This is today’s Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook as heard on 97.9 WCHL. You can listen to previous Sports Notebooks here.

You can hear Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook below:

 

Flaunting the Confederate Flag is far from innocent.

When I first heard the Carolina pep band play Dixie and saw the Confederate flag waved at Carolina football and basketball games, it was the late 1960s and I thought, “Well, isn’t it cool how they are honoring the old South?”

Well, it wasn’t cool, once I learned what both symbolized. An anthem whose roots were in the minstrel songs of the slavery era and a flag that championed a fallen Confederacy that fought the abolitionists. Surely, there are ways to honor the South, but not that way. And those that think it’s harmless need to learn how harmFUL it is to millions of people and their ancestors.

What a total joke that the flag flies from the Capitol in Columbia, South Carolina. Maybe those people are too bombed at Gamecock football games to realize how offensive that gesture is. One of the things that the NCAA has gotten right, and there aren’t many, is that no major championships will be played in that state until the flag comes down. Same for the ACC, which still has Clemson as a member.

I guess waving the Confederate flag at NASCAR races is freedom of speech by the patrons in the stands. But let’s try that at the UNC-South Carolina football game in Charlotte this September. That flag bearer will be out of Bank of America Stadium before he settles into his seat for kickoff. Be proud of the South, and your Southern roots, but do it in a way that is not filled with racist ramification.

Why do we need a senseless slaughter at a church in Charleston to bring up the debate again? Google Dixie and read the lyrics. If they don’t honor a period of time in this country that we are still trying to overcome, then you need a reading comprehension test. It can be a giant a-ha moment for parents and teachers and preachers. Take the opportunity to honor the history of ending slavery by removing the last connotations from public events. Wave the American flag.

When Chapel Hill had its own civil rights strife in the ’60s, marchers always carried Old Glory, but never the flag of North Carolina. It was their message that as long as segregation existed in their town, the Tar Heel State was not being so honored. Kudos to Governor McCrory for moving to ban the Confederate flag from specialty license plates. I give him the right to do it across his constituency.