Wednesday, 19 January 2000
.....
Oh, great. Bill Clinton weighing in on the side of
righteousness is hardly going to change any minds in South
Carolina about flying the Confederate battle flag over the
state house.
I've been reading
Shelby Foote, and it's interesting how today's flag debate
parallels the slavery debate that led to the Civil War.
On one side, you've got abolitionists who can't see why these
boneheads from the South can't parse such a simple moral
problem, and on the other side you've got white Southern
nationalists who can't figure out why these Yankees won't stop
sticking their noses into other people's business.
That's why the flag supporters look blank when you ask them,
"What about the heritage of black Southerners?" As far
as they're concerned, the War Between the States was just an
early example of the federal government attempting social
engineering by confiscating private property (aka black
folks).
I think one point that's missing from most analysis is that
the flag-supporters aren't sticking up for abstract principle.
The really ardent ones, followed by vast hordes of
sentimentalist rednecks, consider any disparagement of the
battle flag to be a personal insult against their kinfolk.
They can name their relatives who died in The
Wah.
Since they look on it as a personal feud between their
families and the Invading Other, they really don't see where
black people get off having an opinion on the matter.
It's like the prayer-in-school people. As far as they're
concerned, everybody in a Southern town OUGHT to be a Babdist
or other fundamentalist -- at worst, a Methodist -- so the
matter is a clearcut case of Us against Them, them being the
heathen federal judges. The idea of religious dissenters
having any legitimate right to live in a Southern community
hardly occurs to them.
See also Take Down the Rebel Flag <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/81>
This is Clinton says Confederate flag should come down <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/87>