I live in Northern Virginia, so that flag's not very common near me (we're Mid-Atlantic, not South), though I see it some at Virginia Tech in SW VA. I agree with Dean: except in movies, I've never seen it used as a symbol of racism (I've even seen black people displaying it). Usually, it's on a t-shirt or the back of a truck, often with a slogan like "Southern Girl," "Pride Not Prejudice," or "Heritage Not Hate." It's often accompanied by a NASCAR sticker or hat, "Git-R-Done" or "Ain't Skeered," or sometimes a college sticker.
At least from what I've seen, there's not a lot of racism in the South. There may be racial tension sometimes, but more often than not it seems to be Northern or West Coast.
In the intervening decades, all the men who had fought in that war--whether they had worn blue or grey, whether they had served Lincoln or Davis, Grant or Lee--viewed each other as brethren, and honored each other. They all considered themselves to have been a part of what they called "the Great Army of the Republic." No matter whose side they had fought on, they all knew they were part of it, and that it was over, and that they forgave each other.
Sounds really nice; pity it's a complete fantasy. Is it even possible for someone raised in the South to be unaware of the consequences of Reconstruction?
It's not a complete fantasy, sorry. Everything I said is historically correct.
That said, there were also terrible northern depredations by carptetbaggers and others--and many northern white liberals forget all that, and pretend that those who bring it up are merely racists. The KKK, when it began, was not about oppressing the black man, but about lifting the bootheel of the oppressing northerner against the surrendered south.
That said: it would be foolish to deny that much of what transpired in the south in the intervening century was not aimed primarily at blaming the negro for every bad thing that subsequently happened, whether he deserved it or not.
My greater point is this: we can either honor our ancestors' memory and let the past be the past, or we can poke at the festering sores of past generations.
I used to dismiss calls of "Racism!" when the whole Confederate flag brouhaha started. I used to think, like you do now, that flying the "Confederate" flag (which is really the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, I think, not the flag of the entire CSA) was just a way to honor their heritage.
But then I read somewhere that the Confederate flag HASN'T always been flown in Southern states. That until the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, you hardly saw it anywhere. Georgia didn't incorporate the Confederate flag into their state flag until 1956, two years after Brown v. Board of Education was handed down by the Supreme Court.
And that said something to me. It seemed disingenuous to all of a sudden, 80 years after the Civil War is over, to decide that your Southern heritage needs celebrating. Was it coincidence that such a decision is made at the same time Jim Crow laws were being struck down and schools were being integrated? Maybe. But I don't think so.
My experience in South Carolina is quite different, apparently, than that of Dean in Virginia. Here, that flag is very much a symbol of racism. I've heard all the "We're just honoring our brave Confederate dead" crap down here to last me a lifetime. I also had a grandparent who fought as a Confederate soldier. No, I'm not ashamed of that. I'm saddened by it, but not because he may have fought for slavery. In fact, I'm pretty certain that he didn't. No, I'm saddened because I suspect that my grandfather - and the vast majority of other Confederate soldiers - were duped into fighting for some grand cause by a white aristocracy that had even less use for poor whites than for the slaves they owned because they couldn't legally force the poor whites into working their plantations.
Anyway, I never meant to open up a discussion on racism and the damn Confederate flag, which again, I've had enough discussion about to last me a lifetime. I simply wanted to draw the connection between the use of that flag and theocracy by pointing out the links between Christian Exodus and the League of the South.
Dean, I know Klansmen (well, ones I highly suspect of it...I've never seen the robes, and honestly I don't want to, I love them as friends and to seem them like that would seriously color my future views on them in a very bad way). The Klan, just like unions and the Mafia, has far outlived it's usefullness. It is now nothing more than a bunch of racists that don't have the balls to show their faces when they commit their crimes.
In the South, there is a bit of fantasy about what you wrote. They didn't all put down their arms and take up the love of brothers. Many did, but louder uncouth ones did not. Those remnants are the same ones that cause problems today.
I really do wish Lincoln would have lived. I truly believe, in my heart and soul, that Lincoln would have done his best to 'bind the nation's wounds' and that the scourge of Reconstruction would not have been visited on the South. Washington and Jefferson may have birthed a nation, but Lincoln had to hold it together while it tried to rip itself apart, he is the far greater President in my eyes. I'm only sorry he didn't get to see her healed.
Also, just because a bunch of hate mongers stole the flag doesn't mean the flag doesn't have multiple meanings. It is naught but a cloth, the beholder alone assigns meaning to it. (Just as many Eurowennies look at a US flag and see rape, pillage, empire and destruction...I won't take down my US flag for any of them and I won't bash the Confederate Battle Flag for anyone either.)
It's a flag, let her fly. Don't honor her if you don't want to but don't call me a racist because I do (and all the men, women and children that died under her).
I was just struck by the apparent contradiction. I think that words spoken in a conversation and words put to computer screen and read come off differently.
Back in what seemed (maybe through the lens of nostalgia) like less contentious times, my Mom ("I'm so liberal, I'm radical," though I don't think she really understands how radical radical is) was involved in local politics. Democrat Mom and UAW Dad were always on the losing side, of course, because the Republicans in our area had`at least an 80% lock on the vote. (And let me tell you: these were the sort of Republicans who give Republicans a bad`name.)
During the Bicentennial year, a local store offered different US historical flags, along with booklets that explained their history. We got them all, and we studied them all.
And we had the tallest darn flagpole in the neighborhood. And whenever Mom got fed up with the local politicos and their abuse of the public purse for their private gain, down would come Old Glory, and up would go one of the fightin' flags: Don't Tread on Me or the Rebel flag.
A symbol can symbolize many things, not just one thing. To my Mom -- loyal Democrat all her life -- that flag was about fighting for what you believed in, and telling the self-important to go to hell.
Of course the KKK today is nothing but a bunch of ignorant racist fools. But see, that's part of the historical oddness: the KKK of today is a separate organization from the Klan that formed in the days after the civil war. That original KKK was formed, served its purpose, and disbanded within ten years or so. By the end of the 1870s, they were nothing but a memory.
The KKK we know today was founded around 1918 by a preacher who expropriated their symbols.
That doesn't mean the old KKK wasn't racist, for it was, but racism wasn't their reason for being. Rather, they were the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party that was fighting off abusive behavior by Republicans during the early days of the reconstration.
But that's a history most people just don't know. It doesn't fit in with their prejudices.
I know. I've got family from Mississippi (and friends from there). I KNOW the history of the South and North, the 'War of Northern Aggression' (seriously, some folks still call it that). It's a pity that Yankees can't seem to be taugh the same depth of history.
On the Klan front, I really wish Forrest was not as badly treated as he is. He broke from the Klan because of how convoluted and rascist it got...that's not remembered though, he's just the 'father' of the Klan and nothing else.
Hokie-Pundit, disabuse yourself of the idea that your part of the "mid-Atlantic" is not in the South; it most definitely IS in the South, from Delaware on down.
Up-South to be sure, but most definitely the South. Because there's a hell of a lot more to the South than a drawl, y'all.
Or the Rebel flag.
Interesting post, Dean. I believe what you wrote, every bit of it. That flag, like the Southland, causes such a varied response all across America that it never ceases to amaze me. It's like we all live in our own personal bubble when it comes to the South, so that someone living in Northern Virginia thinks nothing of stating that he doesn't live in the South.
I have a sister, my oldest sister, who was born in Georgia and raised in northeastern Florida, college degrees from an Ivy League school, lives in Philly, and she is a great woman and fine sibling -- but she now has the most cartoonish (or so it seems to me) ideas about the South. Doesn't matter if we're talking about white people in the South or black people in the South -- it's really mind-boggling.
From inside my personal bubble, I don't have a problem with that flag on cars, t-shirts, billboards, etc. I do have a problem with it flying on any governmental flag pole. I don't have a problem with folks honoring Confederate soldiers; I do have a problem with Southern officials honoring them to the exclusion of Americans fighting to preserve the Union, including United States Colored Troops.
For me, Douglas MacArthur is dispositive; I'm told he made this statement to the 1933 graduating class at West Point:
A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward, but he must think only forward.
I think that's good advice in the civilian world, too.
Whether discussing social security or race relations, or even things Southern, Americans would do well to stay centered on thinking forward.
I was born and raised in Jersey City, NJ, in the '40s and '50s. I don't recall having or hearing any particular opinion of St. Andrew's Cross, but I accept your interpretation. The South was, for me, a dark, mystical, and dangerous place.
No, I'm saddened because I suspect that my grandfather - and the vast majority of other Confederate soldiers - were duped into fighting for some grand cause by a white aristocracy that had even less use for poor whites than for the slaves they owned because they couldn't legally force the poor whites into working their plantations.
Um, actually, no. Historian SE Morison (among others) quite consistently held that the actual impetus to secession came from the middle-class whites, not from the older "Bourbon" aristocracy. In fact, Morison expressed the belief that, if the Bourbons has maintained a hold on leadership in the South, would have managed to defuse the crisis without war.
Abraham Lincoln stated more than once that if the South would put down their arms, they could keep their slaves.
But never mind--there's just no point in talking to some people. They want to have their little rants about the evil southerners and their bigotry, and that's that.
I grew up in the south - Lousiana and Georgia, was educated in the public schools and university in Georgia. I have rarely seen the "Stars and Bars" used in anything but a racist or anti-American icon. We are talking about a sucession that was NOT democratic in the least, and a time in our great history that was dreadfully sad. That symbol is equal in hatred and divisivness as is a Nazi Swastika. Most southernors (and sadly, many non-southernors) sport that "flag" as a symbol of a long past time of whites-only dominance in their "backyard."
We are talking about a symbol of a "country" that broke from the United States of America because they wanted to continue to own other human beings for economic gain.
Horseshit, Tim, horseshit. It never meant that to me, and it never meant it to the vast majority of people I've known in my life who viewed that symbol with some affection or pride.
At least from what I've seen, there's not a lot of racism in the South. There may be racial tension sometimes, but more often than not it seems to be Northern or West Coast.
Sounds really nice; pity it's a complete fantasy. Is it even possible for someone raised in the South to be unaware of the consequences of Reconstruction?
That said, there were also terrible northern depredations by carptetbaggers and others--and many northern white liberals forget all that, and pretend that those who bring it up are merely racists. The KKK, when it began, was not about oppressing the black man, but about lifting the bootheel of the oppressing northerner against the surrendered south.
That said: it would be foolish to deny that much of what transpired in the south in the intervening century was not aimed primarily at blaming the negro for every bad thing that subsequently happened, whether he deserved it or not.
My greater point is this: we can either honor our ancestors' memory and let the past be the past, or we can poke at the festering sores of past generations.
But then I read somewhere that the Confederate flag HASN'T always been flown in Southern states. That until the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, you hardly saw it anywhere. Georgia didn't incorporate the Confederate flag into their state flag until 1956, two years after Brown v. Board of Education was handed down by the Supreme Court.
And that said something to me. It seemed disingenuous to all of a sudden, 80 years after the Civil War is over, to decide that your Southern heritage needs celebrating. Was it coincidence that such a decision is made at the same time Jim Crow laws were being struck down and schools were being integrated? Maybe. But I don't think so.
Anyway, I never meant to open up a discussion on racism and the damn Confederate flag, which again, I've had enough discussion about to last me a lifetime. I simply wanted to draw the connection between the use of that flag and theocracy by pointing out the links between Christian Exodus and the League of the South.
In the South, there is a bit of fantasy about what you wrote. They didn't all put down their arms and take up the love of brothers. Many did, but louder uncouth ones did not. Those remnants are the same ones that cause problems today.
I really do wish Lincoln would have lived. I truly believe, in my heart and soul, that Lincoln would have done his best to 'bind the nation's wounds' and that the scourge of Reconstruction would not have been visited on the South. Washington and Jefferson may have birthed a nation, but Lincoln had to hold it together while it tried to rip itself apart, he is the far greater President in my eyes. I'm only sorry he didn't get to see her healed.
Also, just because a bunch of hate mongers stole the flag doesn't mean the flag doesn't have multiple meanings. It is naught but a cloth, the beholder alone assigns meaning to it. (Just as many Eurowennies look at a US flag and see rape, pillage, empire and destruction...I won't take down my US flag for any of them and I won't bash the Confederate Battle Flag for anyone either.)
It's a flag, let her fly. Don't honor her if you don't want to but don't call me a racist because I do (and all the men, women and children that died under her).
Wouldn't it be blasphemous for a theist to swear something on the Almighty?
But this is going way off topic.
Back in what seemed (maybe through the lens of nostalgia) like less contentious times, my Mom ("I'm so liberal, I'm radical," though I don't think she really understands how radical radical is) was involved in local politics. Democrat Mom and UAW Dad were always on the losing side, of course, because the Republicans in our area had`at least an 80% lock on the vote. (And let me tell you: these were the sort of Republicans who give Republicans a bad`name.)
During the Bicentennial year, a local store offered different US historical flags, along with booklets that explained their history. We got them all, and we studied them all.
And we had the tallest darn flagpole in the neighborhood. And whenever Mom got fed up with the local politicos and their abuse of the public purse for their private gain, down would come Old Glory, and up would go one of the fightin' flags: Don't Tread on Me or the Rebel flag.
A symbol can symbolize many things, not just one thing. To my Mom -- loyal Democrat all her life -- that flag was about fighting for what you believed in, and telling the self-important to go to hell.
The KKK we know today was founded around 1918 by a preacher who expropriated their symbols.
That doesn't mean the old KKK wasn't racist, for it was, but racism wasn't their reason for being. Rather, they were the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party that was fighting off abusive behavior by Republicans during the early days of the reconstration.
But that's a history most people just don't know. It doesn't fit in with their prejudices.
On the Klan front, I really wish Forrest was not as badly treated as he is. He broke from the Klan because of how convoluted and rascist it got...that's not remembered though, he's just the 'father' of the Klan and nothing else.
Hokie-Pundit, disabuse yourself of the idea that your part of the "mid-Atlantic" is not in the South; it most definitely IS in the South, from Delaware on down.
Up-South to be sure, but most definitely the South. Because there's a hell of a lot more to the South than a drawl, y'all.
Or the Rebel flag.
Interesting post, Dean. I believe what you wrote, every bit of it. That flag, like the Southland, causes such a varied response all across America that it never ceases to amaze me. It's like we all live in our own personal bubble when it comes to the South, so that someone living in Northern Virginia thinks nothing of stating that he doesn't live in the South.
I have a sister, my oldest sister, who was born in Georgia and raised in northeastern Florida, college degrees from an Ivy League school, lives in Philly, and she is a great woman and fine sibling -- but she now has the most cartoonish (or so it seems to me) ideas about the South. Doesn't matter if we're talking about white people in the South or black people in the South -- it's really mind-boggling.
From inside my personal bubble, I don't have a problem with that flag on cars, t-shirts, billboards, etc. I do have a problem with it flying on any governmental flag pole. I don't have a problem with folks honoring Confederate soldiers; I do have a problem with Southern officials honoring them to the exclusion of Americans fighting to preserve the Union, including United States Colored Troops.
For me, Douglas MacArthur is dispositive; I'm told he made this statement to the 1933 graduating class at West Point:
A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward, but he must think only forward.
I think that's good advice in the civilian world, too.
Whether discussing social security or race relations, or even things Southern, Americans would do well to stay centered on thinking forward.
Um, actually, no. Historian SE Morison (among others) quite consistently held that the actual impetus to secession came from the middle-class whites, not from the older "Bourbon" aristocracy. In fact, Morison expressed the belief that, if the Bourbons has maintained a hold on leadership in the South, would have managed to defuse the crisis without war.
But never mind--there's just no point in talking to some people. They want to have their little rants about the evil southerners and their bigotry, and that's that.
We are talking about a symbol of a "country" that broke from the United States of America because they wanted to continue to own other human beings for economic gain.
You're projecting your own issues on others.