The Confederate Flag: History, Not Heritage

     We Southerners, both those of European descent and those of African descent, have such a rich heritage. We are renown for our Southern hospitality. We make the best goddamned cornbread to ever grace a plate. Our ghost stories and haunted legends have been handed down in our families for generations. Many of our families practice photographing our dearly departed in their caskets (I've been told by Northerners that this is just weird and creepy!) We come together when tragedy befalls a family in our community or our community, as a whole. We take a covered dish to a family that lost a loved one. We take a plate to the elderly shut-in widow next door after a cook out or holiday dinner. We love our county fairs. Our heritage includes music, fishing, hunting, our great Southern cooking, family reunions, recording family histories in the family bible, respecting our elders, our lyrical accent, the way we turn a phrase, and setting city folks up for a "snipe hunting" trip. Our heritage includes the kind, the benevolent, the comical and the quirky. Southern heritage belongs to black Southerners as well as white Southerners. I could write an encyclopedia about our Southern heritage and never say a damned word about that flag.

     Many years ago, before I got a few more years of wisdom under my belt, but still old enough that I should have known better, I had been a "heritage not hatred" proponent. In the process of the exchange of ideas with the people I met on the internet, I came to realize just how hurtful that battle flag is to my brothers and sisters of color. Not only was it symbolic of a war to keep them enslaved as livestock, but the stubborn refusal of the "heritage not hatred" camp to give validation to that pain, because doing so would mean the flag had to go, screamed "We don't care how it makes you feel. How WE feel is more important." For the role that I, at one time, played in that, I am deeply, sincerely sorry and ask forgiveness for my stupidity at that time. The fact that I bore no hatred is not an excuse for my insensitivity. 

      I think that this tragic racist, terrorist attack on nine innocent people in Charleston, SC, and the aftermath in its wake, have changed many more hearts, including many in the "heritage not hatred" camp. The fact that this flag was resurrected from the dustbin of history during the 1960s, in defiant response to the Civil Rights Movement, desegregation, and the Supreme Court taking action on Jim Crow laws all over the South was brought to the awareness of those of us who were too young to know this. The shedding of light upon the hateful words of the man who designed the flag, which made it clear that the symbolism of the flag was intended to represent the South's belief that the slaves were an "inferior race" and that the primary reason for establishing the Confederacy was to ensure the continued enslavement of those of African descent and a continuing system of White Supremacy, was also brought to our attention and could not be ignored or explained away.

      The fact is that, in large part, the South continued to openly practice systems of both Apartheid and economic slavery, by way of the enactment of Jim Crow laws, laws that enabled slavery through peonage, and laws designed to disenfranchise black voters, right up to the 1960s, when federal rulings invalidated those laws and criminalized those practices in response to those who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, many of which, both black and white, gave their lives in the fight for justice and civil rights. It was in response to that righteous endeavor that this hateful flag was brought out of museums and planted atop state houses and hoisted at KKK rallies in a symbolic "fuck you" to people of color and those who supported them in their fight for equality. And that, my friends, is essentially what that flag continues to say.

     I would ask any who still support "heritage not hatred" to consider my words, digest the facts that have been brought forward recently and re-examine their heart before continuing to support this hateful flag or dismiss the feelings of the descendants of those who suffered under that brutal system of complete oppression. Being able to accept new information that challenges your previously held beliefs is the hallmark of a truly open mind that is capable of further growth. Being able to admit when one is wrong is one of the hallmarks of a good character. Were it up to me today, it would be marched right past the dustbin to the nearest trash can. It's history. It's ugly and disgusting history. That one war is part of our history. Our heritage is not that one war...and our heritage is not that flag.

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• Slavery Vs. Peonage
• Slavery Revisited: Peonage in the South
• Wikipedia article with info on peonage in the South 
• The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, by PBS
• Civil Rights Movement
• Some of the many Martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement
• Desegregation - With All Deliberate Speed
• CNN - Confederate Battle Flag: Separating Myth from Fact

First Post! A Short Tale of Devotion to Two States and of Personal Evolution.

Greetings internet travelers, family, and friends. 

This is my first post to my new blog, so it will be brief. I am a 50-something grandmother, a divorced mother of two grown sons, a daughter of two loving parents and the oldest of two sisters. I practiced as an LPN in three different states for over 25 years. I worked my way through LPN school as a nursing assistant. Prior to that, I was an assistant manager of a fast food seafood restaurant fresh out of high school. I attended high school in Hopkinsville, KY, and graduated in 1980. I completed nursing school in Madisonville, KY in 1982. I consider both Louisville, KY and Clarksville, IN my home towns.

I have two states that I call "home" - Kentucky and Indiana. I am actually a Hoosier by birth and currently live on the Indiana side of the river. I've lived most of my life in Kentucky. Both sides of my family are multi-generation Kentuckians. My paternal grandparents moved to Clarksville when my father was a young boy and lived there until the time of their deaths. Most of my family still lives on the Louisville side of the Ohio River. My father was stationed in Okinawa, Japan when I was born and my mother lived with her parents in Louisville but she chose to have me in Clark Memorial Hospital on the Indiana side of the river. Just giving a little history to explain my devotion to both states. My blog will focus on political issues in both states and the country at large, with a few posts on history, genealogy, family, and community events thrown in for good measure.

You may have deduced, given the title of my blog, that I am a liberal. You would be correct in that assumption. I did spend most of my life as a "Reagan Republican" and I come from a very long line of Republicans. Most of my family are still Republicans. My parents taught my sister and me to think for ourselves and to consider opposing views with an open mind. I tease my dad about that. If he had not taught us to be so open-minded, I would still be a Republican. I want to point out to my fellow liberals that neither of my parents are extreme in their conservatism. I actually suspect my mom may be left of center, but she has always secretive about her activity in the voting booth. I know that my father doesn't hesitate to cross party lines when he feels the Republican candidate is not well suited for the office. My father sincerely hoped that President Obama would be a successful president, even though he did not vote for him. We disagree upon whether he has been a successful president or not, but he never hoped for President Obama, or the country, to fail. He is also a fan of President Obama's public speaking skills, even if he doesn't agree with him on the content of those speeches. My father is the man who taught me, at a very young age, that bigotry and intolerance are wrong. When I embraced Paganism, he responded with tolerance and respect for my faith. I expected no less. He was very disturbed by the bigotry directed toward Muslims in the wake of 9/11. My daddy is a good man, even if we do lock horns over politics. He certainly does not fit the current stereotype of extreme right wing conservatives. I don't like stereotypes, especially when applied to my family, so I thought I would explain the conservative side of my family at the outset.

I ask those who visit to take into consideration that the ideological shift I experienced does not come out of thin air, nor does it happen overnight. This was a long, careful thought process that involved research, soul-searching, more research, deliberation, discussions and debates with both liberals and conservatives, and re-evaluation of my social and political beliefs. When I completed that process, I emerged on the other side a liberal. I ask the reader to approach my blog with an open mind, as well.

I will end this first post with a most appropriate quote by a fellow Louisvillian.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. - Muhammad Ali

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/wasted.html#SEj9QqewyuLst3xU.99