I live in northwest Michigan, and while I’ve never directly experienced the phenomenon, I hear white supremacist militia groups are big up here.

One thing I know is that lots of big trucks run around with huge Confederate flags flying. What’s strange about that is you can go to just about any older cemetery around here and find at least a small plot of graves honoring Union soldiers from the Civil War era.

Bordering Canada, Michigan obviously was not part of the Confederacy. So where does this cult of Confederacy worshiping come from? People say it’s straight-up white nationalism, and I don’t have any difficulty believing that. It’s hard to imagine any other reason for Confederacy iconography this far north, frankly.

This points to something we should probably all think about when we think about issues related to talking or writing about the Confederacy. For many people in the United States, Confederacy iconography has become a de facto proxy for white supremacy and racism. We cannot pretend that is not happening if we wish to be thoughtful and effective about what we’re doing.