"We Will Not Abandon Richmond"!!!!

The Museum of the Confederacy, which serves as the temple of Neo-Confederates and unreconstructed old school Confederates, is branching out to open a museum at Appomattox. Personally, I look forward to seeing their skewed view of Confederate surrender, i.e., the crushing of their treasonous rebellion in order to own, sell, rape, and kill black people. But what killed me is the link assuring the people of Richmond and Confederate wannabees more generally that "As We Create a System--We Will Not Abandon Richmond."

I love this language--the Museum is simply opening a new flank in the war against reasonable historical interpretation! They refuse to abandon Richmond to the idea that slavery caused the war and that people like Arthur Ashe and Martin Luther King deserve statues alongside Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson! That would be blasphemy!!!!

Blowing Up Neo-Confederate Myths

Edward Sebesta does really wonderful work on his blog "Anti Neo-Confederate." This is the kind of writer that is really undervalued. Working in relative obscurity on incredibly important but rarely discussed issues, he does an invaluable service blowing up neo-Confederate myths.

Today he takes on the myth that in 1928 Congress declared the Civil War, "The War between the States." Even if true, I don't see how this bolsters the neo-Confederate case since dismissing ideas about the Civil War from the 1920s does not seem hard to do. Yet they use this anyway. From Sebesta's characterization of the argument:

"On March 2, 1928, Senate Joint Resolution NO. 41 was adopted by Congress and entered in the Congressional Record. It reads as follows: A war was waged between 1861-1865 between two organized governments: the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. These were the official titles of the contending parties. It was not a "Civil War" as it was not fought between two parties within the same government. It was not a War of Secession, for the Southern States seceded without a thought of war. The right of a state to secede had never been questioned. It was not a War of Rebellion, for sovereign, independent states, co-equal, cannot rebel against each other. It was the War Between the States, because 22 non seceding states made war upon 11 seceding states to force them back into the Union of States"

In any case, Sebesta simply went to the Congressional Record. Low and behold, it's not there. It seems to be a lie. Or at least a misunderstanding. But in any case, it's another neo-Confederate myth that is just that. A myth.

Neo-Confederates for Obama?

I don't even know what to make of this. There can't be that many self-identified Confederates who support Obama. But it is kind of mindblowing.

Via Civil War Memory

Best TIDOS-Related Image Ever

The state of Florida is proposing "Confederate Heritage" license plates. The more enlightened people of America are horrified, including many in Florida. One of them is the cartoonist for the Florida Times, Jeff Parker. Here is his cartoon. The comments in the original post are pretty fascinating and sum up both the idiots who claim that the Confederacy was not about slavery and the rebuttal to that point quite well.

Via Civil War Memory

Historical Image of the Day

Confederate reenactors

Spurrier

An unexpected participant in Treason in Defense of Slavery Month has popped up--South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier. Spurrier came out in favor of South Carolina getting rid of the Confederate flag. Spurrier was upset that when ESPN Gameday was at South Carolina last year, "some clown was waving that dang, damn Confederate flag behind the TV set. And it was embarrassing to me and I know embarrassing to our state." He went on to say, "I realize I'm not supposed to get in the political arena as a football coach, but if anybody were ever to ask me about that damn Confederate flag, I would say we need to get rid of it.

As you can imagine, those who are proud that the South committed treason to defend slavery are outraged. At some blog called, "Rebellion," the writer claims, "That’s the whole point of waging war against the South’s traditional symbols—make people ashamed of who they are, and they’re more easily manipulated by the social reengineers. Which is why we must defend our cultural symbols as passionately as our globalist enemies attack them. Their ultimate target is not our flag, but us."

Yes, that's right. Steve Spurrier is allied with Osama Bin Laden. Of course, this blog also just cried about North Carolina has apologized for slavery, saying "It’s official—our history is something we should be ashamed of." Well, in fact, yes.

Some other moron named Brent writes, "Steve Spurrier - you are a jackass. First of all you look like a girl tennis player with those stupid visors. Wear a normal hat like the rest of the world. Second - get off your politically correct high horse. Evidentaly Steve doesn't like the Confederate Flag. I am a Northerner through and through, but if the people of South Carolina like the flag up there, so be it. I’m fully convinced that you are not offended by it - you are just trying to be politically correct and say what you think people want to hear. Get some balls. Your players must think you are a pussy."

Brent is clearly an example of the idiot racist pro-Confederate northerner polluting American life today. Love seeing those Confederate flags in Ohio or Pennsylvania or where ever he is from.

There are more pro-Confederate commentators on the matter, but they are actually less readable than Brent so I am going to stop here.

I should also note that Spurrier is from the South himself, though it was one of the strongest anti-Confederate areas of the region, upper east Tennessee.

Link of the Day

At Bats Left Throws Right, Doghouse Riley muses on Treason in Defense of Slavery Month. He also points us to the more than disturbing case of Kentucky beauty queen Jacqueline Duty and her Confederate Battle Flag dress. Whoa!

Why Treason In Defense of Slavery Month

There's been a few comments, both here and at other sites, that question the value of Treason in Defense of Slavery Month. These posts claim that focusing on the treasonous aspect of the war mutes the importance of race. Others say that it ignores race at all, particularly northern racism at the same time.

These comments somewhat miss the point. No one is claiming the North was not racist at the same time. But that's not the point here. What I and others are attacking are the myths of the Civil War as a noble "lost cause" that was not about slavery and that slaves were treated well by the South and in fact supported their masters. That mythology has helped prevent a real discussion about the history and impact of slavery in the United States and therefore race relations today. Moveover, these myths have deeply influenced conservatism today, allowing the symbols and myths of the Confederacy to become acceptable and respectable in modern America. Everytime you see a Confederate flag, you see a sign that slavery was OK, even if the person displaying said flag does not even understand what it is for.

As for specifically attacking the treasonous aspect of the conflict, I have two points to make. First, it is an attack on neo-Confederates today who embrace the myth of the Confederacy. These people are saying it was OK to the South to leave the nation in order to defend the institute of slavery. Second, it is an attack on those who say that the Civil War was not about slavery. Of course it was. Any other "reason" not only does not have proper evidence to back it up, but it also moves us away from pointing to the role of slavery and racism in 19th century America. Also, the idea that whether leaving the Union was treason in the 19th century was still undecided smacks of people believing the rhetoric of Confederates and their descendants. Of course, it was treason, as slaveholder and US president Andrew Jackson knew when he threatened to hang members of the South Carolina elite if they continued with their nullification ideas.

Link of the Day: Old Hickory's Weblog

Along with us and Lawyers, Guns, and Money, no one has done more to attack the Confederate myth during Treason in Defense of Slavery month than Old Hickory's Weblog.

Now in his fourth year of attacking the Confederacy during the month of April, Bruce Miller, the writer, has taken the wise strategy of focusing on different issues each day.

Among his best posts so far:

April 9, the myth of the "War Between the States"
April 5, "The Lost Cause as a Living Ideology"
April 2, On Christianity and Slavery

But really, just read them all.

And also check out an explicitly anti-neo-Confederate blog Bruce points us to, well, Anti-Neo-Confederate

Book Review: Bruce Levine, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War

This is the second in my series of book reviews on slavery, the Civil War, and the South in commemoration of Treason in Defense of Slavery Month. Here is the first.

At the heart of neo-Confederate mythology is that slavery was not at the heart of secession. These people argue that the South revolted to resist northern capitalist oppression. Concomitant to this is the idea that most slaves were happy in the Old South and that slave owners treated their human property well. As evidence for this, you will occasionally see the supposed legions of slaves ready to fight for the Confederacy trotted out. So I was quite curious when I discovered Bruce Levine's 2006 work Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War. I really didn't know what to expect. It is published by Oxford, so I assumed a certain quality, but the title doesn't give away much about where Levine stands.

In fact, Levine's strategy is a good one because he musters a massive amount of evidence to show what I think we all already believe: 1) Almost all Confederates opposed arming slaves for any reason until the very end of the war, 2) Nearly every slave who could do so escaped slavery at the first opportunity, and 3) The "freedom" that slaves were promised for fighting was going to be taken away as soon as possible.

While some Confederate officers suggested freeing slaves in exchange for military service as early as the end of 1863, they were few and were silenced by the Davis administration and top military brass. The Richmond Examiner suggested that the idea was "opposite to all the sentiments and principles which have heretofore governed the Southern people (p.2). President Pro Tempore of the Confederate Senate Robert M.T. Hunter of Virginia put it best when he said, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property (2)." And Tennessee's Henry Foote said, "If this Government is to destroy slavery, why fight for it? (3)"

This is what I don't get about Confederate apologists. The Confederates themselves said they went to war to protect slavery. After the war, they changed their story. But all you have to do is read what they said before and during the war to see exactly why they went. At least Hunter and Foote were honest, which is more than you can say about Confederate apologists today.

Anyway, as the Confederates became more desperate, they turned to arming slaves. Robert E. Lee called for it in February 1865 and in March, Jefferson Davis signed into law a bill inducting hundreds of thousands of slaves into the army. Interestingly, the slaves had to come voluntarily and could not be drafted. The reason--the Confederate Congress would not pass a bill that provided for enforced emancipation. They wouldn't take anyone who's master had not explicitly freed them. Until the very end, the Confederacy would not free slaves. How anyone can question the notion that the Civil War was about slavery is beyond me.

Some slaves did put on the Confederate uniform. And nearly all of them defected to the Union at first opportunity. In addition, thousands of slaves flocked to Union armies to free their people. What's great about this story is that slaveholders believed their own rhetoric about their slaves being loyal. They were shocked that their benevolent treatment of slaves did not ensure loyalty. After all, what's a few whippings and a little rape? They simply could not believe that African-Americans found the closest Union soldiers and put themselves under their care. They actually expected that the slaves would fight for the Confederacy proudly. So why not give them guns? They won't turn them against us! Uh, no. Importantly, Levine points to the agency of blacks fleeing the plantations for Union lines as a key event in the decline of the Confederacy. The loss of slaves killed both plantation agriculture and Confederate morale. While the Union deserves the bulk of the credit for defeating the Confederacy, Levine shows us that the actions of individual slaves helped accelerate the demise of the slave power.

And what about the Confederates freeing the slaves? Sure, they gave the slaves "freedom" in exchange for their service. What did they intend after these slaves helped the Confederacy turn back the North? The nation in fact found out in 1866. They wanted to implement what became the Black Codes. The slaves were to be given freedom only in the most nominal sense. While their marriages would be recognized and perhaps they would be allowed to learn to read, blacks still had to be employed by whites, corporal punishment could be used, and "vagrancy" was punishable by law.

Levine also usefully discusses the origins of the Lost Cause myth. He shows that it started immediately after the war. Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens denied that slavery had anything to do with the war. As early as 1867, ex-slaveholders started invoking the myth that they got along beautifully with blacks before the war and that race relations would have processed dandily had the North not interfered. That continued for a century, promoted by Confederate sympathizers in the decades after the war. By the 1890s, the new historical profession, led by people who fully imbibed in the pro-Confederate ideas of the time, placed these ideas in their books, creating the historical narrative for race relations and the Civil War until the 1960s.

Confederate Emancipation is really a first-rate work. It's short and well-written. The argument is strong and the evidence is plentiful. Moreover, Levine found a key gap in the historiography. His work should guide historians on the topic of Confederate emancipation plans for at least a generation.

Georgia - the good times keep coming...

Erik usually deals with material on Georgian racism. However, I'd like to add the latest item in the rich "legacy" of Georgia's racism in the wake of this, this, this, and this. Over the weekend, Georgia citizen Newt Gingrich commented that bi-lingualism, particularly Spanish, in the U.S. was the "language of living in a ghetto". I presume that he's not actually referring to a Jewish ghetto in Eastern Europe from World War II, but instead to the poor, inner-city, predominantly African-American neighborhoods in the United States (though I imagine he's spent as much time in the African-American ghettos as he has in the Jewish ghettos of Nazi Europe). Thus, he manages to single-handedly and racistly deride both Spanish and African-American languages and cultures.

Southern Music and the Confederacy

To honor April as Treason in Defense of Slavery Month, I will be running a series of posts on the Civil War, the Confederacy, and neo-Confederates.

I want to start out with a discussion of this poster, made for the country/metal musician Hank Williams III by Art Schmuck.

The image takes an old picture of Robert E. Lee, puts a Jason-style hockey mask thing on him, and has him holding the decapitated head of William Tecumseh Sherman.

The use of Confederate imagery in southern music has roots that began at least with Gram Parsons in the late 1960s and became famous with such 1970s artists as Lynard Skynard and David Allen Coe. For many of them, the Confederate flag was fairly disembodied from its racist roots, though all of this music was clearly made for white people. As Patterson Hood has pointed out, the flag and the southern identity was clearly misunderstood by the fans of these bands. However, I'm not sure that I agree with Hood on this point. I think perhaps the bands misunderstood, or perhaps their use of this imagery was overthought. Anyway, the fans knew what the flag meant and they were proud of it. It stood for white supremacy at a time when blacks were exercising their long-fought for civil rights.

As annoying as the Confederate flag is in these bands' identity, Hank III has taken it to a whole new level with this poster. I'm not surprised that Hank has done this. His whole thing is about taking the rebellion in country and southern rock music and stepping it up a notch. In fact, it's hard to believe that Hank is a southern boy because his attempts to identify himself as one are so hamfisted and heavy-handed that you begin to question whether he actually believes it himself.

In any case, onto the poster itself. The Lee image is iconic and many of the people who purchased that poster no doubt know where it comes from. Even if they don't, the artist and Hank III certainly do. By giving Lee that mask, they make connections between the Confederacy and terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. While the actual imagery may be different than the KKK, using the horror movie theme impresses upon viewers that Confederate leaders were as tough as Freddy Kruger and Jason and that anyone who gets in their way will be crushed like roaches. Of course, in reality the people this terror was turned upon was not Sherman or other Union leaders but African-Americans who escaped the horrors of slavery only to face a southern white populace determined to destroy all vestiges of black freedom and personal dignity. As Sherman played such a large role in freeing the slaves, the decapitation of him also serves as a decapitation of all he stood for, including the ending of slavery.

For many Southerners, William Tecumseh Sherman stands as the epitomy of Northern evil. How dare he come and destroy our homes? After all, what had we done? Well, other than cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, enslaved black people for over 200 years, and then broke up the union to defend that practice. Sadly, the image Hank gives us here is all too typical of how the war is remembered. Popular culture sees the Confederacy as paradoxically both the victims and victors of the conflict, while Sherman is the ultimate enemy. In some ways though, perhaps Hank and the other purveyors of neo-Confederate ideology are right. Maybe the South did win the Civil War in their way. They certainly won the battle for memory and it took another 100 years for African-Americans to have civil rights in this country.

There is no room for the story of African-Americans in this visual narrative. In fact, I wonder whether for Hank and others like him who claim to love black music, if African-Americans have any value for them except as cultural artifacts. Certainly their stories do not get told in this music.

Is Hank III a racist? I really don't know. I suspect he would never admit to it. I'm sure we'd hear the "I have lots of black friends" arguments. But by promoting images like this, he has played his part in promoting racism and has built another brick in the wall of neo-Confederate romanticization and reinterpretation of the Civil War as the Lost Cause.

Thanks to my friend and occasional commenter on this blog Scott for sending me this image.

Morons, Idiots, and Traitors

I thought I'd see what the Confederate sympathizer reaction is to the John Sims anti-Confederate flag exhibit in Tallahassee is.

It's predictably insane.

Check out Southern Knight. Great name, eh! This "Christian pro-life libertarian" (clearly showing the meaningless of the term "libertarian" today) is upset. After all, he says, "Who decides what being a southerner means ... someone deep in the bowels of the NAACP beast?" Clearly, he means that the people who should decide what being a southerner means are neo-Confederate racist white males. Right on! He goes on, "I am sick and tired of organizations like the NAACP and of people like Sims who insult the south, southerners, and southern culture in order to give themselves a raison d'etre." Sad isn't it? What is a good pro-lynching white guy to do in Florida these days? As for his "Don't Tread on Dixie" flag he has on his site. Might I suggest burning it? Or perhaps dropping it in a vat of pesticide?

The comments to this story at American Renaissance, a blog that seems to be devoted to protecting America's "white heritage" are great too! A couple of first-rate examples:

< style="font-weight: bold;">“Visual terrorism."What I think of when I see four or more young black men wearing certain colors and flashing hand signs walking down the street

Wonder if Sims is Black? They (blacks) are always saying our Founding Fathers are “dead White males” and they were nothing but racists anyway. Typical black “thought processes”.

The official record proves that it was, in fact, the LINCOLN government which was the REAL embodiment of evil, not the South.

Oh boy...

I'm surprised that our old friend Treason in Defense of Slavery Yankee hasn't commented on this yet. Too bad. I miss his ultra-intelligent discussion of American history...

I think I have to shower now. I feel dirty.

Taking It to the Heart of the Beast

I love this art exhibit by John Sims now on display in Tallahassee. He sees the Confederate flag as "visual terrorism" and displays it as such. People in Florida are infuriated.

I'm not going to judge this as art. I don't have that ability. But I can judge its political statement. And I like it. The Confederate flag is a symbol of terror, slavery, and treason. Showing it as such needs to happen all over the nation. The display of the Confederate flag should be considered a treasonous act and punished as such.

Of course the Sons of the Confederate Veterans are pissed. They see the flag as part of their heritage. That is, they are proud that their ancestors owned people based on the color of their skin, killed and raped them at will, and stole their labor for hundreds of years. The commander of the local there, Robert Hurst, calls the display, "offensive, objectionable and tasteless." I would use those same terms to describe any display of the Confederate flag as a symbol of pride. And I would be right.

What I find infuriating is the Florida statute making it illegal to "deface, defile or contemptuously abuse" the Confederate flag. Am I the only person who wants to go to Mississippi, South Carolina, or Florida and start burning Confederate flags on the courthouse steps? That flag should be burned and defiled in all ways.

More at No More Mister Nice Blog. Including the language of the Florida law.

Georgia Again Proves That It Sucks

A Georgia Senate panel has approved a plan to create a Confederate Heritage Month. At the same time, it has no interest in pushing a bill to apologize for Georgia's history of slavery. Moreover, it approved the Confederate Heritage Month unanimously.

How nice.

The bill's sponsor State Senator Jeff Mullins wants to honor ''all those millions of its citizens of various races and ethnic groups and religions who contributed in sundry and myriad ways to the cause of Southern Independence.'' Meaning those millions, of whom approximately 3 were not white, who tore the country in two in order that they could enslave black people. These treasonous Confederates are clearly worth honoring. After all, not only did they leave the union in order to rape and kill blacks with impunity, tear their families apart, and take their labor for nothing, but they also caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans! Go Confederacy!

I think the worst part about this though is Mullins and others having no interest in apologizing for slavery. Mullins says, "If I had done something personally, yes, I would apologize." This is a classic racist argument. Mullins seems to think that he has not benefited from slavery when clearly he, as whites in general have in this nation, has. Of course, there is nothing Mullins could have done about slavery, given that he was born long after the end of the Civil War. However, by not being willing to even support an apology for slavery, Mullins denigrates its history as well as denies the impact of slavery on the history of black-white relations in this nation, and more specifically in Georgia.

What's more, Mullins has done something that he needs to apologize for personally: sponsoring a bill to commemorate racist traitors that tore the country apart in the 1860s. He has insulted African-Americans in his state and throughout the nation. So he's flat out lying when he says he has nothing to apologize for.

Mullins also perpetrates the blacks supported the Confederacy myth. Despite the complete lack of evidence that large numbers of African-Americans sided with the Confederacy, Mullins and Confederate apologists claim that all the slaves who worked for the Confederacy means that it wasn't a racist regime. Of course, almost all of these people worked for the Confederacy out of fear for their lives and because of centuries of coercion. But hey, who needs evidence when you have a half-baked theory to support your present espousal of racism?

Congratulations Jeff Mullins. You win the Jerk of the Day Award. And Georgia, again you have proved you are a disgrace to the nation.