BETWEEN THE LINES -- Byron de Arakal

The two gentlemen you’ve seen in recent days scurrying about with

their hair on fire and their tails between their legs are Newport Harbor

High School’s Michael Vossen and Rob Henthorn. Vossen is the school’s

principal, and Henthorn its music director. Both men -- hunted and chased

by the hounds of political correctness -- have been dispensing profuse

apologies like so much chaff spilling from an F-18 with a SAM on its

tail.

It’s been a pitiful spectacle to behold, really. Contrition is

redeeming and healing when circumstances warrant. It’s smarmy and peevish

when deployed absent an occurrence that merits penitence. With Vossen and

Henthorn, we have the latter case in play here.

Here’s the skinny. It seems that some of the good people of

Westchester High School -- whose student body is largely African American

-- found their sensibilities stung and out of sorts when the Newport

Harbor marching band unveiled a 63-square-foot replica of the Confederate

flag as part of its Nov. 9 halftime show. That evening, Newport Harbor

and Westchester were doing battle on the football field.

As reported by a platoon of media outlets (it’s just too hard to

resist making hay out of a teed up story on the nation’s race divide),

some Westchester High students, parents and administrators received the

display of the Confederate flag as if they’d taken a needle in the eye.

The flag, after all, is the most vivid remaining ensign of the awful

repression African American generations suffered under the tyranny of

Dixieland slavery. This isn’t in dispute.

Nevertheless, Westchester High Principal Dana Perryman and some number

of the offended fanned the flag’s use as a theatrical prop into a thorny

diplomatic skirmish. Immediate protests were lodged with Newport Harbor

brass. Perryman fileted its use as a dimwitted exercise in bad taste,

saying that “as soon as they [the Harbor band] saw the audience, they

should have adjusted.”

Which raises the question: Why?

Henthorn’s Sailor Marching Regiment, as they are formally tagged,

mocked up the replica of the Confederate “Southern Cross” to represent

the Civil War-era South in its requiem to the men on both sides of the

Mason-Dixon Line who engaged in the nation’s bloodiest war. Indeed,

Henthorn aptly christened the production “Requiem for Soldiers, A Nation

Divided Stands United.”

There is a clue in the title, I think, that was apparently lost on the

nice folks from Westchester. Indeed, the instrumental traces the nation’s

violent divide during the Civil War, then celebrates the unity that was

ultimately and thankfully won with the Union’s victory and the

dismantling of slavery. The production poignantly captures that outcome

when a Union and a Confederate soldier are depicted arm-in-arm.

That’s a pretty solid message, in my book, one that reminds us that we

are a people of all colors and faiths united in freedom and blessed by

the majesty of this great land.

But instead of recognizing that bigger message and celebrating what it

means to the African American community, Perryman and other Westchester

folks chose to swarm over the program’s use of a symbol of a horrible

oppression that ended 146 years ago. And I continue to noodle -- without

much success -- as to why that is.

I’d understand if the band had marched onto the field whistling Dixie.

If the Sailors football team had arrived on horseback wearing hoods and

carrying torches. Or if the musical had not been a reprise of American

history but a tacit promulgation of slavery and the Confederacy and the

Jim Crow South. But they didn’t, and it wasn’t.

Which leaves me with the notion that the pervasive epidemic of

political correctness and the permanent victim class that seems to be

embedded in our culture have something to do with all of this. I had

fears that the Rev. Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Rep. Maxine Waters

(D-Los Angeles) would show up at Newport Harbor High to portray this

unfortunate incident as one more example that the white folk just don’t

get it.

Well, we do indeed get it. America isn’t proud of its slave heritage

or the oppression it visited upon African Americans. In fact, more of

this nation’s citizens died fighting in the Civil War than in any war in

U.S. history.

That war, for the most part, was fought to eradicate slavery. And in

so doing, we were united as one people, all of us “created equal.”

That was the message behind Newport Harbor’s “Requiem for Soldiers, A

Nation Divided Stands United.”

Our nation’s history is full of dark events and painful symbols. It

seems to me that we’d all be wiser and better if we remembered them and

studied them and had the courage to face them. But that’s not what

happened here. And that’s too bad, particularly for the Sailors Marching

Regiment, who worked so hard to perform and present a compelling message

of unity.

* Byron de Arakal is a writer and communications consultant. He lives

in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays. Readers may reach him with

news tips and comments via e-mail at o7 byronwriter@msn.comf7 .