How to respond to symbols of systemic racism

Mississippi recently ratified a new state flag, opting for a magnolia flower to replace its traditional Confederate emblem.

Yet, just a few days prior to that gratifying (albeit belated) event, Confederate flags – unambiguously racist symbols of white supremacy – had been prominently brandished during a riot at the US Capitol building that left five people dead and many more traumatized.

The distressing display was a reminder that tensions over divisive symbols have persisted, following a wave of reflection on systemic racism and statue razing after the killing of George Floyd in May.

In fact, a member of Floyd’s family has been directly affected. Selwyn Jones, who successfully sought to have the Confederate flag removed from the police logo in his South Dakota hometown not long after his nephew’s death, became a target of hate and harassment as a result.

The strife in South Dakota was not unique: federal legislation to fund the US military was vetoed last month in part because it proposed renaming bases that have honoured Confederate leaders; a Confederate monument in Lexington, North Carolina was removed in October after months of competing protests; and a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee was banished from the US Capitol building just days before the riot there. Stone Mountain Park in Georgia, which features a relief sculpture of Confederate leaders bigger than a football field, drew right-wing protesters and Black Lives Matter supporters to a violent clash in August.

According to one tally, nearly 60 Confederate symbols were removed or relocated from public spaces in the first few months after Floyd’s killing – but thousands more remain.

Disputes over these symbols point to a discord that threatens to undermine a post-pandemic Great Reset aimed at bolstering social justice. Poll results in July showed a slight majority of US voters supporting the removal of Confederate statues, compared with 2018 results that reflected satisfaction with allowing them to stay. Yet, opinions on the matter vary significantly according to race and political affiliation.

The holiday observed as Columbus Day throughout much of the US in October proceeded as expected: with protests focused on statues of the European explorer, who is credited with “discovering” the Americas and bringing violence, slavery, and disease to indigenous people in the process. Other monuments around the world have similarly become targets, including those of the colonial administrator Lachlan Macquarie and the explorer Captain Cook in Australia.

Yet, in the US, it is the monuments and symbols commemorating the Confederacy – a failed effort to keep millions of people enslaved based on the colour of their skin – that have sparked some of the strongest reactions. A Black veteran recently recounted what it was like to serve in a military that’s frequently named its bases and installations after Confederate soldiers. Removing such hurtful labels is “just the right thing to do,” she said.

That’s a sentiment shared in many other contexts and countries. In the Netherlands, calls continue to be made to remove the statute of a Dutch East India Company officer who oversaw the massacre of indigenous people in Indonesia. In Senegal, a square in the former capital once named after a French colonial governor has been renamed. And in Vienna, a statue of an anti-Semitic former mayor has been repeatedly defaced.

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