My wife tells me I'm not a true Southerner, and she might be right. I grew up and lived most of my life in Texas. In Texas schools, and Texas in general, we don't dwell on the fact that we joined 10 other states to fight a war to secede from the United States. You do see a few folks with the Stars and Bars in east Texas -- east of an imaginary line from Dallas to Houston -- but for the most part, Texans think of themselves as, well, Texans, and really don't think much of the War Between the States.
Thus, I'm sure my wife is right. But I just gotta comment on the possibility of "Confederate History Month."
Hmmm, let's see what will be studied:
- The fact that the "Southern Belle" couldn't exist without slave labor doing all the house work.
- The fact that "Southern Gentlemen" couldn't exist without slave labor working in the fields.
- The fact that the entire "Southern Culture" they are wanting to study and preserve is only possible with slave labor.
- The fact that, in order to preserve slavery, they started a war that became the deadliest war in our history.
10 comments:
The Georgia legislature is pandering to neo-Confederates.
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exhagneo.html
The Univ. of Texas Press has a book on them, the URL is above.
Ed Sebesta
On the surface, it’s easy to dismiss this proposal as racist. You live in Georgia, and I’m sure you have greater access to details of this than I do, but as a student of history I can say that it’s easy to dismiss things in hindsight. We can look back at the Civil War (and Reconstruction) with the knowledge that comes from the benefit of the century and a half that has passed, but the people who lived in those times had a different perspective.
If Confederate History Month is intended only to glorify slavery, then it is worth opposing. But is that all it’s about?
The Civil War was a great tragedy for this country. But I know there were some redeeming features. There were many examples of heroism and sacrifice on both sides. Those are qualities that are worth remembering and honoring.
The absurdity of it all is that "Confederate History" has DOMINATED the study of history in schools here. Unlike Black History Month, which without much would be lost.
David, the entire war -- all the valor, heroism and sacrifice -- was to maintain a way of life that was ONLY possible with a slave-labor economy.
Kyle, I'm not saying that the way of life wasn't made possible by slave labor. And I'm not defending slavery.
I'm merely saying that there were acts of heroism and sacrifice on both sides that should be remembered.
It is important, I believe, to differentiate between the policy makers and the policy enforcers. I opposed the Vietnam War, and I oppose the Iraq War. But the people who launched those wars did not fight them.
It's like an unjust law. The lawmakers don't have to enforce it. It is the job of the law enforcers to do that, whether they agree with the law or not.
Now, if the purpose of this law -- and, as I say, you're in a better position to know this than I am -- is to perpetuate the belief that slavery was good or to rewrite history so that people like George Wallace and Lester Maddox are remembered as heroes for opposing civil rights, then I agree it should be defeated.
I don't live in Georgia and the link you provide gives no details about what would be emphasized.
But I've read many accounts of people who were poor farmers before the war, who owned no slaves yet fought for the South out of a sense of duty to their families, friends and communities.
The reasons for the Civil War were wrong. And we should always remember that.
But, at the same time, I believe many of the sacrifices that were made exemplify the best of the American spirit. We should remember that, too.
The purpose of the law is pandering, as Ed says above, to a despicable base. Go read his link to see what these folks want to foster on the rest of us.
Again, the Southern struggle is told extensively here in Georgia. It might ought to look at establishing an "American History Month" to make sure students here understand fully that story.
In my Womens Memoirs and Fiction class today we talked about racism. There was a mock-umentary recommended by my professor, the title is in my class notes I'll have to find it and send it to you. The film is about if the South had won the Civil War. We were asked to think about how America would be if the South had won... the most obvious is that Obama wouldn't be president today. My observation was that women wouldn't have gone through the suffrage movement, which she said the documentary verified. Also we would've sided with Germany in WW2. The list goes on. I agree that confederate history dominates history classes in middle and high schools in Southern America, it's practically all I remember from history classes. I can tell you more about the battle of Bull Run than I can about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I agree that it is a terrible idea to have a Confederate History month. It is racist. Yes, there are "sacrifices and heroes" on both sides as David said but those "heroes" of the south were the white mans heroes not the heroes of the entire population... blacks, women, Jews, etc.... so were they really heroes? And their sacrifices were made so that other human beings could remain in their control to take care of their white relatives, so that their families could enjoy their lavish lifestyles while others bled and died to tend to their land, watch their children, cook their meals. The whole reason for the Civil War was because of the racism of the South... the people who fought for the South were racist...obviously, that's why they fought for the South and not the North. They were not heroes... they were oppressors. They should not be honored anymore than they already are in our school systems, capitol buildings, or otherwise. We already allow too much representation of the confederacy, we need no more.
It may also be fallacious to suggest that "C.S.A." confirmed anything about whether women's rights would have occurred if the South had won the war. It's been awhile since I've seen the film, but I don't recall that being part of the story.
And I do not recall women's rights ever being mentioned in the accounts I've read about the South and the Civil War. However, I do know that the end of the Civil War did not bring about women's suffrage. Women did not get the vote in America until more than a half a century after the Civil War ended.
Even so, there are heroic stories about women from that time. Some are well known, others are not.
of course it didn't bring about women's rights but if anyone thinks for a second that women would've had rights if blacks didn't they are wrong. Freeing the slaves payed the way for other groups to emerge from oppression... women, immigrants, and now gays and lesbians. It was the first breaking of the white men dominating everyone else.
Lyndsay, that isn't what I said.
I did, however, send a comment prior to that one which Kyle says he never received. So I re-created it but he says he didn't receive that, either. I will now give it a third try.
First of all, the film Lyndsay's professor referred to is called "C.S.A." It was directed about five years ago by a black filmmaker who is, I believe, a professor of film studies from the University of Kansas. I've seen it on the Independent Film Channel, which bought the rights to it, and it is available on DVD. I urge everyone to see it and draw their own conclusions because, from what I remember of it, there seem to be some misconceptions in Lyndsay's original post about the film. Whether those misconceptions originate from Lyndsay or her professor, I do not know.
Also, as a point of fact, a Jew played a significant role in the South, both before and during the war. His name was Judah Benjamin, and he represented Louisiana in Congress, as a senator and, I think, as a member of the House before the Civil War. During the war, he served in three Confederate Cabinet positions -- attorney general, secretary of war and secretary of state. He was well regarded in his day -- twice he was considered for the U.S. Supreme Court but he turned it down both times.
In fact, he plays an even bigger role in the alternate history of "C.S.A." It was Benjamin, in that film, who persuaded France and Britain to be allies with the South, making the South's victory possible. In reality, he was an important confidante and adviser to Jefferson Davis.
In the modern era, Jews and blacks joined forces in the fight for civil rights, but, as the director of "C.S.A." said in an interview I saw, Jews and blacks were not always allies. Benjamin is proof of that. He owned slaves at one time and was sharply criticized in the North because his ancestors had been enslaved.
I would also like to emphasize a point that I made before, about the many poor farmers who fought on the side of the South. It's easy to draw the conclusion from the Hollywood version of the Civil War that one sees in films like "Gone With the Wind" that every family in the South owned slaves, but that is simply not true.
My numbers may be slightly off in this regard, but, of approximately 7 million people in the South, fewer than 400,000 owned slaves. Most of those may have owned one or two slaves, not the vast contingents that one sees in movies. Owning slaves was a luxury that most Southerners couldn't afford. My own family, which has lived in the South for generations, never owned slaves. "C.S.A." even makes the point that a single slave cost as much as a luxury car in modern times.
Now, I'm not saying that many of those poor farmers wouldn't have liked to be rich enough to own slaves -- just as many people today wish they had the resources to live extravagant lifestyles. But the suggestion that hundreds of thousands of poor farmers fought and died to preserve a way of life for the affluent and the privileged is unrealistic. They were mostly motivated by a sense of obligation to their families, their neighbors and their communities.
To contend otherwise shows an absence of knowledge of the facts and an eager acceptance of Hollywood's romanticized version.
OK, David, but you can't escape the fact that regardless of slave ownership or not, the preservation of the South DEPENDED upon slavery, making it morally corrupt, EVEN IN THAT DAY AND TIME. This was a hot issue in drafting the US Constitution. So much so that the Framers decided that in order to give the fledgling Union a chance at survival, it contracted that the US could not address the slavery issue for 50 years. The thinking was that in 50 years, we'd be used to being a Union of States and not separate States, increasing the likelihood of creating a successful and strong nation.
But let's get back to the real thrust of the post: To establish a Confederate History Month is unnecessary as this history is VERY WELL COVERED, especially in the former Confederacy. To argue otherwise is folly. As Ed points out, it is political pandering to the primal base that is built upon racism.
We all hope we are moving past that in the Obama years, and this country can begin to really heal from the self-inflicted racial and political pains we've experienced.
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