The push to remove the Confederate flag from public prominence continues, as Apple has followed in the footsteps of Wal-Mart, Amazon, eBay and many others, pulling from the App Store all content that features the flag.
This decision comes as a part of a recent wave of criticism for the Confederate symbol following last week’s racially motivated shootings in Charleston. The alleged killer, Dylann Roof, sported the flag in many of his social media pictures and seemed to relate to its racist connotations, sparking debate about the flag’s presence in American life.
Apple’s move is somewhat unsurprising considering Apple’s historic willingness to take political action and even more so after CEO Tim Cook took to Twitter last week, calling on Americans to eradicate all symbols of racism.
My thoughts are with the victim’s families in SC.Let us honor their lives by eradicating racism & removing the symbols & words that feed it.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 21, 2015
Justifying their action, Apple attested that they removed the content “…because it includes images of the confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways.”
However, Apple’s ban of the Confederate symbol has applied not only to apps glorifying the flag or its racist overtones, but also to historical Civil War wargames that feature the flag simply for reasons of historical accuracy. A representative from HexWar Games, whose Civil War historical strategy game was pulled from the App Store, told toucharcade “We’re in no way sympathetic to the use of the flag in an offensive way, we used it purely because historically that was the flag that was used at the time.”
Some of our Civil War strategy games are currently unavailable to buy on iPhone / iPad due to their use of the Confederate flag.
— HexWar Games (@HexWarGames) June 25, 2015
Some gaming companies, like HexWar, are removing the Confederate flag from their games in an effort to reclaim a place in the App Store. However, it’s unclear if these efforts will be successful, as Apple has not said whether or not they will accept games with any mention of the Confederacy.
Other companies, like Game Labs, creator of Ultimate General: Gettysburg, are refusing to sacrifice historical accuracy by removing the flag. Maxim Zasov, a rep from Game Labs, told toucharcade that though they understand Apple’s decision, they believe that maintaining accuracy in historical games, movies and other media is key to understanding the past and changing the future:
“We accept Apple’s decision and understand that this is a sensitive issue for the American Nation,” he said.
“We believe that all historical art forms: books, movies, or games such as ours, help to learn and understand history, depicting events as they were…
Therefore we are not going to amend the game’s content and Ultimate General: Gettysburg will no longer be available on AppStore…We can’t change history, but we can change the future.”
With the current social climate, it’s hard to fault Apple for this decision, as erring on the side of greater sensitivity is generally the better route.
However, Apple and other large companies need to be careful not to try and erase the shameful and often chilling parts of American history from political consciousness. It is important that Americans acknowledge the failures of the country’s past in order to be sure not to repeat them.
