The New South is the Old South

After reading the first half of Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz, I've come to the conclusion that I would be fine if the South seceded again.  The book starts out nice enough with the reenactors in Virginia.  These seem like very nice men who look at the Confederacy for the historical aspects of the time.  They are a little weird in real life I'm sure, but they're just trying to relive history and you can't knock them for that; it's their hobby and they're not alone in the activity.  I liked what one of them had to say about why he does the reenactments, this isn't an exact quote but close: "I think we all feel a little guilty in the time we live in, it was harder back then so it makes us feel better if only 48 hours."  I don't know about the whole spooning train thing to sleep (call me "farb" I don't care), but these men are, (along with a few smaller acquaintances of Horwitz) the only people introduced so far who have the right idea of how to remember the Confederacy.  They offend no one, and keep it all about the war not a return to antebellum society.

The deeper South Horwitz goes, the more irritated I became.  The first part that made me apologize for America was the group he met with who was trying to keep the Rebel flag on the South Carolina capitol building.  These were some of the more ignorant people around.  They weren't even from the South, most of the protest leaders were from New England, and a couple were Jews.  The worst of all though was Walt.  Walt invited Horwitz to his home (trailer) to chat.  I would have loved to be there with Horwitz for this encounter.  Walt gets up on his soapbox and just starts off on his prejudiced tangents, including a hatred for Jews.  At this point you can almost see the grin on Horwitz face as he's shaking his head about to inform Walt that he was in fact a Jew.  Even in the reading there's an awkward silence and Walt asks what his last name is, and he responds, "i should have guessed."  That wasn't even the worst part.  Walt spends this whole time trying to convince a Jew about intolerance, and the last thing he brings up completely discredits his entire argument.  Walt decides to tell Horwitz his approach to life and politics: essentially, if the government supports it, I don't.  One of the most ignorant quotes I've ever read in a book.  Walt, I hope you're still somewhere in the Lowlands of South Carolina and haven't met a women willing to bear your seed yet.

South Carolina flag.  Courtesy of 50 States.

The title of this post is no more prevalent than in the chapter of Guthrie, Kentucky/ Tennessee.  You wanna know why the rest of the world hates us?  Look at the scene at Redbone's (the biker bar).  Granted I have no idea what Horwitz was thinking going there in the first place, but the people he encountered there are just a black eye on society.  The only decent one was the owner for not letting Tony get stomped out by that cross faded Harley rider; even then though his name is Redbone and he allows that place to exist to make a buck, so he's not exactly an upstanding citizen.  It's people like them that get me going, they shit on everyone elses cultures, beliefs, etc but once theirs get questioned then that's crossing the line. There's more to swastikas and Confederate flags than being rebellious; rebellious isn't a bad thing but the history of those two symbols isn't something that should be idolized, there's a sad and violent history that follows them.

Sesame street's Bert with a member of the KKK.  Courtesy of Bert is Evil.

The Michael Westerman murder was an interesting chapter.  At first I was sympathetic toward Michael, his family, and the whole situation, but as the chapter went on I began to realize a 19 year old new father was killed and people began using it as propaganda.  The KKK and Aryan Nation got involved and it turned into a money grab.  The family allowed it to happen too.  They turned this kid into a martyr for 130 year old cause.  He never knew the meaning of the flag he flew from his truck; I mean he drove it through a black neighborhood on MLK Day in a town he grew up in, he knew where he was.  His wife (who find more ignorant than him) even said he put the flag up because it made his truck look "sharp."  Every memorial service for Michael the story changed.  Michael went from a naive kid just looking to make his truck look slick, to a Confederate martyr who was obsessed with his old South lineage and for what: money and a PR move.  I'm not condoning whatsoever what Freddie and his friends did to Michael.  They could have dropped it and just let him be an inconsiderate, ignorant teen who was just showing off, or at worse pull him from his truck and beat him up; at least that way no one is dead and no 17 year olds would be serving life in prison. The whole situation is messed up and everyone involved made the wrong decision in how to handle it, including the families and the organizations that showed up to support either side in the case.  No one had to die, no one had to go to jail, but to ignorance and poor decisions someone is.

Confederate battle flag.  Courtesy of usflags.org.

I Don't know why it's been so hard to include minority history into our countries history.  It all happened you can't deny it.  It happened within our borders, why is it trying to be hidden?  I don't blame the whites for this discrepancy all together, minorities could have helped get their history out as well.  The Biddy Mason project was decades too late; the church burnt down in the 1890's and no one made an effort to immortalize her until the mid 1980's.  In a city like LA with a large minority population how did this happen?  It took four white women in 1985-86 to actually get this memorial done.  The absence of black and Indian stories in historic sites across the country is appalling.  Yes it's a violent, shameful history at most of these places, but it happened you can't deny it, there's records of it,  what are you trying to hide?  We are entering a time in which this is changing and I for one am happy and will help to this hopefully with my degree and future career in history.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone in class who read this, with ties to the South.  I know there are great people down South and this is just a small minority of the population.  I'm not trying to say to abandon your roots, culture, or history.  Embrace where you've come from, just know that certain aspects of history can be interpreted different ways by different groups of people and sometimes it's just better to keep your mouth shut.  Black, brown, yellow, red, or white, we all have our own opinions that are important to us, but to keep the peace and keep moving forward we need be aware of the good and bad aspects of our respective histories.