Posted on 08/13/2007 10:27:22 PM PDT by BnBlFlag
Commentary: The Red State-Slave State Connection is all too Real Commentary: The Red State-Slave State Connection is all too Real Date: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 By:
Last week while I was up at Harvard University meeting with black columnists from around the country, including several of my BlackAmericaWeb.com colleagues, Michael Dawson took me to school with his map that shows the overlap between Republican red states and the old Confederacy and slave-friendly territories. Dawson is a professor of government and Afro-American studies who specializes in the ways that race and politics intersect.
I was sold. His map spoke to the things you can’t help but notice when you live in a red state like Alabama – especially if you’re black.
Things like pickup trucks with gun racks and Confederate flag bumper stickers. White teens wearing the Confederate flag on their T-shirts. Statues memorializing old Confederate leaders like Nathan Bedford Forrest. Commemorations of the Confederate dead by state officials, especially speeches in which they maintain that the Civil War – or, as some of them might say, the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression – was fought over state’s rights, not slavery. And predominantly, the people who espouse these things in the red states are white Republicans.
Because Dawson’s map rings so true to me, I expected to hear Alabama’s lone black congressman, Artur Davis of Birmingham, echo his sentiments. “I’m not persuaded by that analysis,” said Davis, a Democrat, during our phone interview last week.
My jaw dropped. Davis is a sharp brother, himself a Harvard grad, who has been dedicated to addressing issues affecting poor blacks in our state. I just knew he’d agree with the map analysis.
Sure, race still influences our politics, Davis explained. However, he believes that cultural conservatism, not race, is the pivotal issue in red states.
“We’ve got to find a way to talk to fiscally and culturally conservative values,” he said. “We have to find a way to move to the center.”
And for Davis, that means that his fellow Democrats and their progressive supporters should move away from advocating for gay marriage, for example. “Americans are opposed to discrimination against homosexuals,” he said. “Where people part company is on the very specific institution of marriage.”
Davis would rather see his party advocate for tolerance of gays. Thurgood Marshall didn’t go to court to argue for lifting the ban on interracial marriage but against separate and unequal schools.
With states erecting gay marriage bans like Christmas trees and a U.S. Supreme Court that is bound to get more conservative in the next four years, Davis wants Democrats and progressives to be pragmatic.
“The black community had to pick and choose its battles,” Davis said. “The gay community will have to do the same.”
Davis’ point of view has merit, though it sounds like the “slow down” argument Dr. King and other civil rights leaders used to hear from black and white leaders advocating caution on civil rights. Still, his analysis of the red state mentality is very accurate and deserves consideration, even though it’s incomplete.
Alabamans just elected a candidate to our state Supreme Court who openly cavorts with rebel flag-waving neo-Confederates. And in 2000, the final vote to remove a ban on interracial marriage from our state constitution – a ban which had been rendered null and void by the U.S. Supreme Court 33 years before – broke down to a shamefully close 60 percent to 40 percent. That’s barely passing in my book, especially since removing it was supposed to be our opportunity to showcase a new Alabama. Maybe we could, if we could ever get rid of the old Alabama.
One of my neighbors, who had barely spoken to me, one day knocked on my door and asked me to help him unload a new couch and love seat from his truck. He’s a young white guy with an ex-military look: close-cut hair, muscular and all tattooed up.
We got the couch off first and struggled to get it through his narrow front door. I could see a giant U.S. flag and an Alabama state flag tacked up on his wall.
That’s nice, I thought. Then I looked to my left and saw his Confederate flag, also on the wall.
What the hell?
Due respect to Congressman Davis, but my neighbor and I are separated by more than cultural conservatism. After seeing that flag on his wall, I didn’t have to ask him about his politics or for whom he was voting. It told me all I needed to know.
When the Neonazis came and rallied in Knoxville, I noticed that almost all of them were from up north. LOL. XD
It made their absolute failure to gain any traction with us locals all the more delicious.
The author is a prime example of what happens when affirmative action meets communism in the higher education system.
If you go back to colonial times, you find that the original “red states” were those who believed in state’s rights, state nullification and that states could cecede from the union. The Civil War was as much about that as slavery. Jefferson, Madison and others debated the two views. The Civil War settled the issue by declaring that the union could not be dissolved ans was not so much a confederacy as a dual system of government.
plenty of freepers no different.....they loathe us and what we stand for and feel superior and ask us to denigrate our ancestors
they can go to hell..........or to that gay forum wideawakes where they belong
I think it is a mistake today to characterize Radical Republicans of the 1860s as conservative.........they were anything but.
They were zealots and every bit as dangerous to America as the fire breathers.
Lincoln was not one lest that be failed to be mentioned.
I don’t buy this convenient timeline of conservative always equals GOP.
Thaddeus Stevens and Charlie Sumner were for their time even more radical than Schumer or Hillary.
do all conservatives here think the CRA of 1964 was a good thing?
I believe that, at one pooint at least, NY, MA, CT, NJ and many others were slave states as well.
The democratic party has always been the party of slavery.
It’s a simple historical fact.
no dems wrote: “WHY DO BLACK AMERICANS VOTE DEMOCRAT BY 90% EVERY ELECTION?”
It certainly doesn’t help when the Republicans sell out their conservative principles. What happened to school vouchers? Or, why are the Republicans driving down wages and eliminating jobs for poor minorities by doing little or nothing to stop illegal immigration? No, our leadership felt it could out-pander the Democrats, and guess what, no one beats the Dems at their own game. A true conservative agenda would benefit all Americans, including blacks. If we want to win them to our side, we have to be something more than the Democrat-lite party.
And the black penchant for selling each other as slaves and now mass murder by abortion is also well known.
I’ve lived in small Yankee towns and Southern cities. I currently live in a working class mixed race neighborhood in the Hampton Roads area. I can honestly say the only time I’ve heard the word “nigger” in years in this area has been from black friends. When I visit Pennsylvania I hear it every day - and don’t see many mixed race neighborhoods. I also see other signs of racial prejudice in the north.
The writer of this piece would never admit it - but he’s prejudice against the South. It seems he’s bought into the whole “slave reparations” bag. Maybe instead of overlaying the red state-blue state map over a map of the Old Confederacy, it would be more appropriate compare a map of where the KKK is active. Nothing much has been heard from them in the South in a long time. The northern blue states can’t say the same.
One of the worst being certain private property declared "public accomodations" and the owner losing all rights to what can and cannot be done on his own property.
This is a hit piece since there was originally slavery in the north as well.
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Massachusetts was the first state to establish slavery into law in the colonies...
“but it shows the extremes some Leftists and some Blacks go when looking at anything Southern.
“plenty of Freepers no different....they loathe us and what we stand for and feel superior and ask us to denigrate our ancestors.
They can go straight to Hell......or that gay forum Wideawakes where they belong”.
Amen Brother! Sad but true. I had three of my GGF’s fight for the Confederacy and I’ll never let them down. That’s why I’m in the SCV!
While the War Between the States was somewhat about slavery, that war was more about states' rights and preserving the union.
An analogy could be drawn to the conflict in Iraq. That fight is somewhat to bring democracy to Iraqis (analogous to freeing the slaves), but the conflict is more about protecting Americans.
But agree that many of the free states were such because they could more easily afford to do away with slavery.
Going along with your opinion, 'kinder' slave states were located in the north of slave territory, in states such as Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Meanwhile, being sold 'down [the Mississippi] river' was an especially cruel fate for slaves.
You’re absolutely correct!
He jumps to a lot of conclusions, but most of his article is an anecdote, and little pops out as being suspect.
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