The Secesh category archive

Excerpt from Ken Burns’s statements:

The main American theme, I think, is freedom. But we also notice that race is always there. . . .

And we struggle with it. We try to ignore it. We pretend, with the election of Barack Obama, that we’re in some post-racial society. And what we have seen is a kind of reaction to this. The birther movement, of which Donald Trump is one of the authors of, is another politer way of saying the N word. It’s just more sophisticated and a little bit more clever. He’s ‘other.’

What’s actually ‘other’ and different about him? It turns out it’s the same old thing. It’s the color of his skin.

Via Raw Story.

Steven M reflects on the New Confederate Party.

The “conservative”–er–“movement” strips off its disguise.

George Fitzhugh would be so proud.

Afterthought:

No doubt hasty attempts will be made to replace the mask and pretend that there’s nothing to see here move along now.

Unreconstructed rebels resort to the I know I am, but what are you? defense.

The boys are rallyin’ around the flag (emphasis added):

Dozens of Confederate flag-flying vehicles and supporters lined the sides of North Main Street during a rally in support of the cloth Saturday at the Sutherlin Mansion — where speakers spread a message of love and peaceful protests.

No self-awareness. No self-awareness whatsoever.

More tales of love and peace at the link.

In this case, the play is Straight Outta Compton, which seems to be catching a lot of consciences.

Separate and unequal, still a thing: The Tampa Bay Times tells one story of re-segregation in the present.

In just eight years, Pinellas County School Board members turned five schools in the county’s black neighborhoods into some of the worst in Florida.

First they abandoned integration, leaving the schools overwhelmingly poor and black.

Then they broke promises of more money and resources.

Then — as black children started failing at outrageous rates, as overstressed teachers walked off the job, as middle class families fled en masse — the board stood by and did nothing.

Follow the link for the rest of the story.

Via Rubber Hose.

God forbid that they should relinquish their emblem of treason heritage.

Attorneys for a Southern heritage group are urging members to resist a recall of now-banned Virginia license plates with an image of the Confederate battle flag.

More rising again at the link.

Unreconstructed frolics.

Monumental doings down the road a piece.

What puzzled me most about this story in my local rag is why, in the print edition (yes, we subscribe to the print edition; we believe in supporting our local rag–it’s not perfect, but, all-in-all, it’s a pretty good rag), the Sons of Confederate Veterans was referred to as a “Vets’ Group” on the overrun page.

“Vets” of what? Of the war to preserve chattel slavery, to keep persons in bondage, to steal the labor of others because of the color of their skin?

Dollars to doughnuts not a one of them lifted a weapon in that war.

Or is “Vet” newspeak for “Secesh”?

Words fail me.

Watch what they do, not what they say.

Wayne Curtis ruminates on the statue of General Robert E. Lee that graces downtown New Orleans and the discussion over whether it should be removed to a different location. A snippet:

Not surprisingly, there has been considerable resistance. As of this week, nearly 20,000 people had signed a petition at change.org calling on the mayor to “cease and desist any and all talks that involve the demolition and re-naming of the Robert E. Lee historical monument.”

Others have invoked the slippery slope argument—if you rename this monument, where do you stop? New Orleans may not be a celebration of the confederacy, but it’s marbled with it, like gristle. There’s the Beauregard monument at the entrance to City Park, not far from the Jefferson Davis Parkway. There’s Palmer Park, named after minister Benjamin Morgan Palmer, who gained some fame for declaring it the duty of the south “to conserve and to perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery as now existing.” And there’s Calhoun St., named after John C. Calhoun, who once said that “we have never dreamed of incorporating into our union any but the Caucasian race. … Ours, sir, is the government of the white race.” How far down are the shadows cast? Should the highly regarded Isidore Newman School be renamed because its namesake once donated to a fund for the Beauregard statue, implicitly hailing the man who defended slavery?

Those who revere symbols must know that, in their reverance, they also revere what the symbols symbolize (for Pete’s sake, that’s why they are called symbols. They symbolize).

Indeed, the very energy with which they attempt to deny that (“The war, suh, was about economics, not slavery”) attests that, on some level, they do in fact recognize it and the hypocrisy that attends their reverence.