"'HERITAGE NOTE HATE'": THE CONFEDERATE FLAG AS AN 'ICONIC IDENTITY TEXT' WITHIN A NARRATIVE OF RACIAL HEALING

by Watts, Sharon A

This paper investigates the Confederate flag as an iconic symbol situated within the ralm of visual rhetoric as identity politics. Following a resolution by the NAACP calling for the removal of Confederate flag insignia from political sites, national attention fell upon southern states as a variety of American publics argued the meaning of the flag in order to determine its appropriate context. This paper will examine the signifying practices surrounding the Confederate flag in the North as well as the South as its signification was reduced to either hatred (for those who opposed its racial connotations) or "heritage" (for those who supported its associations with a rebellious Confederate mentality and rural southern life). Within a media constructed narrative that focused on the flag's racial connotations, the white working-class population largely in support of the flag as southern "heritage" were reduced to redneck types, both racist and working-class.