I sometimes wonder when I see the Flag of The Confederacy if those who display it do so because of a sense of having lost something that they never really knew. I have friends who would sooner eat worms than utter a racial epithet, but they fly that old flag not because they are bigots, but because they have heard anti-bellum stories their entire lives and they yearn for those days when Dixie was a special place full of charm and grace and quiet dignity. Only for a few Many feel that the south was ransacked unjustly by northern carpetbaggers after the war and families who never embraced slavery were stripped of their homes and their land simply because of where they lived. I truly do not see bigotry in every person who flies that flag, but I fully understand how the flag affects people who's ancestors were dragged here in chains to spend their entire lives at hard labor lucky to have clothes on their back, clean water to drink and meager food to eat. I would have a hard time looking up at that flag flying over the capital of my state were I the great grandson of a slave. There's good and bad in everything. This is just one more example of that.
B B
A lot of wisdom there, BB.
Never mind my education but I have some credentials in history. Books have been writtten on why the Civil War happened, not about the battles themselves. I believe you are right when you ponder how many folks flying the Confederate flag today have any idea of history or probably they're assigning their own significance and meaning to that piece of cloth. Extreme case in point is the KKK. It's humorous to me to see so many of my fellow native southerners identifying with it as though they would (surely) have been one of the relatively few extremely wealthy planters who had a tremedous economic stake in slavery. The chances are far greater that their ancestors were dirt poor sharecroppers themselves. Never invited to sip mint julep on the porch of the ante bellum home.
By the numbers for most people of the south at the time of the Civil War, there wasn't much grace or dignity. Far more dirt poor white sharecroppers than rich "Gone with the Wind" types. The promise of one day owning land themselves earned from working the plantations, an empty hope in their native England, Scotland and Ireland, kept them in the Confederate military after Jefferson Davis bowed to political pressure from the wealthy few early on (early 1862, I think) and removed any obligation for military service from slaveowners or the families (sons) of slaveowners. None of the sharecropper Confederate soldiers marched off to death, disease and destruction to keep slaves in chains for moral purposes--they did it for the hope of one day owning their own farms. They needed the system to continue for them to do that. In retrospect, there really isn't much difference since slavery was a fundamental component of the southern agricultural economy. And yes, after the war, the South was decimated economically and many opportunistic northerners, (crooks) took advantage of martial law and desperation to further rape the citizenry, former slaveholder or not. Evidence of that resentment is slowly meltinig away, but it's still evident.
Slavery was a a horrible evil institution that had to end, but like most other national conflicts, it was more about money than morals--
to those people at that time. Essential to remember that last part. Also important to remember that the Southern economy provided the money to run the still young (less than 100 years) US of A. It never works when one faction provides the money for another, more controlling faction who then gets to spend it as they alone wish.
And important to remember that in any conflict, history is written by the winners. You have to more serious research to get the rest of the story.
It's also important to remember in understanding the Southern psyche, that the Southern states are the only part of the nation that's ever lost a war, ever been invaded by an enemy military that did outrageous things to civilians, and ever been subjected to a victorious occupation army when the war was over, continuing to do outrageous things to civilians.
But back to the flag. Just inland from the beaches and condos is the South Florida few ever see. Vast horse and cattle farms. Vegetable and citrus groves. Agriculture is still huge. A lot of those folks (young guys in particular) fly the Confederate flag on their pickup trucks and they're not promoting slavery. They have a false memory of southern history and an invented regional pride that they have attached to the flag. Pretty harmless, really, except to the transplanted northeasterners who instantly figure that those guys are violent racists burning crosses every weekend. Another ridiculous sterotype.
Lots of stereotypes to keep fighting the Civil War.
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Topic: Myrtle Beach Lawsuit (Read 14472 times)