the good

that came of the people serving under its government. Granted, the stipulation is a very specific

one, bit it is still valid. Looking at the Confederate flag, some see an ancestor bearing arms

bravely in duty, so to simply say the Confederacy=slavery=racism=the South is to

oversimplify the issue in the other direction (241).

As a solution, Thornton proclaims, The Confederate battle flagthe banner of segregation

as well as of the Confederacycannot and should not be saved as a public symbol (244). To

Thornton, The battle flag has had its day, but southern identity has not (244). This means that

the solution is Expanding Southern history, which means understanding a heritage originally

conceived in racist terms, but now moving past racism (244).

Conclusions

Taking semiotic principles to the history of meaning with the Confederate flag, there is a

sense of its progression which helps to clear up some of the muddled conversation. It is not so

complex as people may have believed; the ties of racism to the flag appear impossible to erase,

no matter how many times it is re-appropriated. In a different way, however, it is not so simple
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either. If all Confederate flag symbols were removed, the reaction would not be quiet. For many,

it would be comparable to taking away a piece of them.

What Now?

After taking the semiotic perspective, however, I must propose a solution similar to

Thorntons. While the Confederate flag is in fact a connotative sign of pride for some, it must be

acknowledged that it is at best a poor one. A symbol for Southern pride can only be worthy of the

role if it does what people claim it is doing: celebrating Southerners, and celebrating all of them.

If a black Southerner cannot feel comfortable waving the flag, which the CNN poll shows is the

case for most, then a great irony occurs; they cannot fly the thing that is supposed to unify them

to their region. Any wishing to deny this reveal the prejudiced signifier in their connotative sign

system. The Confederate battle flag is a relevant example of the power and divisive nature of

symbols. Even with differing interpretations, the baggage of a symbolracism, in this case

can persist just as much as a real, physical force. Having this in mind is important when

considering, or entering, the public debates on this symbol.

As for the issue of where the flag flies, it should be clear that it serves best in a museum. The

question that brings us to this is not are we remembering, but what are we honoring? Our charge

is to honor the honorable, and furthermore, make the clear distinction between what acts are

meant as remembering and what acts are meant as honoring. Without both, more confusion and

unrest persists. Remembering happens in a museum. Honoring happens on state grounds or at

memorials.

Due to all of this, now is the time for the removal of divisive symbols from memorialized

grounds, which will allow space for more inclusive symbols of community, whether that be
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Southern pride or any other unifying cause. This, of course, is easier said than done, but

following the principle of baby steps, it first needs to be said.

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Works Cited

Agiesta, Jennifer. Poll: Majority Sees Confederate Flag as Southern Pride. CNN. Cable News

Network, 2 July 2015. Web. 05 Oct. 2016.

Atkin, Albert, Peirces Theory of Signs, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer

2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =

<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/peirce-semiotics/>.

Berger, Arthur Asa. Semiotics and Society. Society 51.1 (2013): 22-26. Berry College

Memorial Library. Web. 26 Sept. 2016.

Brumfield, Ben. Confederate Battle Flag: What It Is and What It Isnt. CNN. Cable News

Network, 24 June 2015. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

Dicker, Ron. Church Shooting Timeline: Before The Massacre And Beyond. The Huffington

Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 June 2015. Web. 26 Sept. 2016.

Ferdman, Roberto A. What the Confederate Flag Really Means to America Today, According to

a Race Historian. Washington Post. The Washington Post, 19 June 2015. Web. 16 Nov.

2016.

Griffin, Emory A., Andrew Ledbetter, and Glenn Sparks. A First Look at Communication

Theory. Ninth ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006. Print.

Henderson, Nia-Malika. Inside the Battle over the Confederate Flag. CNN. Cable News

Network, 24 June 2015. Web. 26 Sept. 2016.

Pierce, John. The Reasons for Secession. Civil War Trust. Council on Foreign Relations, n.d.

Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

Robles, Frances. Dylann Roof Photos and a Manifesto Are Posted on Website. The New York

Times. The New York Times, 20 June 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2016.
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Taylor, Jessica. The Complicated Political History Of The Confederate Flag. NPR. NPR, 22

June 2015. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.

Thornton, Kevin. The Confederate Flag and the Meaning of Southern History. Southern

Cultures 2.2 (1996): 233-45. Google Scholar. Web. 5 Oct. 2016.

Moyer, Justin Wm. "Why South Carolinas Confederate Flag Isnt at Half-staff after Church

Shooting." The Washington Post. WP Company, 19 June 2015. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.