University of Virginia Library

Stuart Pape

Flag Event Arouses Race Question

The incident at Saturday's
football game concerning the
waving of the Confederate Flag
should serve to remind everyone in
the University community of the
delicate balance which currently
characterizes many aspects of
black-white relations here.
Furthermore, it puts us all on
notice that much yet remains to be
done before we can honestly and
accurately state that we have an
integrated University.

For those who were not at the
game or who were and really do not
know what happened, a brief fact
summary is in order. One could
sense the possibility of trouble
soon as a white individual,
apparently a student, sat down on
the Virginia side near the fifty
line with a large Confederate Flag.
Sometime in the second quarter a
group of black students approached
the holder of the flag with a request
to refrain from waving it.

The white individual refused to
do so and the blacks, whose
number was increasing, sat down in
the aisle next to the flag.
Throughout this initial discussion
and later ones, the spectators seated
behind the flag waver who were
predominately white adults, were
actively encouraging the continued
waving of the flag.

Seeing students sitting in
aisle, an usher approached the
blacks and suggested that "you
boys ought to return to your
seats." This unfortunate choice of
language could easily have blown
the top off the keg. Upon seeing
that his suggestion was not going to
result in any immediate response
other than continued sitting, the
usher left, soon to return with two
white Charlottesville police. Again,
questionable decision which
might have easily resulted in further
trouble.

Calm Intervention

While all this was happening,
Dean of Students, Robert Canevari
arrived hoping to settle the matter
through calm, rational discussion.
That was no easy task, for the black
students, supported by many
whites sitting in the student section
to their immediate left appeared to
have no intentions of leaving
without obtaining assurances that
the flag would not reappear.

Eventually cooler heads
prevailed, the flag was placed under
the seats and the black students
returned to their seats.

There are numerous facets of
the incident which deserve
comment. It is interesting first to
note the important role that
individuals brought the flag into the
stadium. The actions of a sole usher
nearly precipitated a much more
volatile situation. A hasty or
irrational decision by one of the
policemen or one of the blacks
could have resulted in some
fisticuffs or unwarranted arrests.
For that matter, so could have
something done by the people
surrounding the area or by Dean
Canevari.

More important though than
that type of analysis are the

implications to be drawn.
Unfortunately, it is all to easy to sit
back, now that black students are
entering the University in larger
numbers and assume that the
University has done all that it need
do. By University here I refer to all
of us, from the President to the
Admissions Office to the faculty
and to the students, even to the
community of Charlottesville at
large.

It is easy also to rely on
superficial changes, although they
can be important, especially in a
symbolic sense. For example, for
the greater part of the University's
history blacks (when they were
here), women, and students of a
liberal political persuasion were
excluded from the many honorary
societies on the grounds, because
they were black, female, or liberal.
In recent years this has begun to
change, although with a great deal
less alacrity than is desired.

Old Attitudes

This is the kind of change that
one can too easily point to as an
indicator of new attitudes towards
these groups, while at the same
time ignoring underlying grievances
of a substantial character. The
alleged harassment of black
students by some members of the
University Security force, the
failure to bring blacks into the
social mainstream of the University,
the absence of black professors on
the faculties of all the schools, the
absence of black coaches in the
Athletic Department, the absence
of black administrators in the
higher echelons of the University,
and the near total exclusion of
blacks from the fraternity system
are of a more fundamental nature.

A single individual waving a
Confederate Flag does not mean
obviously that everyone is a racist
or that the flag waver himself is a
racist. One must also be careful not
to draw unwarranted conclusions
from all this. But the incident
serves to remind us of the many
things that remain to be done in
this area.

In an immediate sense, what
should be done with respect to
future home games and other flags?
At the outset it is oped that no
one will bring another Confederate
Flag into Scott Stadium in
recognition of the unpleasant
connotations that it has for many
students, black and white. This is a
real problem, as several individuals
pointed out during discussions
related to this column. Some felt
that everyone would be better off
if nothing further was said about
Saturday's incident.

But an attitude such as that, as
pragmatic as it may be in terms of
not wanting to encourage others to
"test" the situation by bringing
flags to games, is precisely the
mental state that results in so little
being done now to rectify the more
serious problems in the black-white
area spoken of earlier.

One suggestion has been to ban
all flags from Scott Stadium, be
they the Confederate, Vietcong, or
whatever. This idea has immediate
appeal, but given the realities of the
situation it would soon become
obvious to everyone that it is in
fact a ban on the Confederate Flag.
A side from some legal questions
concerning such a blanket ban, it
again goes only to the surface of
the problem.

Commitment

Widespread discussion would
appear to be a viable alternative.
But, discussion in and of itself will
be fruitless. It is too easy to talk-forever.
A commitment needs to
be made, by the President of the
University and the Board of
Visitors to take positive steps to
bring all groups into the
mainstream of the University.
There is already a committee on the
administrative level dealing with
equal opportunity and related areas
but given the normal course of
committee affairs which is
agonizingly slow, one is reluctant to
place a great deal of confidence in
the ability of that group or any
other committee to solve the
problem.

Every individual connected with
the University in the remotest
manner must decide for himself
what he can do. There are alumni
who must be spoken to, townsfolk
who can help and some who need
help, students who need to be
be-friended and administrators who
can take affirmative action. Only
when this begins to happen can we
expect that we will not have two
Universities, one black and one
white, separate but unequal.