The Red State - Slave State Connection is All Too Real

Blackamericaweb.com ^ | 11-16-04 | Unknown

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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.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

The War Between the States did not settle the issue.

That war forced the seceded states back into the union, but didn't declare that state secession was illegal--that would be a job for the Supreme Court or for Congress to make a clarifying law.

And in the case of Texas--and Virginia(?)--forcibly reuniting the state was illegal. Texas joined the union with an agreement that the state be able to secede and become fully independent again if that was what the state chose.

[RoadTest]

It seems to me it was Democrats who held slaves and a Republican President freed them. It seems to me it was Democrats who ordered segregation and a Republican President broke that up. It seems to me it’s Democrats holding black peop[le down in the ghettos with handouts, so they can have a constituency, while it’s Republicans who train them, give them jobs and get them free of poverty.

More and more black people are realizing this and switching,

[GladesGuru]

“Ah yes, those confederate states like Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and the Dakotas! “

Betcha never knew the old slave owners on the cotton plantations in the Dakotas had a secret crop which made slave owning possible in cold climates.

Wanna know what it was? They had a variety of watermelon which could grow all year long, even under five feet of snow!

They also had developed a cotton plant which also thrived in cold and dark climates.

Unfortunately for Russia, those invaluable genetic vatieties were killed off deliberately by Karlos Rovus when the South temporarily occupied all of the “Red States” during the Civil War.

Now you know how they successfully managed a slave based cotton industry

[longtermmemmory]

black racism alive and well.

It is very sad that the black race baiters have come to be the last mainstream bastion of racism.

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie Ping

[twonie]

Thank you for saying that. Perfect.

[JamesP81]

This could probably use a barf alert.

[Leatherneck_MT]

“And in the case of Texas—and Virginia(?)—forcibly reuniting the state was illegal. Texas joined the union with an agreement that the state be able to secede and become fully independent again if that was what the state chose.”

According to the Tenth amendment, that holds true for every state.

The South was wrong in that war with only one act. They let the hotheads fire on Fort Sumter which ultimately precipated the invasion desired by Lincoln.

The Southern Slave owners were wrong (in my opinion) for having slaves in the first place. But that was an issue for the states themselves to solve.

[JamesP81]

The democratic party has always been the party of slavery. It’s a simple historical fact.

That's a far too simplistic view of history.

The democratic party of the old south was not as monolithic as many around here would like to believe. Within that party you did have segregationists, but you also had common, salt of the earth southern folk who had no interest in slavery, segregation, or racism. Problem was that both of these groups perceived an electoral threat from the northern states, which tended to have higher populations and thus more seats in congress. So rather than let one region of the country dictate policy, the factions in southern politics came together under one party. It's easy to associate southerners with racism because of this, but that don't make it so.

However, things change. The segregationists are largely gone, and fiscal conservatives have moved to the republican party while social liberals have moved to the dem party. Southerners quickly saw that the republicans were far more amenable to their ideas and joined the R's in great numbers, now unencumbered by any segregationists. It's too bad that most of the population is too damned stupid to see that, however.

[JamesP81]

It certainly doesn’t help when the Republicans sell out their conservative principles.

No, it doesn't, but I don't think this is responsible for blacks voting 90% dem. Unfortunately, Je$$e Jack$on and Al Sharpton have convinced the black community that voting republican is acting white. I don't really know that there is a lot we can do against that.

[wardaddy]

They let the hotheads fire on Fort Sumter which ultimately precipated the invasion desired by Lincoln.

That is so true.

[Clemenza]

Well, the German American Bund (who REALLY were Nazis, no neos needed) had their national headquarters on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in their heydey. Used to have parades, in full nazi regalia, throughout the northeast and upper midwest until we entered the war.

[STONEWALLS]

“do all conservatives here think the CRA of 1964 was a good thing?”

.....they’ve been taught that by liberal educators that weren’t even around then.....to question it is heresy.....we need to BRING BACK literacy tests and poll tax too.....anybody here ever pay poll tax?....want to take a guess at what it was?....it was $2.00 and that was for a 2 year election cycle.....want to know what the literacy test was?....the registrar handed me a piece of paper and said ;read this and tell me what it means”....then I read the 5th Amendment to him and said “I don’t have to testify against myself”....and that was all you had to do in Georgia pre-CRA to register...really racist, huh?

.....and BTW the CRA was in the summer of '64....that was the high point of CR optimism....the next summer Watts went up, then Cleveland, Detroit, Philly, Newark, Baltimore, Washington and Chicago...

[smug]

WHY DO BLACK AMERICANS VOTE DEMOCRAT BY 90% EVERY ELECTION?

(An over simplified history) After the War Between The States nearly 100% of blacks who could vote, (and that was mostly in states under reconstruction) voted Republican. A black that was found to vote Demo was shunned by other blacks. They continued to vote that way till the flood of 1927. To save New Orleans from the flood the levee's up river were dynamited, inundating the homes and sharecropped fields of poor blacks. In 1928, Hoover to help win the election promised black people everywhere that if elected President, he would fix up and pay off those that were effected by the floods. After winning the Presidency, Hoover found out that he was unable to deliver on this promise, and probably didn't care that he couldn't. In 1932 FDR used this against Hoover to sway the black vote. which carried him into office. The black community has voted much like they did before; as a block, but now for Democrats with R voting blacks being shunned.

[ozzymandus]

So all conservatives are slavery-loving, confederate flag waving racists? You don’t consider that slanderous? Or even “suspect”?

[Non-Sequitur]

The reason Northern and Midwestern states eschewed slavery of blacks was that it didn’t work in their farm & factory economies. Had it been advantageous to them, they would have had as many slaves as the South.

Not all slaves worked in the fields. Many, perhaps most worked in or around the house as cooks, maids, nursemaids, butlers, gardeners, grooms, what have you. If it were strictly an economic matter then there is no reason why such slaves wouldn't have thrived in the North as well.

[Non-Sequitur]

I believe that, at one pooint at least, NY, MA, CT, NJ and many others were slave states as well.

Just about every original colony had slavery at one time or another, though some had outlawed it before the Constitution was ratified.

[YourAdHere]

Maryland is a blue state but denies that it sided with the confederacy in the Civil War.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I disagree. There were many more field hands than house slaves on plantations. The North was more apt to use indentured servants from Europe(that already spoke English), rather than blacks. If cotton, tobacco or other labor-intensive crops would have grown well up North, the Northerners would’ve had no qualms using slaves from Africa, IMO.

[Non-Sequitur]

And in the case of Texas--and Virginia(?)--forcibly reuniting the state was illegal. Texas joined the union with an agreement that the state be able to secede and become fully independent again if that was what the state chose.

No she did not. When Texas was admitted to the Union she acquired the same rights and the same protections - and the same restrictions - as every other state. She has no special rights reserved to her alone.