The Secesh category archive

Badtux cuts through the sophistry about “birthright citizenship.” An excerpt:

Opposition to birthright citizenship by Republicans is often claimed to be about immigration.

It isn’t. This is good ole’ fashioned neo-Confederate pining for the return of slavery.

Follow the link to see why he says that.

The Roanoke Times explores how the Commonwealth of Virginia slanted textbooks to whitewash–you will pardon the expression–slavery. A snippet:

Come 1950, though, Virginia’s political oligarchs — the so-called “Byrd Machine” of U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd – saw signs of change on the horizon, and signs of change meant signs of trouble. Most alarmingly, the federal government under President Harry Truman was starting to promote civil rights, which threatened to undermine the fundamental tenet of Southern politics.

Springston’s story says: “Lawmakers thought that requiring schoolteachers to promote the Byrd organization’s view of history would set students straight and keep teachers from spreading socialist or communist ideas.” Ironically, that’s no different than what the Bolsheviks did when they instituted communism in the Soviet Union — they taught students a different version of history.

(snip)

On the website Politichicks, Eichelman writes: “One former commission member admitted to me that the goal of the seventh grade book was to ‘make every seventh-grader aspire to the colonnaded mansion; and if he can’t get there, make him happy in the cabin.’

These were the textbooks I had when I was in school. I realized by the time I graduated high school that they were–er–slanted (perhaps that’s why I chose to get my degree in history with a focus on U. S. Southern–as a rebellion against the attempt to indoctrinate me in bigotry).

My local rag looks back to a time in the recent past, when black folks weren’t allowed on a beach. Here’s a bit; follow the for the rest, and, all the while, remember that there are those amongst us who would happily return to recreate those times.

Around 1905, African American businessman Lem Bright built shelters for bathers on his land near Little Willoughby Bay and Mason’s Creek. It became known as “Lem Bright’s Place” or “Little Bay Beach” and was immensely popular. During one event, more than 2,500 crammed onto the three-acre lot.

(snip)

A year later, most of Bright’s beach buildings were consumed in a mysterious fire. The Guide reported that it was likely set by disgruntled whites. The story also said the arsonists were probably among those who appeared at a zoning meeting and shut down African Americans’ requests to rebuild.

We don’t educate your kind here.

Elie Mystal takes exception to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that states cannot ban partisan clothing at polling places. As a side note, the item in question was a “Gadsden Flag” tee shirt; despite the Gadsden Flag’s roots in the Revolutionary War, it has become an ensign of the new Secesh.

A snippet (follow the link for the rest):

The ruling came down 7-2, and perhaps the margin was a bit of a surprise, but the First Amendment arguments made by the majority are not. It’s entirely consistent with majoritarian First Amendment views that white people can harass and intimidate black people — especially black people who dare to try to vote — in a myriad of ways as long as they don’t get physical.

(snip)

. . . I’ve been to Mississippi and I know what black people have to go through in order to exercise their franchise.

Virginia offers Gadsden Flag license plates. I recall discussing them with someone once.

We agreed that they performed a service, in that that notified others that persons driving vehicles so adorned were likely–oh, never mind.

Patrick Rael discusses the theatrical you will pardon the expression white-washing of the Old South.

Thom stops a caller who tries to make excuses for American chattel slavery, then the bondage of usury.

Speed Trumps in the parking lot.

A white man in Georgia was arrested after he was caught on camera going off on a profane, racist tirade against a black teacher in a shopping center parking lot.

(snip)

The video begins with Stover accusing DeKeyser of “calling me a n*gger for no reason.” DeKeyser responds by saying, “Yes, because I knew it would get a f*cking rise out of you, because you’re acting like one!”

In his Facebook post about the incident, Stover said that he believed DeKeyser was carrying a handgun in his pocket — and that he was trying to bait Stover into physically attacking him so he could then shoot him and get away with it thanks to Georgia’s “stand your ground laws.”

Writing at Raw Story, Chauncey Devega explores the fealty of many white folks to the Stars and Bars and all it stands for. He minces no words.

A nugget:

The Republican Party, as I have contended on many previous occasions, is America’s largest white identity organization. From the racist backlash against the civil rights movement to the election of Donald Trump, the Republican Party has betrayed the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and is now fully the torchbearer for Jefferson Davis and the heirs of the Southern slaveocracy.

Speaking as one who grew up under Jim Crow, whose ancestors “held” (as the saying went) slaves and wore the grey, and who did not figure out why the local health center had four bathrooms and two water fountains until much later than he should have, I urge you to read the whole thing.

A letter-writer to the Raleigh News and Observer spots a false equivalence.

Solomon Jones finds it–let’s see–willfully blind that in the face of a lifetime of Donald Trump’s racist behavior some persons are only just now discovering Donald Trump’s racism. He suggests that those who do not speak out against the Trumpling are ipso facto complicit in it. A snippet:

In truth, Trump’s racism is profoundly American, because America is a racist country.

Racism built America’s wealth through brutal African enslavement. Racism supported the subjugation of black sharecroppers after the Civil War. Racism drove home the Jim Crow laws designed to create a permanent black underclass. Racism was enforced through state-sanctioned violence carried out by lynch mobs and police.

That is the true history of race in America, and in some ways, not much has changed. If we are ready to face that truth as a country united for justice, we can move forward. But if America continues to paint racism as a figment of black peoples’ fertile imaginations, our country will never change.

Another Southern myth, busted.