Heritage as Hate

Today we are going to take a break from statistics and talk about history.

For those of you who don't know, I am from South Carolina. Unfortunately, my state has once again found itself in the spotlight, and as any Southerner knows, spotlights draw out the bugs. Well, a couple of those bugs have bit me in sensitive areas, so now I gotta scratch:

"The Confederate Battle Flag is about Heritage not Hate!"

Except the heritage IS hate. Absolutely NOTHING about the CSA, the Army of Northern Virginia, or any other aspect of that flag's abominable history is about anything other than hate. I honestly don't know if any of my ancestors died in that war, because I have always been too embarrassed and afraid to ask. I don't know how I would deal with that black mark on my family's name.

Is there anyone today who would say that the descendants of SS troops, concentration camp guards, the "Young Turks" of the 1920's, or any other government group that was actively enslaving and killing human beings based on their race should be "proud" of that part of their heritage? Or should they rightly condemn that heritage, acknowledge it for the evil that it was, admit that their ancestors died defending evil, and work towards ensuring that racist, genocidal evil is never allowed to take root in their homelands again?

The only legitimate place for the symbols of hatred are in museum displays that fully articulate that what the symbol stands for was wrong. Tell why it was wrong, tell why it was allowed to happen, and explain why we can not condone the actions, the symbols of the actors, and the ideology behind the symbols themselves.

"The Civil War was about States Rights, not Slavery!"

Umm..ok...partial credit on this one. The Civil War was indeed about States' Rights. However, the only rights that any of the Southern States cared about were the rights to keep slaves and the right to pursue fugitive slaves into states that did not allow for slavery.

South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession 

The link above goes to the entire document that was drafted and approved by the SC Convention on Secession in April, 1860.

Here are some choice quotes for you:

" ...all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. "

 "This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons, who, by the Supreme Law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its peace and safety."

"The Guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy."

No where in that document does it mention any other "right". It repeatedly decries the efforts of those in the Free States to increase the freedoms held by free blacks to include the rights to vote and own property.


This is the real history of that flag. This is the real reason for the Civil War. Why are so many Southerners struggling to hold onto a past that never was? Scarlet O'Hara was never real. There were no good slave owners. The African-Americans who served the Confederate Army were almost all slave laborers, or camp aides for their masters.

"Way down yonder in the Land of Cotton, Lord how times have changed,
But I wonder if the truth is marching on.

It's hard to be a Southern man and learn your history,
Cause it comes back and hits you close to home."
- Corey Smith "Goodbye Dixie"

It is time, way past time, really, that we admit what happened 150 years ago in America. It's time we admit that symbols have meanings, otherwise they wouldn't be symbols. It's time to go to work and change what the perception of being "Southern" means.

It's time to take that flag down.