Posted on 04/21/2005 8:17:08 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
The defining moment of my visit to New Orleans a year ago occurred in a gift shop. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit this, but at least it wasn't the kind that sells feather boas and t-shirts with jazz-playing lobsters. I wasn't a sorority girl nursing my hangover at Café Du Monde during Mardi Gras; I was a tourist visiting what used to be a sprawling, stately slave plantation.
I was busy mulling over that subtly troubling experience, browsing through the gift shop's bookshelves, when I came to a curious array of volumes. The title The South Was Right! jumped out at me first, and it took me a few minutes of thumbing through it to convince myself that it wasn't actually a joke. Stunned, I went down the line, looking in disbelief as each title lamented the once-great Confederacy and the common values it stood for. My favorite item was The Jefferson Davis Coloring Book, which I suspect is perfect for young Dixiecrats of all ages. I bought it just to remind myself that it exists.
I wonder how many parents in Louisiana are reading their children bedtime stories about their heroic ex-president.
It is this experience and others that have made me curious about a sliver of the South that -- apparently -- exists right here in upstate New York. Plenty of students coming back from breaks, sometimes along with their bubbly parents, have driven past a specific abode that has one memorable defining feature. On Route 79, that country road that often takes us home, there boasts a large, proud Confederate flag on the front wall of this particular house. You've probably seen it.
Why here, 200 miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line? That was the question that ricocheted in my mind one night as I drove past; so to find my answer, I pulled over and knocked on the door. Since that moment last semester, I've been chronicling the lives of the family that lives there with a video camera.
I dove in without knowing what to expect. I wasn't the only one, of course. No less than three different professors I pitched this to warned me to "be careful." They all said -- some more jokingly than others -- that I should bring a gun.
It was at this point I realized that I wasn't dealing merely with an outdated symbol of the Confederacy; I was dealing with a powerful and common conception, even among us Ivy League educated, that we are a shining City on a Hill among barren fields of hicks with mullets who watch NASCAR all day and grill roadkill venison on their pickup truck radiators. I finally wanted to find out if these cartoons that we've come to accept as "the other America" really exist.
My grand project to get behind the stereotypes of rural America wasn't off to a great start when the door opened and I came face to face with a man, a mullet and the vicious guard dog he was holding back (but no shotgun). I realized this was going to be a bit more difficult than I'd envisioned.
No matter: He directed me to the house next door, which happened to be the residence of his entire family. Not one of the Cornell professors or friends I'd spoken to would have predicted what happened next -- that I'd be greeted warmly; that I'd be invited in, even as an unexpected guest; that the family would listen to my pitch to follow them around with a video camera; and that they'd send me off, wishing me well.
These people are not white supremacists who love Jefferson Davis and hate minorities, who want to send the all-American middle finger to people with dark skin by putting up the rebel flag. I've spent too much time with them to believe it's true. Otherwise, the daughter of the family -- art school, anti-Bush, dyed hair, goth -- would have been booted onto the street long ago.
At the same time, I've spent enough of my life in Southern states to know that the racist sentiments interpreted as the meaning behind the rebel flag are still alive in some places, even if they are pushed underground. That's true of an enlightened city like New York as much as rural Pennsylvania or Jackson, Mississippi.
But instead of trying to argue that this is not a family of true racists -- which the film will do better than words, and which would rely entirely on my subjective experience -- I return to the question I began with: Why do they have that rebel flag hanging there for all the passing cars to see?
I spoke to them, as well as many people who share their view -- that the Confederate flag symbolizes not slavery but a rebellious spirit, an identity of a people who merely sought to defend their homeland as it was being invaded by a Yankee army. This view was the one I'd stumbled upon in a Louisiana gift shop, peddled by historians far out of the mainstream of academic life.
Yet this view is prevalent among a minority of rural white Americans. They don't care that the big-city elites say it's a symbol of slavery -- and by most scholarly accounts, that's exactly what it is. They've taken the symbol back, as an identity for themselves. Not an identity of hatred, but one of self-assertion.
Even if misguided, I came to respect their choice of home decoration. After all, they'd been told for generations that it was a symbol entirely separate from the question of slavery, without the corrective influence of a Cornell history professor to intervene.
Even so, I can't help but feel a bit off guard whenever I drive past. Not because I know what the flag means, but because I know who lives behind it.
Andy Guess is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at guess@cornell.edu. The Last Boy Scout usually appears alternate Fridays.
Do you know which state it was, and who cast the vote? My guess would be it was Virginia.
My link is to page 2056 of the Congressional Globe for that session in case the link above doesn't work.
In May of 1860 the U. S. Congress passed the Morrill Tariff Bill [named for Republican Congressman and steel manufacturer, Justin S. Morrill of Vermont] raising the average tariff from about 15% to 37% with increases to 47% within three years. This was reminiscent and even higher than the Tariffs of Abomination of 1828 and 1832, which had led to a constitutional crisis and threats of secession and armed force. The vote in the U. S. House of Representatives was 105 to 64. Out of 40 Southern Congressmen only one Tennessee Congressman voted for it. High protective tariffs were always the policy of the old Whig Party and had become the policy of the new Republican Party that replaced it.
Cut the kid some slack. Most Americans in the "real," non-Internet world are entirely unaware of any such controversy. They're probably quite fortunate in being spared all the rubbishy, fallacious, second-hand, interminable arguments. Even on Free Republic, most people aren't paying attention to such threads, or merely respond to them through regional pride, rather than any deeper ideology. Fanatics want to believe that they have stumbled on the deeply buried secret of American government, but the larger part of the population is wise in ignoring arguments that have so little substance or applicablity.
Bump.
it seems reasonable and appropriate that you call yourself, "x" as that is a symbol for the UNKNOWN. in your case it should stand for UNKNOWING & CLUELESS.
free dixie,sw
According to your comments the overwhelming U.S. population are ""DAMNYANKEES", based on the fact hardcore 'neo-confederates' might make up less then 64th% of of 1/4 percentile, if that? Sounds like a tiny group of malcontented nuts, super-glued to the past. Naturally this adverse element is ignored by the majority.
Yeah so? That wasn't the point.
Yeah so? That wasn't the point.
"John S. Preston, Superintendent of the Bureau of Conscription, stated in February 1865 that there were over 100,000 deserters scattered throughout the Confederacy, and compilations from other sources indicate that this estimate is conservative. But as stated previously, figures for desertion only tell part of the story; unfortunately. due to lack of data covering absence other than desertion, the complete tale cannot be told.
There is significant information, however, in a composite tabulation prepared by the War Department from the last returns sent in by the various armies. This compilation shows a total of 198,494 officers and men absent and only 160,198 present in the armies of the Confederacy on the eve of surrender. This figure for absentees includes of course those excused for wounds, sickness and other legitimate purposes, but even so, it is shamefully large. Interpreted most generously. Available evidence is such as to merit the observation that months before Appomattox the Confederacy's doom was plainly written in the ever swelling tide of men who were unpatriotically taking leave of their comrades-in-arms."
For the record Bell Irvin Wiley was professor emeritus of history at Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia) and one of America's preeminent Civil War historians.
I thought it was South Carolina that did that. Now you're changing stories.
Nice :) I se now I'm only a welter-weight in this thing.
Great quotes!
Always glad to see fresh faces. Welcome.
I think old JQA forgot to run that sentiment by his flint-faced Yankee banker first, what do you think?
Saving quote to hard drive. Thanx for the good post.
Yeah, what did he know? LOL!
Sure wish you'd quote somebody at least halfway smart, somebody who really knew something about how the Constitution was supposed to work.
You had a point?
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