Once, coal miners took canaries with them into their underground shafts. The small birds, being much more vulnerable to toxic gases, acted as early warning devices for the men. If the bird began to sicken, or died, everyone knew to get out of the mine as soon as possible. From that, the phrase “canary in a coal mine” came to mean any small, early indication of a far bigger, looming problem.

Ladies and gentlemen, we Mississippians have ourselves a dead canary.

As controversies have swirled around the Confederate emblem on our state flag over the years, it has frequently been pointed out that, for all the problems Mississippi has, none of them will be solved simply by redesigning the flag. Very true. Changing the flag, of itself, will change little else. It won’t fix the public schools, or potholes, much less create a bi-racial utopia. But our inability to see the problem with the flag is rooted in this state’s — this country’s — refusal to confront its legacy of slavery and race. And that’s a big problem.

The facts of that legacy are plain. At the time of their secession and the Confederacy’s founding, countless Confederate leaders repeatedly stated their purpose was not only to preserve slavery, but white supremacist slavery. Anyone who says differently is saying that those Confederate statesmen were liars. On the other hand, rank-and-file Confederate soldiers had a variety of motivations for their enlistments, sometimes mirroring that of their leaders and sometimes not. And some, let’s remember, were draftees. Regardless, surely the cause for which they fought does not warrant celebration. And still, in 2001, by a two-thirds majority, Mississippians voted to keep the current state flag as a vital expression of “our heritage.”

Of course, any attempt to raise the issue of slavery and race for discussion is met with complaints that we should move on, and let the past be past.

Except that, white supremacist slavery, the heritage we are told to forget, was the very reason for the creation of the Confederacy, the heritage we are told to remember. Which causes me to remember our hypocrisy. The reason to remember the totality, however, is not to kindle white guilt. It is to encourage white honesty, a word derived from the Latin root for “honor” — a term to stir the soul of any good southern boy. Well, are we honorable? Do we genuinely want to honor our Confederate ancestors? Then, by definition, we have to be honest with ourselves, and honest about those forefathers.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’re being all-too honest. We’re not ignoring the dead canary’s message, but rather embracing the toxic atmosphere as a positive. And not just in Mississippi. Neo-Confederates who once counterfactually denied the linkage between the Confederacy and racism now march with ragingly racist Neo-Nazis in defense of Confederate monuments. On the subject of those monuments, President Trump praises the “good people” who marched to preserve them, and opposes their removal as an attack on “our heritage.” But what could he mean by “our heritage?” As a New Yorker with no Confederate ancestry, “Donny Reb” can’t identify with southern pride or with Great-Great Granddaddy’s valor in defeat at Shiloh. Obviously, then, the President of the United States identifies with white supremacy.

It all becomes clear now. From Tupelo to Trump Tower, a new era of awesome, awful Truth in all its bare naked glory has arrived. I now see that the retention of the Mississippi state flag signals a renewed yearning to cling to the authentic Confederate heritage. So be it. The people have spoken. By popular demand, in two weeks, we will begin just such an honorably honest study of the Confederacy’s stated reason-for-being — the system of white supremacist slavery.

You’re welcome.
Jim Wiggins is a retired Copiah-Lincoln Community College history instructor.