First, I'm happy to report that the dean and the chapter of
the Episcopal Church USA’s National Cathedral along with the bishop of the
Diocese of Washington, D.C., announced this week (on 12 September) that they will be removing
two windows of two panes each honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and
Stonewall Jackson, complete with Confederate flags, from their installation in
the walls of the cathedral. The windows,
paid for by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, were installed in
1953. The announcement stated
unequivocably that these windows do not represent the values of the Episcopal
Church and should be removed immediately, deconsecrated, and stored out of
sight until further disposal is decided.
Good for you, bishop, dean, and chapter, and thank you. I say that as an Episcopalian, as an
American, as a Terran, and as a child of the Universe.
Looking at the matter objectively and without prejudice,
bereft of the late war and postbellum revisionism that is the foundation of the
mythical Lost Cause to which were more myths were later added by the
neo-Confederate school of 1890-1930, there is no question whatsoever that the
Confederate States of America, the Confederacy, was established to maintain and
to further propogate a socioeconomic political system of plantocracy based on
the life enslavement of African and Afro-American men, women, and children.
But rarely do humans look at history objectively and without
prejudice, else American history books would relate that the Union, the states
not part of the Great Secession, fought to maintain and to further propogate
imperial capitalism, and to keep the Southern states as both a source of raw
materials and a domestic market for manufactured goods.
Neither set of leaders had pure motives. Karl Marx, who wrote numerous articles in
support of the Northern cause, was quite well aware of the true motives of its
leaders but deemed the enslavement of humans, especially based on race, to be
more evil than imperial capitalism. As
for the soldiers in the field on both sides who did the fighting and bleeding
and killing and dying, they for the most part fought for the same reasons as
the rank and file of all armies of wars past and present: conscription,
manufactured patriotism, and defence of home, and not home as in homeland but
as in home, family, local area, state in this case.
One element of post-bellum history largely overlooked is the
number of exiled Confederates who fled to other countries in the
aftermath. Confederate colonies arose in
Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Cuba, Costa Rica, Peru, Venezuela, and Canada, but by
far the largest of all, estimated between ten and twenty thousand, grew up in
the Empire of Brasil. Of all these, only
the colonies in Brasil survived as a distinct entity, today known, by
themselves and their neighbors, as Los Confederados de Brasil. Los Confederados are not divided by race and
are in fact multiracial, with members of the ethnic group showing dominant
physical traits of either Caucasian or African or even Native American ancestry,
sometimes all three, but all clearly mixed.
Even year Los Confederados send a number of their young
people to the Motherland, to the Southern states that were briefly the
Confederacy, usually hosted by a chapter of the Sons of Confederate
Veterans. It is quite an experience to
hear a multiracial group of youth switch from speaking Portugese among
themselves to Southern English, and not just Southern English, but American
English of the Deep South from a century and a half ago complete with an accent
to rival that of Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara.
Speaking of which, author Margaret Mitchell based her
character Melanie Hamilton on her distant cousin Sister Mary Melody, formerly
Mary McCarthy, and her character Rhett Butler on her more famous distant cousin
Doc Holliday. Yes, THAT Doc Holliday, the
best friend of Morgan Earp and his brothers in the Old West. The ancestors of both Mary and Doc, betrothed
until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, came from Ulster.
For Los Confederados de Brasil, Confederate identity does
not represent white supremacy nor the subjugation of one race by another but a
shared history which makes them unique as a people, in their case not one that
includes those across racial lines so much as one in which racial lines have
been completely obliterated. In the same
way, not all those in America who believe with a mythical version of
Confederate history, who cling to symbols of the Confederacy as part of their
heritage and personal identity are white supremacists or bigots or racists.
Contrary to what the Southern Poverty Law Center claims,
membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans is not restricted to those who
can prove direct lineal descent from a former Confederate soldier. In fact, for basic membership a claim is
enough, and that can be through either direct lineal or collateral (uncle,
cousin, even in-law), and there is even an associate membership for those who
have not even that familial relationship.
Furthermore, anyone descended lineally or collaterally from anyone who
received a pension as a Confederate soldier is eligible for full membership,
and there are quite a few Afro-Americans on those rolls.
This is not a plug for the organization; I simply despise
bullshit no matter what its source, even from an organization like the SPLC
with which I am in otherwise wholehearted agreement.
If use of Confederate imagery and/or symbols necessarily makes
one an ignorant bigoted white supremacist, then explaining Canadian Mohawk
Robbie Roberson’s motives for writing the song, “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie
Down” becomes more than a little problematic.
It is, in fact, a coded protest against the Viet Nam War, drawing an
analogy between the poor whites who fought for the Confederacy and the working
class Americans, white, black, Chicano, and Asian, who fought in the jungles of
Southeast Asia.
If you blanketly condemn all use of the symbols, then you condemn
Robbie Roberson, as well as Joan Baez who covered the song. You also condemn Fred Hampton of the Chicago
Black Panthers, who formed the original, pre-Jesse Jackson, Rainbow Coalition
that sprang from their partnership with the Young Patriots of Uptown in Chicago
who rocked the Confederate flag, specifically the battle flag of the Army of
Tennessee, and sang Dixie as their anthemn.
Most of the American subculture which identifies with the
former Confederacy for whatever reason is not racist but tribal, either from
family history or residence. Back when I
was substitute teaching, I did a week subbing for a history teacher at Howard
High School here, the oldest public school in the county and one almost entirely
Afro-American. At the time, the class
was covering the Civil War. I went there
quite excited to share what I had learned of the First Colored Brigade of the
Union Army of the Cumberland stationed in Chattanooga during the
occupation. As I perused their artwork
on the walls outside the classroom interspersed with imaginary letters to or
soldiers and swethearts, however, most identified with the Confederacy. Why?
Because the South was their home.
However, the nature and history of the Confederate
subculture and neo-Confederate mythology lend themselves far too easily to
cooptation by racist, white supremacist, Christian dominionist organizations
like the League of the South, which is the source of the latest racist
ahistorical buzzword, “Anglo-Celtic”. In
addition to penetrate the former branch of the Scottish Nationalist Party in
America, leading to its dissolution by its parent, members of the League of the
South have penetrated all too many Scottish heritage events, often having
tables at Highland Games across the country.
During protests in Ringgold, Georgia, over Roy Barnes
unilateral change of the state flag from its 1950s form with the Army of
Northern Virginia version of the Southern Cross to what it is now, local
advocates of the former flag booed and jeered members of the League of the
South speaking as members of the Conservative Citizens Council so vociferously
that they foled under police guard.
During my single year of membership in SCV, League of the
South penetration of it was mostly confined to the Southern Brigade of the
Georgia Division. Since then, however,
it has taken over leadership of both the Georgia Division and the national
organization, though several pockets of resistance remain. Keeping in mind that personal use of
Confederate symbols do not necessarily constitute an expression of white
supremacism, such display by local, state, or federal government entities does,
in fact, validate that very thing. The
only places Confederate monuments and memorabilia belong are in Civil War
military parks, museums, and cemeteries, just as the only acceptable place for
Confederate cosplay, or for that matter Union cosplay, is at Civil War
reenactments.
If history buffs or Confederate romanticists want to
commemorate former Confederate generals truly worthy of venerable remembrance, erect
monuments and statues to James Longstreet and William Mahone, both of whom
worked hard to build a biracial society in the postbellum South, Longstreet in
New Orleans fighting with Afro-American militia against the Knights of the
White Camelia and Mahone leading the biracial Readjuster Party in Virginia
against the Redemptionist Bourbon Democrats.
Or Irish-American general Patrick Cleburne, who literally risked his
life by proposing to free the slaves, along with their families, and make them
full citizens in return for service in the Confederate army.
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