So if you read my last post Tragic Church Massacres, the Rebel Flag Ban, Racists, and Overly Sensitive People then you know that I, like many other Southerners, are currently fighting to save the Confederate Battle Flag and preserve our Southern history and heritage. I've been debating with people about this all over Facebook and sharing posts which show that a lot of people who support the Rebel Flag are not racists nor do they view this flag as a racist symbol.
We lost some ground last week when the Confederate Battle Flag was taken down at the South Carolina state house Friday. As I said, I'm fine with it being taken down from the South Carolina state house because the flag didn't really belong there. But, if you thought that was the end of it then guess again.
The Overly Sensitive Fascisti is still going after all things Civil War related including wiping General Robert E. Lee off the face of the South even though he was anti-slavery... Seriously, like half the schools in the South are named after General Lee and the reason the names weren't changed was because he was anti-slavery.. I even went to Robert E. Lee Elementary School when I was a kid down in Florida. There were pictures of him everywhere and I do not recall anyone ever saying anything about being offended by it.
Forget that schools need new books and they did away with music and art programs because of budget cuts and that teachers are underpaid. Nah, we should spend that money on changing the school names because that's what will help our kids succeed in life.. And never mind fixing the potholes on Route 1 in Northern Virginia. It's more important all street signs get changed from Jefferson Davis Highway to something less "offensive".
The United States Congress began debating last Thursday on where else they think the Dixie Cross should be removed or banned. This would include forcing Mississippi to change its state flag. They are also trying to remove it and ban it from all federally owned military cemeteries where Confederate soldiers are buried under their military standard... Never mind the fact that this goes against the Congressional acts which legitimized these soldiers as American soldiers and those flags are there as a military symbol in tribute to them and in this instance have nothing to do with hate or racism.
But this is your tax dollars at work people. Instead of debating over the gun control legislature the families of the 9 Charleston Church Shooting victims went to lobby for on Wednesday or any other pertinent issues to do with fixing our infrastructure or schools or any other serious matters we the American people elected them to deal with.. They are spending time and our tax money arguing about a flag.
Real quick.. Shoutout to Olandus aka Yung Superstar whose post I shared and the comments I received as a result from people like MC Twisty actually inspired me to write my last article. Olandus is an African American guy from South Carolina who happens to be a fellow supporter of the Rebel Flag. He's very knowledgeable about history and Southern culture and I've been learning a great deal of insightful information from him that I as well as other Southerners probably didn't even know.
Right now I kinda feel like Olandus and I are the poster children for the Non-Racist Pro-Confederate Battle Flag movement. If we succeed in saving, reviving, and untainting the Rebel Flag then I think we should have statues of us commissioned and put in a memorial somewhere filled with all kinds of Confederate flags flying alongside American flags that one day our descendants and other Southerners can fight to preserve when other people deem it offensive.
Also, like I did in my last post, I do ask that you read this post thoroughly and in its entirety and just take a deep breath and try to keep an open mind. The point of what is now becoming a series of posts is to provoke thoughts by providing you, my readers, with information and discussing issues that most people either ignore or hide because they don't usually want to talk about it in "mixed company". It makes us super uncomfortable and afraid.. Hell, I'm super uncomfortable discussing a lot of this because I'm afraid I'll be perceived in bad light. But my hope though is that all this will inspire everyone to go out and do their own research and maybe even start taking action towards making a real difference.
That being said...
Here is the problem that we do need to acknowledge and concede... The Confederate Battle Flag is still viewed as a hardcore racist symbol to many who oppose it, particularly a significant portion of the African American community, and they do have a valid point about its association. Their negative reaction they have to the Rebel Flag is justified because many of these people and their parents and grandparents have experienced discrimination, hatred, and violence inflicted by racist people and groups flying that flag and waving it in their faces.
We can argue all day until we're blue in the face that our support of the Rebel Flag has nothing to do with racism for us. For many of us, it really is about our Southern heritage and pride and remembrance of our ancestors who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Whether people view that war as right or wrong, we're asking people to understand us.
However, we also need to understand them and the fact that our fight for our cause continues to be negated as long as white supremacy hate groups namely the KKK keep waving our flag and claiming it as one of their major symbols. Somewhere in there we must find a realistic compromise.
But I don't think we'll ever reach that goal if we don't make an effort to get informed so we're all on the same page. It doesn't help that there are so many people out there, including people I've debated with on Facebook and in person, who are not totally informed.. and this goes for people on both sides of the debate.
Just a heads up, I'm going to pick a lot on both white and black people in this series of posts because this debate over the Rebel Flag is mostly a black and white issue stemming from slavery in this country.. which was also a black and white issue. This post and more to come will be more about picking on white people and stereotypes along with hate groups. Some others will focus more on black people and stereotypes and black supremacists (yes they exist).
My point in this is to address general perceptions by both communities which have lead to stereotypes and misconceptions that must be addressed and discussed if we ever hope to end this endless racial tension that has plagued our country for so long. Try not to take it personally because I am in no way trying to say that all people of either group are apart of perpetuating these stereotypes.
So in making this concession about the Rebel Flag, I do ask that the people out there who are against it to stop for a second and ask yourselves some real questions:
Do you currently live or have you ever lived in the South for an extended period of time?
Do you know your own personal lineage, i.e. your family tree/genealogy along with if you had ancestors in this country prior to and during the Civil War?
If you are African American, do you assume all of your ancestors were slaves during/prior to the Civil War or have you researched to confirm that they were definitely slaves or were any possibly of the free black population in either the North or South at that time?
If so, do you know if they fought in the Civil War on either side?
How much and what exactly do you know about the South, Southern people, and Southern culture both historically and today?
Is this knowledge based on personal experience or is it based on media stories and portrayals in movies, TV shows, and books?
Why do you think the Confederate Battle Flag is offensive and/or oppressive?
Is your perception of the flag based on your own personal experiences or that of your family or do you just share in this view because that is what you believe the general sentiment/association regarding the flag is?
Do you personally know anyone who owns a Confederate Battle Flag?
Why do you think the fight to ban the flag and remove the Confederate Civil War memorials and statues is Ok?
Do you think banning shows like Dukes of Hazzard and movies like Gone with the Wind simply because they have the Rebel Flag featured in them and/or depict the Civil War from the Southern perspective is Ok?
How prevalent do you think racism is in this country and where do you believe it occurs?
Have you at any time in your life thought or expressed discriminatory views or used any racial/ethnic slurs and words towards or about anyone of another race/ethnicity or other racial/ethnic groups?
How will removing this flag and all things Confederate Civil War related do anything legitimate to stop the prevalent racism that exists in this country?
I wish people would start answering these questions in a real way. So many people I've encountered and even those I have seen on the news discussing this flag haven't stopped to consider a lot of this. The answers to these questions establish a foundation for not just how we view a simple flag or a region of this country, but more so how we view others and ourselves.
To blame the entire concept of "racism" on the entire Southern region while waging a war on a flag that has been part of our heritage over 150 years is pointless because it really does nothing to actually root out and end racism. If removing that flag and all historic reminders of the Confederacy would actually end racism and stop racial violence in this country then we all here in the South.. or at least the majority of us.. would probably get behind your anti-flag cause and take it all down ourselves.
It seems people who are against the flag are not recognizing that a lot of us Southerners as a whole do actually care about preventing massacres like what happened in that church to those 9 people from ever happening again. It has nothing to do with skin color. It's about our concern for people.
Calling the Rebel Flag a symbol of hate and saying allowing the it to stand means that Southern white people who support it don't think our African American neighbors in our towns and cities matter to us is not true at all. You can shake out Jefferson Davis's family tree for all the 8th cousins 6 times removed to justify this stance all you want.. Still doesn't mean that's how we feel at all. It is possible to own Rebel Flags and not be racist. There are also A TON of people out there who do not own and have never owned a Rebel Flag who are still racist.
But warring on our heritage and calling it wrong just because we lost a war won't do anything except continue to piss us off because racism didn't start and end with that flag just like it didn't start and end with the South.. and picking on us like we are the only cause of it is just making us shut down and it's reawakening the ever lingering tension that has existed for so long between the South and the rest of the country.
There is a fact that everybody warring on our Rebel Flag and Southern heritage and culture seems to have forgotten in the past few weeks since the tragic mass shooting in South Carolina and subsequent response over the Confederate Battle Flag. Racism is neither an invention of the South nor is it something that continues to be perpetuated solely by Southerners. It is also not something limited to just black and white people.
RACISM EXISTS AND HAPPENS EVERYWHERE IN AMERICA AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD EVERY DAY ALL THE TIME AND RACIST ACTS ARE COMMITTED BY AND AGAINST PEOPLE OF ALL RACES AND ETHNICITIES.
Don't believe me? Let's dive in then shall we?
Here is an interesting article, one of many I found on this issue, from The Atlantic by Alana Semuels written in April 2015, so only a few months ago, called Where the White People Live. It discusses population demographics in areas of major US cities and the Racially Concentrated Areas of Affluence or RCAA's versus Racially Concentrated Areas of Poverty or RCAP's. In these cities, the white population of higher socioeconomic status have self-segregated into these RCAA's and are fighting against integration and infringement of these RCAP's filled with the minority populations of low socioeconomic status.
Basically, in layman's terms, the rich white people in the nice, big houses are trying to keep the poor black people and other poor people of color out of their fancy white neighborhoods and make them stay in the ghettos where the rich white people think they belong. This is happening right now as we speak and if you think these RCAA's and RCAP's are all in the South then you'd be making an incorrect assumption. They exist all over America today.
The main state they focus on in the article where this is happening is Michigan which, last I checked, is a Northern state. They also discuss some info from a study being coducted by Goetz, Damiano, and Hicks at the University of Minnesota and include a table of the RCAA's and RCAP's in 15 major cities.
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/04/Screen_Shot_2015_04_09_at_11.42.03_AM/af69f3128.jpg
Now if you look at that table only 3 Southern cities are listed.. Atlanta, Houston, and Miami. Some people might try to lump in Washington DC, Baltimore, and St. Louis because they are below the Mason Dixon Line, but these cities do not count because they were Union strongholds that were never part of the Confederate South.
The other 9 cities are in every other region of the United States and 8 of them are in states that fought for the Union during the Civil War. The only one that didn't was Phoenix. The state of Arizona wasn't admitted to the Union until 1912.. So it's lack of being apart of the Civil War apparently did nothing to prevent the spread of racism.
This map shows the country during the Civil War.. Union States are Blue, Confederate States are Grey, Border States which were divided on allegiance during the war are Teal, and everything else is Maroon.. Then you have the Mason Dixon Line....
http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/1362860716_M-d-line.gif
And since I mentioned in my last post how much Southerners love to commemorate EVERYTHING of historical significance because we do.. I want to point out that so too do the damn Yankees. This marker is in Pennsylvania and it is one of the hundreds, maybe even thousands, along the Mason-Dixon Line which was established in the late 1600's-early 1700's to resolve a border dispute between some lords...
http://www.attractionmag.com/files/4813/7527/1308/RM-739X-web.jpg
Here is some more Wikipedia knowledge for you..
"The Mason–Dixon line was marked by stones every mile and "crownstones" every five miles, using stone shipped from England. The Maryland side says (M) and the Delaware and Pennsylvania sides say (P). Crownstones include the two coats-of-arms. Today, while a number of the original stones are missing or buried, many are still visible, resting on public land and protected by iron cages."
Well there are stones like this letting you know you're at the border...
http://www.cocanal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gap7.jpg
Then there are the crownstones in metal and glass pavilions. See how they've decorated with flags and flowers to make it seem pretty and patriotic...
http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/cecildaily.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/b/84/b8419075-d1b5-5a76-b2a0-51646face6de/5464dfa6bd2c7.image.jpg?resize=300%2C225
Then you have these brick and iron pavilions...
http://www.howderfamily.com/graphics/blog/delaware-southwest-corner.jpg
And here is one of the iron cages...
http://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/00/08/80/70_big.jpg
And another iron cage...
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PbXcxXdHgVc/hqdefault.jpg
Don't you think it's kinda funny that there are iron cages over the line of stones separating the South from the rest of the country which are maintained by states in Northern territory? The rest of the country outside the South is trying to infringe on us over a flag by saying it's divisive and oppressive. Meanwhile stones protected by iron cages to keep these stones from being removed or even touched.. Stones in iron cages that are actually physically dividing our region and separating the people of the South from the rest of the country we are supposed to be apart of.. are still allowed to remain standing as a reminder that the Southern people are really not included.. not completely.. and NOBODY thinks that's oppressive at all.. Perhaps because of the flowers.
That line and those stones stand so that people from every other part of the country know where the line is drawn and exactly where to start pointing the finger every time the issue of race and racism comes up... Right below it at us Southern folk.. We will forever be the scapegoats when it comes to this issue and we continue to be treated like the redheaded stepchildren of this country like it's all our fault that hatred and discrimination still exist and that it only happens down here.
Now I'm not saying the stones should be removed because they are a part of the history of this country and we really do actually care about its preservation in a real and honest way or we wouldn't be having this whole discussion in the first place. If we advocated to remove those markers then we would look like hypocrits the same way the rest of the country does because we we would then be waging condoning the desecration of our American history.
But our only choice as Southerners has kinda been to accept that line and just appreciate it in our own Southern way and even try to embrace it and be weirdly proud of it with things like our Rebel Flag.. It's sort of like us saying "Fuck ya'll! We're happy being separate cause we're rebels and it's a Southern thang so stay on your side of the line!"
You folks in the rest of the country though never seem to be willing to take a deep, hard look around at yourselves and accept responsibility for your own part you played in the Civil War and your own region's sentiments at the time or how fucked up ya'll are and continue to be, not just towards us Southerners, but to each other. We down here have and continue to see you as hypocritical oppressors for that exact reason.
Many who keep saying the South was on the wrong side of the Civil War and the Confederate soldiers were bad and only fought to defend slavery should do some research on all the atrocities and war crimes committed by the Union soldiers. They came down to the South and actually did run roughshod all over the lands and homes of innocent Southern civilians. A lot of the Southern people.. the common folk.. had no choice but to fight back against the Union to defend themselves, their families, and their homes.
The Union armies went house by house and stole food, livestock, and valuables, raped all the women in the house both white and black, killed everybody including the children, and then burned down the houses. One of the reasons Gone with the Wind is being banned is because it depicts Union soldiers as villains as it portrays Union soldiers stealing from Scarlett O'Hara and trying to rape her. That movie just presented a toned down version of exactly what happened to many Southern women.
An article from the New York Times by W. Todd Groce, Rethinking Sherman’s March, discusses how Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was basically known for taking the Scorched Earth approach in his battle strategy and burned several Southern cities full of civilians to the ground. His units fired guns and canons on innocent civilians.. And everything he did was fully sanctioned by the Union's government.
"Sherman believed that forcing noncombatants to feel what he called the “hard hand of war” was a military necessity. Making the war as harsh as possible would bring victory more quickly and with a minimum loss of life on both sides, undermine Confederate morale on the home front, trigger a wave of desertions from the insurgent armies, destroy the Confederacy’s ability to wage war and prove to the rebels that their cause was hopeless and their government impotent to protect them and their property."
This article by David Ibata, Was Sherman a War Criminal?, actually explains several of General Sherman's war crimes including the siege of Atlanta when, on General Sherman's orders, Union soldiers fired guns and canons at homes filled with civilians including women and children for days. Sherman was actually quoted as saying, “No consideration must be paid to the fact they are occupied by families, but the place must be cannonaded.” He was guilty of 4 war crime violations under the Geneva Code and even admitted that he was guilty. But he was never prosecuted nor convicted for these crimes against Southern civilians because the Union condoned all of it.
The Union itself sanctioned multiple war crimes including the mistreatment of Confederate POW's at Elmira Prison in Elmira, NY.. nicknamed "Lincoln's Death Camp" and "Hellmira".. This article Union War Crimes Against Confederate Prisoners In NY by Michael A. Hoffman II talks about how Confederate POW's died from malnutrition, starvation, froze to death from being denied blankets during Winter, and were even poisoned by the camp's doctor.
Another article by Chris Mackowski, “Hellmira”—a Place of “Terrible Memory,” Nearly Forgotten, discusses the atrocities at Elmira Prison. It explains that while the mortality rate of Union prisoners in Confederate camps was higher due to a depletion of resources for the entire region, the reason why Elmira was worse is because that area actually had an abundance of food and supplies that they denied their prisoners intentionally.
And there is even an historic marker for the site cause ya'll Yankees like to commemorate your worst moments too...
http://www.civil-war-journeys.org/images/elmira_ny_prison_camp_roadside_marker.JPG
Meanwhile, throughout the war, the violence against innocent Southern civilians was so bad that members of both the Union and Confederacy were having to address this issue with Lincoln and with the Union army. The Union generals especially felt that the horrible treatment of the Southern civilians was counterproductive to promoting Unionism in the region.
This article from the New York Times by Crystal N. Feimster, Rape and Justice in the Civil War, discusses the Leiber Code of 1863 issued by President Abraham Lincoln to the Union military in response to all the horrible, violent acts being committed against innocent Southern civilians during the war, specifically the excessive number of rapes and murders of both white and black women all over the South. Another article from The Civil War Odyssey by BJ Welborn Behind the Curtain: Rape and Other Horrors discusses accounts of gang rapes of black women and even lists several incidents of other sexual assaults of both white and black female victims by state throughout the South.
The Leiber Code was Lincoln's domestic version of the Geneva Code that created rules of engagement which still stand today. It also gave women, both black and white, the backing for legal recourse against sexual assault for the first time in history. The problem was it had a loophole for certain war situations where the code of conduct could be ignored.. and of course, it was.
The most common incidents were rape of slave women by Union soldiers while the white mistresses of the homes and their children were forced to watch. All these slave women and their families who prayed for the Union soldiers to show up and rescue them soon found out their Yankee saviors were not the heaven-sent angels of their dreams, but monsters from the worst kind of nightmares.
There were upwards of 450 cases that were brought forth after the war ended. But many more incidents weren't reported due to protection of family and female honor from slander and scrutiny. Many slave owners even did try to get justice for the raping of their slave women as well because, whether they considered them family or property, they were still appalled by the Union's treatment of them.
The problem was the South didn't allow for that justice so it had to come from the Union. Of the cases actually tried though, most victims never saw justice done, even though the their male assailants were convicted and sentenced, because those sentences were never actually carried out. It was mostly for show and placation.
In contrast, the only war crimes committed by Confederate soldiers I could find information on were pretty much limited to acts against Union military members. The biggest thing that came up was the massacre at Fort Pillow, Tennessee where nearly 300 Union soldiers were slaughtered by Confederate troops after they had surrendered.
The majority of those Union soldiers were black and that particular unit along with some others didn't believe in taking black POW's. Other acts were similar. But all the atrocities committed in the name of the South I found records of were definitely against men and the only mention of civilians murdered were suspected traitors.
Like this marker of the Shelton Laurel Massacre in North Carolina...
http://mediaassets.knoxnews.com/photo/2014/07/03/263597_6653009_ver1.0_640_480.JPG
The Confederate units that did push into Union territory, lead by General Robert E. Lee, didn't really make it too far into the North. Their attacks were pretty much limited to border states like Maryland and Pennsylvania, ie the Battle of Gettysburg. The Southerners were mainly defending their own territory throughout the war rather than offensively trying to invade and conquer the North.
I'm sure some of them probably did some shady shit though in Maryland and Pennsylvania, but I can't find any mention of it... and definitely couldn't find anything even close to as awful as what the Union did.. which to me and many others says that the Union really weren't as awesome as mainstream history likes to claim.. and also that the South wasn't as evil.
It seems the Confederacy for the most part at least tried to maintain a certain level of morality and abide by the chivalrous code for which the South is known. Just because we're at war is no excuse to completely abandon your gentlemanly honor. However, as you can see, the Union did not afford the South and its people that same respect at all.. They sanctioned and advocated the opposite.
Maybe if you wrap your brain around that fact then you'll finally understand why we still refer to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Agression". We are still fighting a renewed war of Northern Agression.. But maybe this time that old adage we joke about "The South will rise again and this time we'll finally beat them damn Yankees" might actually come true.
The North ended slavery and then forced the South to do it too. The North then integrated everything and forced the South again to do it too. In the meantime, a good amount of the black population migrated North and to other Union held areas to what they deemed the Land of Freedom only to get treated just as badly or in some cases even worse by their Yankee saviors because the reality of the situation is that the Northerners didn't want the poor refugee black people they fought so hard to save coming up and invading their nice, white neighborhoods just because they liberated them.
Just like most of the South didn't fight to keep slavery, most of the North didn't fight because they cared about ending it either. They fought because they were drafted and because they wanted to keep the Union together. Ending slavery was just a nice bonus for which they got credit, even though that was not the main objective or concern for most. It was all about defending the Union.
The black people who saw everywhere else but the South as that land of freedom from oppression continued to migrate out of it and you Yankees still continue to treat them just as badly and oppress them in these ways with your ghettos full of project housing where you intend to keep the majority of them for as long as you can. And you haven't just exacted this rampant discrimination on black people. You've done it to other white people who immigrated from other countries along with their fellow immigrants from other non-white countries all over the world.
"Ghettos" were initially established in Europe by the Nazis to segregate the Jews. They were then adopted in New York City and Chicago along with other major cities in the North to separate the immigrants who came to America from the rest of the population that discriminated against them.
Hate to break it to you but the racist terms "mick" and "wop" and I'm pretty sure even "spic" (if you watch West Side Story) also originated in the North and were definitely used on a regular basis by Northerners. Sorry to anyone who is offended by my use of those terms. In addition to my Lebanese heritage, I am also English, Irish, Scottish, and German.. So at least based on my Irish and German heritage some of my ancestors felt the stigma back then.
We lost some ground last week when the Confederate Battle Flag was taken down at the South Carolina state house Friday. As I said, I'm fine with it being taken down from the South Carolina state house because the flag didn't really belong there. But, if you thought that was the end of it then guess again.
The Overly Sensitive Fascisti is still going after all things Civil War related including wiping General Robert E. Lee off the face of the South even though he was anti-slavery... Seriously, like half the schools in the South are named after General Lee and the reason the names weren't changed was because he was anti-slavery.. I even went to Robert E. Lee Elementary School when I was a kid down in Florida. There were pictures of him everywhere and I do not recall anyone ever saying anything about being offended by it.
Forget that schools need new books and they did away with music and art programs because of budget cuts and that teachers are underpaid. Nah, we should spend that money on changing the school names because that's what will help our kids succeed in life.. And never mind fixing the potholes on Route 1 in Northern Virginia. It's more important all street signs get changed from Jefferson Davis Highway to something less "offensive".
The United States Congress began debating last Thursday on where else they think the Dixie Cross should be removed or banned. This would include forcing Mississippi to change its state flag. They are also trying to remove it and ban it from all federally owned military cemeteries where Confederate soldiers are buried under their military standard... Never mind the fact that this goes against the Congressional acts which legitimized these soldiers as American soldiers and those flags are there as a military symbol in tribute to them and in this instance have nothing to do with hate or racism.
But this is your tax dollars at work people. Instead of debating over the gun control legislature the families of the 9 Charleston Church Shooting victims went to lobby for on Wednesday or any other pertinent issues to do with fixing our infrastructure or schools or any other serious matters we the American people elected them to deal with.. They are spending time and our tax money arguing about a flag.
Real quick.. Shoutout to Olandus aka Yung Superstar whose post I shared and the comments I received as a result from people like MC Twisty actually inspired me to write my last article. Olandus is an African American guy from South Carolina who happens to be a fellow supporter of the Rebel Flag. He's very knowledgeable about history and Southern culture and I've been learning a great deal of insightful information from him that I as well as other Southerners probably didn't even know.
Right now I kinda feel like Olandus and I are the poster children for the Non-Racist Pro-Confederate Battle Flag movement. If we succeed in saving, reviving, and untainting the Rebel Flag then I think we should have statues of us commissioned and put in a memorial somewhere filled with all kinds of Confederate flags flying alongside American flags that one day our descendants and other Southerners can fight to preserve when other people deem it offensive.
Also, like I did in my last post, I do ask that you read this post thoroughly and in its entirety and just take a deep breath and try to keep an open mind. The point of what is now becoming a series of posts is to provoke thoughts by providing you, my readers, with information and discussing issues that most people either ignore or hide because they don't usually want to talk about it in "mixed company". It makes us super uncomfortable and afraid.. Hell, I'm super uncomfortable discussing a lot of this because I'm afraid I'll be perceived in bad light. But my hope though is that all this will inspire everyone to go out and do their own research and maybe even start taking action towards making a real difference.
That being said...
Here is the problem that we do need to acknowledge and concede... The Confederate Battle Flag is still viewed as a hardcore racist symbol to many who oppose it, particularly a significant portion of the African American community, and they do have a valid point about its association. Their negative reaction they have to the Rebel Flag is justified because many of these people and their parents and grandparents have experienced discrimination, hatred, and violence inflicted by racist people and groups flying that flag and waving it in their faces.
We can argue all day until we're blue in the face that our support of the Rebel Flag has nothing to do with racism for us. For many of us, it really is about our Southern heritage and pride and remembrance of our ancestors who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Whether people view that war as right or wrong, we're asking people to understand us.
However, we also need to understand them and the fact that our fight for our cause continues to be negated as long as white supremacy hate groups namely the KKK keep waving our flag and claiming it as one of their major symbols. Somewhere in there we must find a realistic compromise.
But I don't think we'll ever reach that goal if we don't make an effort to get informed so we're all on the same page. It doesn't help that there are so many people out there, including people I've debated with on Facebook and in person, who are not totally informed.. and this goes for people on both sides of the debate.
My point in this is to address general perceptions by both communities which have lead to stereotypes and misconceptions that must be addressed and discussed if we ever hope to end this endless racial tension that has plagued our country for so long. Try not to take it personally because I am in no way trying to say that all people of either group are apart of perpetuating these stereotypes.
So in making this concession about the Rebel Flag, I do ask that the people out there who are against it to stop for a second and ask yourselves some real questions:
Do you currently live or have you ever lived in the South for an extended period of time?
Do you know your own personal lineage, i.e. your family tree/genealogy along with if you had ancestors in this country prior to and during the Civil War?
If you are African American, do you assume all of your ancestors were slaves during/prior to the Civil War or have you researched to confirm that they were definitely slaves or were any possibly of the free black population in either the North or South at that time?
If so, do you know if they fought in the Civil War on either side?
How much and what exactly do you know about the South, Southern people, and Southern culture both historically and today?
Is this knowledge based on personal experience or is it based on media stories and portrayals in movies, TV shows, and books?
Is your perception of the flag based on your own personal experiences or that of your family or do you just share in this view because that is what you believe the general sentiment/association regarding the flag is?
Do you personally know anyone who owns a Confederate Battle Flag?
Why do you think the fight to ban the flag and remove the Confederate Civil War memorials and statues is Ok?
Do you think banning shows like Dukes of Hazzard and movies like Gone with the Wind simply because they have the Rebel Flag featured in them and/or depict the Civil War from the Southern perspective is Ok?
How prevalent do you think racism is in this country and where do you believe it occurs?
Have you at any time in your life thought or expressed discriminatory views or used any racial/ethnic slurs and words towards or about anyone of another race/ethnicity or other racial/ethnic groups?
How will removing this flag and all things Confederate Civil War related do anything legitimate to stop the prevalent racism that exists in this country?
I wish people would start answering these questions in a real way. So many people I've encountered and even those I have seen on the news discussing this flag haven't stopped to consider a lot of this. The answers to these questions establish a foundation for not just how we view a simple flag or a region of this country, but more so how we view others and ourselves.
To blame the entire concept of "racism" on the entire Southern region while waging a war on a flag that has been part of our heritage over 150 years is pointless because it really does nothing to actually root out and end racism. If removing that flag and all historic reminders of the Confederacy would actually end racism and stop racial violence in this country then we all here in the South.. or at least the majority of us.. would probably get behind your anti-flag cause and take it all down ourselves.
It seems people who are against the flag are not recognizing that a lot of us Southerners as a whole do actually care about preventing massacres like what happened in that church to those 9 people from ever happening again. It has nothing to do with skin color. It's about our concern for people.
Calling the Rebel Flag a symbol of hate and saying allowing the it to stand means that Southern white people who support it don't think our African American neighbors in our towns and cities matter to us is not true at all. You can shake out Jefferson Davis's family tree for all the 8th cousins 6 times removed to justify this stance all you want.. Still doesn't mean that's how we feel at all. It is possible to own Rebel Flags and not be racist. There are also A TON of people out there who do not own and have never owned a Rebel Flag who are still racist.
But warring on our heritage and calling it wrong just because we lost a war won't do anything except continue to piss us off because racism didn't start and end with that flag just like it didn't start and end with the South.. and picking on us like we are the only cause of it is just making us shut down and it's reawakening the ever lingering tension that has existed for so long between the South and the rest of the country.
There is a fact that everybody warring on our Rebel Flag and Southern heritage and culture seems to have forgotten in the past few weeks since the tragic mass shooting in South Carolina and subsequent response over the Confederate Battle Flag. Racism is neither an invention of the South nor is it something that continues to be perpetuated solely by Southerners. It is also not something limited to just black and white people.
RACISM EXISTS AND HAPPENS EVERYWHERE IN AMERICA AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD EVERY DAY ALL THE TIME AND RACIST ACTS ARE COMMITTED BY AND AGAINST PEOPLE OF ALL RACES AND ETHNICITIES.
Don't believe me? Let's dive in then shall we?
Here is an interesting article, one of many I found on this issue, from The Atlantic by Alana Semuels written in April 2015, so only a few months ago, called Where the White People Live. It discusses population demographics in areas of major US cities and the Racially Concentrated Areas of Affluence or RCAA's versus Racially Concentrated Areas of Poverty or RCAP's. In these cities, the white population of higher socioeconomic status have self-segregated into these RCAA's and are fighting against integration and infringement of these RCAP's filled with the minority populations of low socioeconomic status.
Basically, in layman's terms, the rich white people in the nice, big houses are trying to keep the poor black people and other poor people of color out of their fancy white neighborhoods and make them stay in the ghettos where the rich white people think they belong. This is happening right now as we speak and if you think these RCAA's and RCAP's are all in the South then you'd be making an incorrect assumption. They exist all over America today.
The main state they focus on in the article where this is happening is Michigan which, last I checked, is a Northern state. They also discuss some info from a study being coducted by Goetz, Damiano, and Hicks at the University of Minnesota and include a table of the RCAA's and RCAP's in 15 major cities.
Now if you look at that table only 3 Southern cities are listed.. Atlanta, Houston, and Miami. Some people might try to lump in Washington DC, Baltimore, and St. Louis because they are below the Mason Dixon Line, but these cities do not count because they were Union strongholds that were never part of the Confederate South.
The other 9 cities are in every other region of the United States and 8 of them are in states that fought for the Union during the Civil War. The only one that didn't was Phoenix. The state of Arizona wasn't admitted to the Union until 1912.. So it's lack of being apart of the Civil War apparently did nothing to prevent the spread of racism.
This map shows the country during the Civil War.. Union States are Blue, Confederate States are Grey, Border States which were divided on allegiance during the war are Teal, and everything else is Maroon.. Then you have the Mason Dixon Line....
And since I mentioned in my last post how much Southerners love to commemorate EVERYTHING of historical significance because we do.. I want to point out that so too do the damn Yankees. This marker is in Pennsylvania and it is one of the hundreds, maybe even thousands, along the Mason-Dixon Line which was established in the late 1600's-early 1700's to resolve a border dispute between some lords...
Here is some more Wikipedia knowledge for you..
"The Mason–Dixon line was marked by stones every mile and "crownstones" every five miles, using stone shipped from England. The Maryland side says (M) and the Delaware and Pennsylvania sides say (P). Crownstones include the two coats-of-arms. Today, while a number of the original stones are missing or buried, many are still visible, resting on public land and protected by iron cages."
Well there are stones like this letting you know you're at the border...
Then there are the crownstones in metal and glass pavilions. See how they've decorated with flags and flowers to make it seem pretty and patriotic...
Then you have these brick and iron pavilions...
And here is one of the iron cages...
And another iron cage...
Don't you think it's kinda funny that there are iron cages over the line of stones separating the South from the rest of the country which are maintained by states in Northern territory? The rest of the country outside the South is trying to infringe on us over a flag by saying it's divisive and oppressive. Meanwhile stones protected by iron cages to keep these stones from being removed or even touched.. Stones in iron cages that are actually physically dividing our region and separating the people of the South from the rest of the country we are supposed to be apart of.. are still allowed to remain standing as a reminder that the Southern people are really not included.. not completely.. and NOBODY thinks that's oppressive at all.. Perhaps because of the flowers.
That line and those stones stand so that people from every other part of the country know where the line is drawn and exactly where to start pointing the finger every time the issue of race and racism comes up... Right below it at us Southern folk.. We will forever be the scapegoats when it comes to this issue and we continue to be treated like the redheaded stepchildren of this country like it's all our fault that hatred and discrimination still exist and that it only happens down here.
Now I'm not saying the stones should be removed because they are a part of the history of this country and we really do actually care about its preservation in a real and honest way or we wouldn't be having this whole discussion in the first place. If we advocated to remove those markers then we would look like hypocrits the same way the rest of the country does because we we would then be waging condoning the desecration of our American history.
But our only choice as Southerners has kinda been to accept that line and just appreciate it in our own Southern way and even try to embrace it and be weirdly proud of it with things like our Rebel Flag.. It's sort of like us saying "Fuck ya'll! We're happy being separate cause we're rebels and it's a Southern thang so stay on your side of the line!"
You folks in the rest of the country though never seem to be willing to take a deep, hard look around at yourselves and accept responsibility for your own part you played in the Civil War and your own region's sentiments at the time or how fucked up ya'll are and continue to be, not just towards us Southerners, but to each other. We down here have and continue to see you as hypocritical oppressors for that exact reason.
Many who keep saying the South was on the wrong side of the Civil War and the Confederate soldiers were bad and only fought to defend slavery should do some research on all the atrocities and war crimes committed by the Union soldiers. They came down to the South and actually did run roughshod all over the lands and homes of innocent Southern civilians. A lot of the Southern people.. the common folk.. had no choice but to fight back against the Union to defend themselves, their families, and their homes.
The Union armies went house by house and stole food, livestock, and valuables, raped all the women in the house both white and black, killed everybody including the children, and then burned down the houses. One of the reasons Gone with the Wind is being banned is because it depicts Union soldiers as villains as it portrays Union soldiers stealing from Scarlett O'Hara and trying to rape her. That movie just presented a toned down version of exactly what happened to many Southern women.
An article from the New York Times by W. Todd Groce, Rethinking Sherman’s March, discusses how Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was basically known for taking the Scorched Earth approach in his battle strategy and burned several Southern cities full of civilians to the ground. His units fired guns and canons on innocent civilians.. And everything he did was fully sanctioned by the Union's government.
"Sherman believed that forcing noncombatants to feel what he called the “hard hand of war” was a military necessity. Making the war as harsh as possible would bring victory more quickly and with a minimum loss of life on both sides, undermine Confederate morale on the home front, trigger a wave of desertions from the insurgent armies, destroy the Confederacy’s ability to wage war and prove to the rebels that their cause was hopeless and their government impotent to protect them and their property."
This article by David Ibata, Was Sherman a War Criminal?, actually explains several of General Sherman's war crimes including the siege of Atlanta when, on General Sherman's orders, Union soldiers fired guns and canons at homes filled with civilians including women and children for days. Sherman was actually quoted as saying, “No consideration must be paid to the fact they are occupied by families, but the place must be cannonaded.” He was guilty of 4 war crime violations under the Geneva Code and even admitted that he was guilty. But he was never prosecuted nor convicted for these crimes against Southern civilians because the Union condoned all of it.
The Union itself sanctioned multiple war crimes including the mistreatment of Confederate POW's at Elmira Prison in Elmira, NY.. nicknamed "Lincoln's Death Camp" and "Hellmira".. This article Union War Crimes Against Confederate Prisoners In NY by Michael A. Hoffman II talks about how Confederate POW's died from malnutrition, starvation, froze to death from being denied blankets during Winter, and were even poisoned by the camp's doctor.
Another article by Chris Mackowski, “Hellmira”—a Place of “Terrible Memory,” Nearly Forgotten, discusses the atrocities at Elmira Prison. It explains that while the mortality rate of Union prisoners in Confederate camps was higher due to a depletion of resources for the entire region, the reason why Elmira was worse is because that area actually had an abundance of food and supplies that they denied their prisoners intentionally.
And there is even an historic marker for the site cause ya'll Yankees like to commemorate your worst moments too...
Meanwhile, throughout the war, the violence against innocent Southern civilians was so bad that members of both the Union and Confederacy were having to address this issue with Lincoln and with the Union army. The Union generals especially felt that the horrible treatment of the Southern civilians was counterproductive to promoting Unionism in the region.
This article from the New York Times by Crystal N. Feimster, Rape and Justice in the Civil War, discusses the Leiber Code of 1863 issued by President Abraham Lincoln to the Union military in response to all the horrible, violent acts being committed against innocent Southern civilians during the war, specifically the excessive number of rapes and murders of both white and black women all over the South. Another article from The Civil War Odyssey by BJ Welborn Behind the Curtain: Rape and Other Horrors discusses accounts of gang rapes of black women and even lists several incidents of other sexual assaults of both white and black female victims by state throughout the South.
The most common incidents were rape of slave women by Union soldiers while the white mistresses of the homes and their children were forced to watch. All these slave women and their families who prayed for the Union soldiers to show up and rescue them soon found out their Yankee saviors were not the heaven-sent angels of their dreams, but monsters from the worst kind of nightmares.
There were upwards of 450 cases that were brought forth after the war ended. But many more incidents weren't reported due to protection of family and female honor from slander and scrutiny. Many slave owners even did try to get justice for the raping of their slave women as well because, whether they considered them family or property, they were still appalled by the Union's treatment of them.
The problem was the South didn't allow for that justice so it had to come from the Union. Of the cases actually tried though, most victims never saw justice done, even though the their male assailants were convicted and sentenced, because those sentences were never actually carried out. It was mostly for show and placation.
In contrast, the only war crimes committed by Confederate soldiers I could find information on were pretty much limited to acts against Union military members. The biggest thing that came up was the massacre at Fort Pillow, Tennessee where nearly 300 Union soldiers were slaughtered by Confederate troops after they had surrendered.
The majority of those Union soldiers were black and that particular unit along with some others didn't believe in taking black POW's. Other acts were similar. But all the atrocities committed in the name of the South I found records of were definitely against men and the only mention of civilians murdered were suspected traitors.
Like this marker of the Shelton Laurel Massacre in North Carolina...
The Confederate units that did push into Union territory, lead by General Robert E. Lee, didn't really make it too far into the North. Their attacks were pretty much limited to border states like Maryland and Pennsylvania, ie the Battle of Gettysburg. The Southerners were mainly defending their own territory throughout the war rather than offensively trying to invade and conquer the North.
I'm sure some of them probably did some shady shit though in Maryland and Pennsylvania, but I can't find any mention of it... and definitely couldn't find anything even close to as awful as what the Union did.. which to me and many others says that the Union really weren't as awesome as mainstream history likes to claim.. and also that the South wasn't as evil.
It seems the Confederacy for the most part at least tried to maintain a certain level of morality and abide by the chivalrous code for which the South is known. Just because we're at war is no excuse to completely abandon your gentlemanly honor. However, as you can see, the Union did not afford the South and its people that same respect at all.. They sanctioned and advocated the opposite.
Maybe if you wrap your brain around that fact then you'll finally understand why we still refer to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Agression". We are still fighting a renewed war of Northern Agression.. But maybe this time that old adage we joke about "The South will rise again and this time we'll finally beat them damn Yankees" might actually come true.
The North ended slavery and then forced the South to do it too. The North then integrated everything and forced the South again to do it too. In the meantime, a good amount of the black population migrated North and to other Union held areas to what they deemed the Land of Freedom only to get treated just as badly or in some cases even worse by their Yankee saviors because the reality of the situation is that the Northerners didn't want the poor refugee black people they fought so hard to save coming up and invading their nice, white neighborhoods just because they liberated them.
Just like most of the South didn't fight to keep slavery, most of the North didn't fight because they cared about ending it either. They fought because they were drafted and because they wanted to keep the Union together. Ending slavery was just a nice bonus for which they got credit, even though that was not the main objective or concern for most. It was all about defending the Union.
The black people who saw everywhere else but the South as that land of freedom from oppression continued to migrate out of it and you Yankees still continue to treat them just as badly and oppress them in these ways with your ghettos full of project housing where you intend to keep the majority of them for as long as you can. And you haven't just exacted this rampant discrimination on black people. You've done it to other white people who immigrated from other countries along with their fellow immigrants from other non-white countries all over the world.
"Ghettos" were initially established in Europe by the Nazis to segregate the Jews. They were then adopted in New York City and Chicago along with other major cities in the North to separate the immigrants who came to America from the rest of the population that discriminated against them.
Hate to break it to you but the racist terms "mick" and "wop" and I'm pretty sure even "spic" (if you watch West Side Story) also originated in the North and were definitely used on a regular basis by Northerners. Sorry to anyone who is offended by my use of those terms. In addition to my Lebanese heritage, I am also English, Irish, Scottish, and German.. So at least based on my Irish and German heritage some of my ancestors felt the stigma back then.
Still don't believe me about this rampant racism everywhere outside the South? Well, I'm sure after reading that article about racially concentrated areas and if you continue to read the other posts in this series, you will be pretty convinced like I am that Michigan is the most racist state in America. The national director of the KKK, Thomas Robb, hails from Michigan. The Nation of Islam, one of the most notorious black supremacy groups, was also founded in Michigan.
But what about Massachusetts? Here is another interesting blog article written by Colleen Elizabeth for XO Jane in 2013 called On The Myth That The Northeast United States Isn't Racist. She talks about her first hand account of how racist Boston is and her surprise at finding this undercurrent of rampant racism in such a prominent Northern city... the largest city in New England and one of the oldest cities in the US.
Still don't believe me? Here is another interesting article from Daily KOS written by Susan Grigsby just 2 months ago on May 3, 2015 called The Most Racist Areas in the United States. It discusses the quantified effects that racism actually has on the health of the minorities who live in those RCAP's. The study, Association between an Internet-Based Measure of Area Racism and Black Mortality, published in PLOS ONE mapped out the most racist areas in the United States and they are mostly located in the rural Northeast and down along the Appalachian Mountains into the South.
"According to the authors of the study, current research points to a variety of causes for the disparities in health between white and black Americans, many of which can be traced to racial segregation. Many blacks are restricted to high-crime neighborhoods that are lacking in outdoor recreational areas, access to healthy foods, and decent health care. Discrimination in employment leads to lower wages that further impact the ability to enjoy healthy food, exercise, and recreation."
Look at all that red in the North on that map though. These findings are purely based on people's Google searches of racist terms, most specifically searches that included "The N Word". The findings showed a strong correlation between the differential of votes for Obama in the 2008 election along with a higher percentage in mortality rates for the African American community of those areas. I would like to note though that just because people didn't Google the N word where they live though doesn't mean their isn't racism in that area. It just means the people aren't searching on the internet for things that pertain to their discriminatory views.
According to an article from the US Census about the 2010 Census results, 2010 Census Shows Black Population has Highest Concentration in the South People Who Reported as Both Black and White More than Doubled.
"Compared with 2000, the percentage of the black alone-or-in-combination population increased in the South, stayed about the same in the West, and decreased in the Northeast and the Midwest. Of all respondents who reported black in 2010, 55 percent lived in the South, 18 percent in the Midwest, 17 percent in the Northeast and 10 percent in the West.
The percentage of the black alone population also increased in the South, from 55 percent in 2000 to 57 percent in 2010, whereas it decreased in the Northeast and the Midwest. The black alone-or-in-combination population comprised 50 percent or more of the total population in 106 counties. All these counties were in the South except for the city of St. Louis, which is considered a county equivalent. In contrast, 62 percent of all counties had less than 5 percent of the population identified as black. These patterns were similar for the black alone population."
I'm also sure all the research I've done for this article and others to follow has probably made Virginia thoroughly red now. I'm not saying that I'm trying to debunk the study. I'm just trying to be fair by pointing out the possibility that some of those Google searches containing that word could have been done by some hip hop fans in addition to a lot of racist people.
Also, I think it's important to point out the fact that obviously black people must not be so against the South anymore regardless of the Rebel Flag considering the black population in our region is higher than the rest of the country by A LOT and keeps increasing here while it decreases in the Northeast and Midwest.
If you take the Google N-Word map from 2015 and combine it with the 2010 Census numbers then what that says to me is black people have become disillusioned with empty Yankee promises of equality outside the South and have started moving back down here because they don't feel as oppressed by us.
It also says to me that as black people have started to leave your area, you Yankees stepped up your discrimination even more within the past 5 years to make the rest feel so hated and unwelcome they'll leave too. Dispute that fact all you want but the Google N Word map and the Census numbers don't lie and those facts are current facts from this decade and this year.
You can dredge up the South's past all day long and I'm not saying racism doesn't still exist here because the Google N word map says it does and we also know that's a fact we're not disputing. But while you go on about how the South was 150 years ago or 50 years ago you'd also best be taking that good, hard look at how it is everywhere else in the country today.
But let's go back 150 years ago... Though we've established that not every Southerner who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War did so to perpetuate the institution of slavery nor did they share in the mindset about maintaining that Alexander Stephens and William T. Thompson clandestine "maintaining white superiority over the negro" bullshit, there still were people who did fight for those reasons and they threw said reasons all over their seccession documents. It's true.
But, with respect to slavery.. As long as man has existed, there have been people who have subjugated others and enslaved them because they deemed them inferior as they needed inferior people to break their backs for a multitude of reasons... the main one being empire building. Under that umbrella you have money and power.
It's a sad fact of history and humanity, but the biggest empires in the world throughout time were all built and carried on the backs of whomever those at the top of that empire could easily conquer and use to achieve their goals of world domination. This includes the Eqyptians, the Romans, the Ottomans, the British, and even the American colonists.
America was founded and built at great expense to ethics and morality because to subjugate anyone you have to ignore your conscience and convince yourself beyond a doubt that those people you are persecuting somehow deserve it. That cost was paid with the blood and pain of the Native American and African people and with the humanity and compassion of their enslavers.
Slavery was a widely accepted and condoned institution for a long time. Then people started waking up and realizing this cost they were paying to continue it was way too high because they were selling their souls in exchange for people and money. But it was money and a greater quest for global domination that begat that change. Industrialization in the North is what initially began to shift and ultimately start to end slavery in that region.
Northern people weren't farming anymore as the region became more urbanized so they no longer needed slaves to make money. That region also had a higher influx of immigrants coming in from other countries who the North deemed to be more fit to subjugate like the Irish and other European immigrants. This lead to the abolitionist movement with free black men at the forefront getting a stronger foothold because once you free slaves they become people of their own instead of property of yours.
The South still did need farming though because crops like sugar, tobacco, and cotton were how it survived. It actually still survives on those things to some extent. Now some Southern people including some slave owners began to come around and see that the world was changing and they needed to start changing with it.
But the slave owners, both white and black as we established in my previous post, with the biggest plantations and the biggest thirst for continuing their own quest for money and power needed slave labor to keep those farms going because their profit margins would shrink if they had to pay a higher labor cost. Slaves weren't cheap either but once you buy a bunch of both genders and force them to procreate then you start recouping your investment.
But to keep on as they were they still needed to keep convincing themselves that black people were an inferior race who deserved their subjugation because God willed it so.. thus making it right and true. Many became so deeply entrenched in that belief because that is what they had been taught to believe for generations.. not just for decades but for centuries... and once you anchor something in God's will it is pretty hard to pull that back.
This is the core foundation for the entire concept of racism, discrimination, and oppression that existed back then and still continues today.. The belief that God wills and therefore sanctions the subjugation, persecution, and oppression of those deemed inferior by the majority. You must understand that fact in order to change the minds of the people who believe it.
The Southern majority with the most money and the most power believed that leading up to the Civil War through and through which is why it's all over the secession documents. That same rich, powerful majority still believed it during the Civil Rights Movement which is why they tried to secede again and fought to continue segregation. That belief filtered down to the masses like it always does and that is why others who weren't slave owners went along with it. That belief still filtered down decades later and that is why they fought against integration.
Just because the even bigger majority, meaning the Union, won out due to it having more money, power, and people doesn't mean that belief changed. But attacking people and beating them down into submission doesn't change their mentality.. Education and communication grounded in respect and understanding is the only thing that has ever successfully opened minds and lead to lasting change and progression.
War victories and the forced imposition and compliance with federal laws mandating the abolition of slavery and the integration of public facilities have simply forced changes in policy that Southerners had to abide by because they lost.. Some did this more willingly than others.
The real credit for the progress made toward achieving equal rights and fair treatment of people of color in the South really must be attributed to the members of the Abolitionist and Civil Rights movements. They were the ones who focused on doing that hard work and getting deep down into the depths of the shit and rooting out racism and oppression. We must continue in that spirit today if we ever hope to make a real and lasting difference.
But, there were also racist people who still had that mindset 90 years after the war ended who raised our Rebel Flag in rebellion against Federal laws of integration during the 1950's and 60's. They did it in the name of their states to defend states' rights as a mark of Southern rebellion. But the fact still does remain that the state right they were trying to defend was slavery and then segregation.
However, not every state in the South that raised the flag did it just because they were rebelling against integration. Mississippi and Georgia may have. But the flag at the South Carolina state house in Charleston was not overtly raised for that reason.
In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower commissioned the Civil War Centennial celebration. Brett Bursey explains in his article, The Day the Flag Went Up that the flag was actually raised over the state house to commemorate the Civil War Centennial. It still can be argued though that the Centennial celebration was used as an excuse.
However, it's important to make these distinctions between those who support the flag for historical reasons and those who support it for racist reasons.. They are not all one in the same. Not even all white racist people are the same. You kinda have to divide those racist people into 2 groups.
One was and is just stubborn people resisting progressive change to their traditional status quo way of life but are trying to accept it and get with the times. Then the other group were and are violent extremists who fought and still fight against that change, resisted and keep resisting it at every turn, and still refuse to accept it. To outsiders, both of these groups are one in the same. But to us Southern insiders, we know the difference.
The problem arises with telling that difference and Google is no help. If you search for "Southern white men" or "Southern white people" these quintessential stereotypical images most people think of come up...
The redneck pickup truck with Rebel Flag motif...
The redneck with oversized assault rifle.. a necessity for every hunting trip because our pesky Southern deer cannot be killed by conventional nor appropriately sized weapons...
Larry the Cable Guy...
Rednecks with beer and guns...
And of course there is this shit which makes the rest of the country think this is how everybody drives around.. It happens sometimes.. But not all the time because shirtless flag wavers overloading a busted pickup is definitely not helping anybody's property value...
Why? Because of course the fucking KKK have to come along with this picture of them waving gigantic Rebel Flags which definitely doesn't help our case nor anyone's property values either...
http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/1366027654_kkk.jpg
Oh wait.. and here they are again flying our flag in their bedsheets...
http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/kkk.jpg
Oh wait.. and again with our flag and their bedsheets because they just can't help themselves until they have fully desecrated our Southern heritage...
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/03/120308_EX_kkk.jpg.CROP.rectangle3-large.jpg
I mean, for real.. STOP CARRYING OUR SOUTHERN FLAG AROUND ASSHOLE MEMBERS OF THE KKK! YOU'RE NOT A SOUTHERN ORGANIZATION ANYMORE AND YOU ARE NOT HELPING US PRESERVE OUR SOUTHERN HERITAGE IN A GOOD WAY!
All it does is remind people of this...
http://media1.fdncms.com/indyweek/imager/two-young-black-men-pass-klan-marchers-in/u/original/4315167/kkksalisbury.jpg
Which then of course reminds them of this and I'm not sure why the whole town is standing around (sorry for the graphic nature of this photo)...
But Southern people were not all like that back then and we are all not even close to like that now.
In reality, Southern people are really more like this...
And like this...
And some of us who are into Civil War history and reenactments are like this.....
And we like the Civil War Era because of pretty pictures like this...
Including all the little girls who want to dress up like this...
And they dream of being Southern Belles in pretty dresses like this...
And of course, there are always people who take it a little too far... I mean this picture is OK until you get down to the person at the bottom in black face makeup.. Come on white people. You're not really helping us with that shit.
Moving right along though..
And then there are holiday town parades where the Civil War reenactment people march and ride horses which is definitely a tradition I associate with pretty much all Southern parades...
You Yankees have your parades too...
And you remember your Union soldiers too...
Cause they threw them in ditches....
And the South tried to make it as nice as they could...
And the Sons of Confederate Veterans tried to make it a little better...
http://www.civilwaralbum.com/misc16/2012/2012richmond48detail.jpg
At least some were buried in proper cemeteries like this one in Fredericksburg, Virginia...
Others were even buried alongside Union soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery, which is fitting considering the Cemetery is on General Robert E. Lee's former land at Arlington House that the Union seized...
In some cases where they couldn't tell the dead they exhumed apart, they buried Union and Confederate soldiers together.
At the end of the day though, all most Southern people had to remember their dead was this.. Their lost loved ones' military standard..
But everybody was cool with it because people who fought in the Civil War on both sides did this...
So we choose to remember this...
And we also choose to remember this because like I said, not all Confederate soldiers were white...
But when it comes to your own lineage, what makes you remembering your Union ancestors like this...
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More important or right than us honoring our ancestors like this?
Anyway, this is what we mean when we say Southern heritage and pride.. It encompasses all that history and those people both good and bad. This is our life, our family, our heritage, our history, our culture, our successes, and our follies. This is where we come from and we Southerners have just as much right to preserve it and celebrate all that as anyone else.. and it's not fair to call us racists for doing it.
But as I said, those who do have less than ideal views can be divided into 2 groups.. We'll address the first group, the extremists, in a separate post.. But, when it comes to the first group.. the stubborn people.. try to put yourself in their shoes for a sec and look at it from their perspective. Many of the folks in this category are older and grew up in a different time when segregation was the status quo way of life in the South.
These people were taught to believe that we should stay separate and fought against the change because they didn't understand it. Yes, they waved that flag in the faces of people of color and participated in the mob fights in the streets. But they didn't know any better at the time. That doesn't excuse their behavior. I'm just saying that the South at that time was mostly shrouded in a storm cloud of ignorance and it had been raining for a long time. Plus let's remember that there was a lot of violence on both sides. Doesn't make the violence right for either side. Just means that's the way shit went down.
They believed they were just standing up for themselves and what they thought was right.. just like the people on the other side. But.. and here comes the perspective part.. If someone tells you something is right your whole life and nobody ever comes along and tells you differently then you'll just go on thinking what you think is OK. But once people come along and respectfully reason with you and you get some knowledge and experience to see that what you're being told is better then you start to accept it.. which is what's been happening here for the past 150+ years.
This in a lot of ways can be attributed to what's still going on today in some parts of the South. It's not that people who live in the more rural areas of certain states are just outright racist on principle. They just don't have a lot of progressive diversity in those places because they aren't near major cities where people move to for opportunities so no one there is really telling them differently. The white people there accept their own people of color within their own community for the most part because they know them and have a level of respect and even appreciation for them.
A prime example is Paula Deen. She got outed for saying and doing some things namely using the N word and having some family gatherings that harkened back to the old South. Now Paula Deen apologized and accepted responsibility for her actions. She explained that she thought whatever she was saying and doing at the time was OK because she grew up in a different time and nobody really ever told her it was wrong. She didn't use it as an excuse for her behavior.. She was just telling it like it is.
Once it was pointed out, she realized how hurtful and wrong those words she still used and the things she did were to African Americans including members of her fan base. Now she's changed and trying to make amends to redeem herself to the rest of the country. But she didn't really ever lose a lot of her Southern fan base including much of the African American community in the South who like her.
There were actually black people who even said it wasn't OK but they gave her a pass anyway because they know she's a good person deep down. Also, considering she specializes in Soul Food and spends a lot of her time with a lot of black people she was sort of seen as an honorary member of their community by some. They worked with her in her restaurants and spent a ton of time in the kitchens together and were treated well aside from maybe the odd thing she said in a misguided attempt to relate and fit in.. which is how they claimed they took it.
They also pointed out that she did immediately apologize and they believed her to be genuinely remorseful... and there definitely hasn't been any evidence since to indicate otherwise.. I don't care what the news said the other day about some picture from 4 years ago some dumb flunky posted up. It's irrelevant to today because it was from prior to when the initial controversy occured. But even then Paula Deen made yet another public apology and reinforced that she has legitimately changed. This is why she's back in good graces now and has even become a regular guest on the Steve Harvey Show after her initial guest appearance where Harvey and Deen discussed what happened in depth.
Paula Deen is just an example of the lingering old South mindset that we're constantly trying to work on changing every day in our region. But you just have to leave us to tend to our own on that. We have been trying to introduce a more tolerant way of life within our own homes to the older people in them and let them know that kind of talk and those words aren't acceptable anymore because they're wrong and hurtful. For many of us, including myself, we at least have made some headway by getting the N word out of our relatives' vocabulary. These private changes in our Southern homes are just not publicized all over because our parents and grandparents aren't celebrities.
We're also not trying to out our relatives like they're straight up white supremacist racists or something because they aren't. They also don't see themselves or certain things they say as racist because the change that occurred back then was not as drastic a shift. They think they have come around quite a bit.. and in a lot of ways they have.. They do still have further to go though and that takes time. They're just older and come from a different time. Eventually that old South will die off and those who are too far gone will then be gone too. We're just not trying to will them into the ground faster simply for the sake of progress because they're still our loved ones.
However, when you start warring on our grandparents' grandaddies' war flags and our Southern heritage and culture, you are not helping us move this change along. You're actually hindering our progress because we can't make them give it up nor do we want to give it up or take it down ourselves because they're still our 2-3 times great granddaddies' war flags too and apart of our culture whether you get that or care or lIke it or not.
The question is... What really matters more to you? That people actually make progressive change here in the South toward equal treatment in a real way or getting rid of a flag and some Civil War Confederate Solider tributes? Choose your battles wisely people.
Stay tuned for Part 2...
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