It was one of those days it seemed every traffic signal I came to on College Avenue in Fayetteville turned red as I approached. With a ways to go before reaching my destination, I wondered whether I would make it on time.
Perhaps conditioned by smartphones and other modern distractions, I tend to look around anytime my car comes to a stop to see what other people are doing, what signs are advertising or what bumper stickers are shouting. I had spotted the car in front of me earlier, right after I flowed in behind it.
On the glass hatchback of that small SUV, a sticker representation of the Confederate battle flag stuck out prominently. This one had words on it, small enough that my eyes strained to make them out. After inching my car forward to get a closer look, I saw the defiant words: "I ain't coming down."
I noticed the car had one of those plastic-covered temporary car tags, the kind indicating the its owner had only recently made the purchase. Those tags are only good for a month, two if one gets an extension.
My conclusion: The driver felt so strongly about the Confederate flag that within only a few days of buying this car, he had acquired the sticker and applied it to the back window.
It could be possible, I suppose, the sticker had simply come with the new/used car. But people so devoted to a flag of a defeated army that they'll decorate their cars with it are few and far between. And it's highly unlikely a car dealership or anyone wanting to market a car to the broadest possible pool of potential buyers would leave a Confederate flag sticker in place. It's even more implausible that a seller who loved the Confederacy just happened to find a buyer who shared that level of adoration for the Confederate States Of America.
No, this driver was a devotee of the Old South. Nobody drives around in a car decorated with that flag by accident.
The Confederate battle flag is an excruciatingly flawed symbol. Even if one accepts there are some Southerners who want only to embrace the admirable characteristics of Southern history, the Confederate flag long ago lost its ability to communicate those characteristics without also conjuring up the horrible baggage of that history.
The presence of the flag got me to thinking about how the South remains a geographic area from which people have every right to be proud. But in what way can today's Southerner openly celebrate being a son or daughter of the South without glorifying all those things about the past that not only shouldn't be extolled, but should be actively disavowed?
As much as defenders of the Confederate flag may protest it, proud display of the Confederacy's battle flag in 2016 will be -- can only be -- interpreted as an expression of racism and a longing for a past when it was acceptable to view black people as inferior, as property. Certainly, some Southerners may wish that it wasn't so and insist they have every right to define the flag's meaning for themselves, but they've lost that public relations war just as certainly as our forebearers lost the Civil War.
The swastika has a long history predating early 20th century Germany. In some religions, it was a sacred emblem. But if a winning actor had walked on stage Sunday night at the Oscars wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika, could it be rationally dismissed as something other than an anti-Semitic or white supremacist expression? Sorry, folks. Adolf Hitler lost a war, too, but he won the battle for defining that symbol for all of us living in the 20th and 21st centuries and for many more to come.
The South needs a new icon, a new symbol that represents all that is good about its culture. Replacing a symbol as intense and historic as the Confederate battle flag will never be easy. The strongest tie that binds the Southern states together even today is their once-upon-a-time membership in a failed confederation of states that fought on the wrong side of slavery. That's what the Confederate battle flag will represent as long as the United States and its history survives.
I'm proud of where I'm from, and there are many like me -- of all races and backgrounds -- who embrace the identity of being a Southerner. We do not want be defined, however, by the sins of our ancestors. That's not what being a Southerner is about today.
What could that new symbol be? Every idea I've come up with has serious shortcomings. I'm no Don Draper. But it sure would be worth a Coke and a smile if someone could find the inspiration to create a new image for a new South.
Commentary on 02/29/2016