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One Yankee Cop Kills a Black Suspect, and Somehow My Confederate Ancestors Are the Problem?
So the latest is that NASCAR has banned the display of the Confederate battle flag from its races and properties. HBO Max has pulled Gone With the Wind from its streaming service. It will eventually bring it back, but only “with a discussion of its historical context.” Statues of Southern heroes and even monuments to our war dead are being vandalized in the mildest treatments and outright destroyed in some cases. A University of Alabama professor explains to her local mob how to effectively topple the Confederate war memorial in Birmingham. (Thankfully, that mob was incompetent, but the city has caved into them.) Confederate Memorial Hall, the headquarters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (a group of nice old ladies who largely tend to graveyards and war monuments) was burned, destroying irreplaceable historical documents and artifacts.
What started all of this? One Yankee cop in Minnesota kills a black man he had in custody (why, we don’t know), riots start up, and now because everything has to be about race, the wild mob is turning its sights on us and our history.
As a Southerner who is very proud of his ancestors who fought for the State of Tennessee when we were invaded, this horrifies me. And yet, as bad as all of that is, the most frustrating, infuriating thing is to see how many conservatives, even some Southerners, are cheering this on, insulting the honorable men who fought, and calling my ancestors all kinds of awful names in their blanket denunciations. The modern Left has language about the sin of “erasing” one group or another by not portraying them (especially sympathetically) in literature or media, or by not mentioning their contributions to some field. But they’re on a hate-filled roll right now, doing this to my people. Don’t cheer them on, saying how awful my people were, and how we ought to reeducate those ignorant Southerners to reject their history. Don’t rub your chin and regret that it’s a mob doing it when really we ought to be erased and forgotten through proper channels.
I would like to think that actions like NASCAR’s are simple misunderstandings; that they simply don’t understand that a guy waving a battle flag at a race is simply expressing Southern pride and that this has nothing to do with the Klan or race. Maybe they just don’t get us. But they make no attempt to understand us. There’s literal prejudice and bigotry against my people, making judgments about motives and mindsets that simply aren’t true. But if NASCAR doesn’t get us, how can we hope for any other institution to understand?
The only solution is tolerance and pluralism, letting my people have our monuments and you having yours. They’ll come for your heroes next.
Update: What I mean by tolerance and pluralism is that if you object to our Confederate monuments and statues and symbols, fine. You can have your heroes memorialized, too. There are plenty of Yankee war monuments and statues up around the country largely built the same time ours were. You get yours, and we get ours, and we can all stay happy that way. I promise not to try to destroy, vandalize, or add “notes of historical context” to Yankee monuments, even though they honor men who invaded my state and shot my great-great-grandfather.
P.S.: I don’t mean anything rude about you friendly Yankees here. I have had a few Yankee friends who were perfectly comfortable with us pro-Confederate Southerners, and I don’t mean to insult your ancestors, either.
Published in General
Those are both stupid names.
I saw an email pop-up from High Country Gardens yesterday apologizing for “offensive language.” I tried to imagine what a plant and seed company could have said that was offensive. I decided they must be selling Hollyhock Black Nigra, or Black Lace Elderberry (Sambuca Nigra). What else could it be??
Idiots. Bend the knee.
I believe today’s “Progressives” seem intent on destroying the human dignity of us all. Just getting to some groups first.
Very well put, Tabby. Yes, I have understood the same. My great-great grandfathers all fought for the Confederate States (more specifically, they fought for Tennessee), and I have a good bit of family history written about them. On thing stands out to me in particular. My great grandfather writes that once when he was a young man, a stranger had come by, and the family put him up for the night. He was a Yankee, a Michigan salesman, I think. He and my great-great grandfather got to talking, and they found out they’d both been in some of the same battles, on opposite sides. They got to talking and debating and rehashing the events and having a fine time of it that night. My great-great grandmother could never forgive the Yankees for invading us, and she had to leave the room. The actual soldiers who’d been shooting at each other were more relaxed about it.
Similarly, when I was active in the Sons of Confederate Veterans a few years ago in D.C., the Sons of Union Veterans would always send a delegation to attend our memorial events. They were a nice bunch of fellows. They revered their history and respected the same attitude with us, even if our forefathers had been on opposite sides.
I suspect the radicals laying waste to the visible monuments to that history today revere nothing, not even their own.
Very thought-provoking post. Have to wonder what is going through the minds of some of our present and past military “leaders”.
I saw in today’s headlines that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, has said that it was a “mistake” to appear with Trump in Lafayette Square. General Milley, in boot camp, one of the first things that I learned was the need for respect for those who outranked me; that appears to be one of the first things you have forgotten. Before I rendered my first salute, I was told that I was not saluting the person; I was saluting the rank. General Milley, that man on your right is your superior; in our system of government, you are to respect his office, if not his person. Have you forgotten your oath to the Military? General Milley, if you can’t fulfill the duties of your position, then you should resign immediately.
It is curious to see ex-Generals who feel that it is necessary to comment on the situation concerning the military installations that bear the name of Confederate generals. Ex-General David Petraeus penned a totally idiotic article about the need to rename installations such as Fort Benning and Fort Bragg because they were named for Confederate generals. I would ask the good ex-general, “Why do you believe it is necessary to chime in now? You had ample time to do it during your long career; Why now?
An even more ludicrous example was given by ex-General Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal, who was famously fired by Barack Obama for his idiotic interview with Rolling Stone, claims that “On a Sunday morning in 2017 I took down my painting of Robert E. Lee and by afternoon it was in the alley with other rubbish awaiting transport to the local landfill for final burial”. Take a few moments and think about the words of this four-starred doofus. This was a man who was making life and death decisions that affected those under his command?
Let’s look at some facts here:
I’m trying to extend sympathy to him, as we all should. But I’ll admit that my anger is making it difficult for me.
I’m not.
That probably makes me a bad person, but I can live with it.
I was often struck when visiting my aunt and uncle in central Virginia from the 1980s into the early 2000s (who were wealthy, white, and very old-school in manners) that despite the obvious societal prejudices (most obvious in which race filled which jobs), nonetheless everybody talked to each other as individual human beings – keeping up on each other’s extended families, exchanging gifts, looking at each other in the eye when conversing, checking on each other in the event of an illness or injury, etc. Whereas in New York state “blacks” and “whites” were groups, and almost any interest in any individual of the other group as an individual was largely feigned.
I would be willing to bet the same about all the monuments and statues that are coming under fire. I think the vast majority of people who walk past them don’t pay them much attention.
And here’s the latest, ultimate betrayal by the Republican party we gave our loyalty and support to: https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/06/11/republican-led-committee-passes-elizabeth-warrens-amendment-to-rename-military-bases/
A voice vote so we can’t hold people responsible; Josh Hawley has promised to offer an amendment to reverse Warren’s amendment, but I doubt that would work. Trump has promised he won’t allow the name changes, but I doubt that he will be willing to veto it under the current climate. Besides other things, this will depress turnout (including myself), this is an unmitigated gesture of contempt toward Southerners. I expected this as soon as the next Democrat President gained office, but I didn’t believe Republicans would be this stupid. Someone in the comments claimed that this does not necessarily mean that Warren’s Amendment will be included in the final version when it comes out of committee, but I don’t understand how that would work.
Here are the suspects (voice vote, remember):
James Inhofe
Roger Wicker
Deb Fischer
Tom Cotton
Mike Rounds
Joni Ernst
Thom Tillis
Dan Sullivan
David Perdue
Kevin Cramer
Martha McSally
Rick Scott
Marsha Blackburn
Josh Hawley.
Shame on them! Some of them certainly surprise me. If our own Southern senators don’t stand up for our heritage, who else will?
In other welcome news, it turns out that “Lady A” is the stage name of a black blues singer who has used it for a good long time. She is now questioning the “privilege” of Lady A-2 for copping the name without even contacting her.
Just a note of caution, this is only a list of suspects; it was a voice vote, so the votes were anonymous. That said, Josh Hawley is openly criticizing the vote and promising to introduce an amendment at the final vote to cancel Warren’s amendment. It has no chance of success, but the real purpose is to force the Senators to take a public stand.
Trump has promised to veto any name changes, but a.) he will be under tremendous pressure from the entire donor class and Republican establishment and b.) I doubt McConnell would have allowed the committee to vote for it if he didn’t think he had a veto-proof majority. Its possible that public scrutiny and local pressure could get some to change their minds, but I suspect the fix is in. The army general staff are open cultural progressives who have been hinting at such actions for a long time, and its been obvious that the Republican Establishment and donor class have been hostile to the party’s Southern support base for an even longer time-they weren’t just appeasing a Leftist hate mob back in 2014, they were eagerly using it as an opportunity.
The bottom line is that Southerners who don’t submit to the cultural persecution will basically became the modern version of 19th century Irish immigrants or 1950s gay people, except with an all-encompassing propaganda network to enforce the demonization and cultural stigma. Prepare yourself emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually (on that last, I’ve been immersing myself in friendly black conservative political vlogs to guard against my rage at BLM and their support base from leading to dark tribal feelings).
I should be more up on my “voice vote” procedures, but is it correct that only two of the above have to cross-over assuming the Dems vote along party lines?
Good question, my understanding is that a majority of Republicans listed voted for it, but it could be a misunderstanding on my part.
I don’t know either. I’m thinking there’s one more Republican on the committee, which would require two crossovers, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be more than two.
Oh my goodness! That is rather funny.