.jpg)
Posted on 06/25/2015 3:05:10 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Responding to widespread public pressure, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is calling for the removal of the Confederate flag from the State Capitol inCharleston. Although my colleague, S.E. Smith, pointed out that Haley has no power to actually remove it, she has joined other GOP politicians in denouncing the flag—including Lindsey Graham, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump. In addition, Walmart and Amazon have dropped all apparel donning the flag, while Virginia is dropping the flag as an option from their personalized license plates. While it’s absolutely time for the flag to go the way of the dodo, it’s hardly a cure for the real problems haunting Charleston less than a week after nine people were gunned down in the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church by Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old who subscribed to white supremacist ideologies. You can kill a symbol, but it’s not as easy to extinguish an idea—or the gun politics that help enforce it.
his is not to deny the power of the Confederate flag’s removal. The flag is not simply a memorial commemorating “bravery in the Civil War,” as Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly recently argued, it’s a reminder of the peculiar institution that the South fought to protect: slavery. If Barack Obama told Marc Maron that the slave trade “casts a long shadow and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on,” it is not an abstract idea. He was being literal—slavery’s shadow can be seen flapping in the Charleston wind every day.
However, if slavery is part of our DNA, the effects of America’s troubled history won’t be quelled by taking down the flags of South Carolina, Mississippi, or any other flags that honor “Southern heritage.” Instead, we must combat that heritage itself, which continues to be romanticized in our schools, our homes, and our entertainment.
In a widely circulated photo that’s indicative of Dylann Roof’s ideologies, he’s pictured in front of the Confederate Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, one emblazoned with the Confederate flag, and the image shocked Americans. But shouldn’t we be more concerned with the fact that such an establishment continues to operate? Or that it’s far from the only museum of its kind?
This speaks to the stark discrepancy between how different parts of the country remember the Civil War. While 52 percent of all Americans believe that the war was a dispute over slavery, a 2011 CNN poll found that an alarmingly high 42 percent still believe that it was about states’ rights. Even more disturbing is the fact that nearly a quarter of respondents reported that they empathize more with the South’s cause than the North—and that figure jumps up to around 40 percent among Southern white folks. Clearly Charleston’s Confederate Museum does not want for potential customers.
This divide comes down to the words we use to describe the Civil War itself, often known in the South as “Lincoln’s War” or “The War of Northern Aggression,” which suggests that it was a conflict started by the Abraham Lincoln and Union.Idaho Statesman writer Banyard Woods grew up in Charleston, where their classroom education about the “War of Northern Aggression” tiptoed around the painful realities of the conflict, truths that many in the South clearly still cannot face up to.
“When we studied the Revolutionary War, we learned about Francis Marion, the ‘Swamp Fox,’ but we did not learn that despite hosting more battles than any other colony, South Carolina contributed fewer fighters than any other to the Continental Army, because they needed the men to oppress the slave population, partially because of the fear of another Stono Creek,” Woods writes.
This apologia for the war—cherrypicking the aspects most ripe for nostalgia—is surprisingly common in popular narratives about the Civil War, from the absurdly successful Gone with the Windto Birth of a Nation, a movie that wasn’t just popular among Southern Democrats. Woodrow Wilson liked D.W. Griffith’s ode to “Southern bravery” so much that he regularly showed it in the White House. In the film’s most infamous scene, Griffith depicts the effects of allowing black people intoCongress after Reconstruction. It’s presented like a zoo.
However, our double consciousness around the Civil War reflects more than just how we view the past. It’s a reflection of our historical present. The current NRA president, Jim Porter, even referred to the “War of Northern Aggression” in a 2015 speech.
The NRA was started, 1871, right here in New York state. It was started by some Yankee generals who didn’t like the way my Southern boys had the ability to shoot in what we call the “War of Northern Aggression.” Now, y’all might call it the Civil War, but we call it the War of Northern Aggression down south.
But that was the very reason that they started the National Rifle Association, was to teach and train the civilian in the use of the standard military firearm. And I am one who still feels very strongly that that is one of our most greatest charges that we can have today, is to train the civilian in the use of the standard military firearm, so that when they have to fight for their country they’re ready to do it.
Porter’s statement (note the way he says “my Southern boys”) is a reflection of the ways in which we’ve allowed a debate over the removal of a flag to usurp the conversations we should be having instead. In addition to fighting the legacy of slavery—as well as America’s broader racial issues—Porter shows that racism and opposition to gun control often go hand in hand.
While they’re treated as separate issues, research has shown they’re all part of the same problem—white supremacy. In 2013, Pacific Standard’s Tom Jacobs reported on a study from Australia’s Monash University, which found that a “high score on a common measure of racial resentment increases the odds that a person will (a) have a gun in the house, and (b) be opposed to gun control. This holds true even after other ‘explanatory variables,’ including political party affiliation, are taken into account.”
It goes further than that: Our current gun control debate is actually a product of the Civil War itself, with the post-Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan fighting for gun control as a way to keep guns out of the hands of black people. “Before the Civil War, blacks in the South had never been allowed to possess guns,” the Daily Beast’s Adam Winkler writes. “During the war, however, blacks obtained guns for the first time.” That power scared whites so thoroughly that Southern states developed reactionary Black Codes, discriminatory policies that barred gun ownership from black people.
Although the development of the NRA should have then empowered black people (by lobbying for everyone’s right to own a gun), the gun laws that developed in the wake of the Uniform and Firearms Act continued to prevent equal access. The first gun control law, the Uniform and Firearms Act of 1934, required gun owners to apply for a license. But Winkler writes that there was a catch: “According to the law, only ‘suitable people’ with a ‘proper reason’ for being armed in public were eligible.” These terms were so vague that they could apply to anyone, and that loophole was often used to target prospective black gun owners.
While the Right’s stance on gun control has since shifted to the other extreme, policies continue to arm white men at the expense of people of color, who are structurally barred from ownership. “America’s most recent gun control efforts, such as requiring federally licensed dealers to conduct background checks, aren’t designed to keep blacks from having guns, only criminals,” Winkler writes. “Of course, the unfortunate reality is that the criminal population in America is disproportionately made up of racial minorities.”
Winkler reminds us that the more things change, the more they stay the same, especially for black folks in America. Retiring the Confederate flag might be a way to cosmetically address those concerns, but it doesn’t explain why it was still flying to begin with—or why so many people will fight to protect it, clutching their guns and heritage. Confronting the symbols of white supremacy means a true reckoning with a past that is very much alive—in Dylann Roof’s Facebook photos, on the streets of South Carolina, in our textbooks, and in our courts.
Throwing away a flag is a nice gesture, but for those mourning Charleston’s dead, it’s not the one they need.
Nico Lang is the Opinion Editor at the Daily Dot, as well as a contributor to L.A. Times, Rolling Stone, and the Onion A.V. Club. You can follow him on Twitter @nico_lang.
You should read some of the contemporary letters and notes from Union troops during the Civil War to get an idea what they thought about “fighting to end slavery.” A perhaps surprisingly high number said that if the War was to free the slaves they wouldn’t be fighting it. The overwhelming number said they fought to preserve the Union. They were perfectly content to have slave states remain in the Union.
Think of it: If the War had been to end slavery then the Union troops would have attacked and crushed Delaware (a Northern slave state), Maryland and Kentucky (both neutral slave states). But they didn’t. So, the War could not have been to end slavery, could it?
“... most of the battles in SC didn’t involve the Continental Army. They were fought in what was really a nasty little civil war between Tory and Patriot South Carolinians.”
Very true.
Well said.
Dred-Scott did not have anything to do with expanding slavery in to northern states.
This guy is a psychopath. Pure and simple.
Alarmingly LOW, he meant.
This guy is a psychopath.
Southern Confederate monuments and statues are next, then the flag.
He is also one of the most racist men to ever serve as president of the United States. He did not “merely” consider blacks inferior to whites, he genuinely hated them.
Then we have to stop the GOP. They are the ones rushing forward to rip the glorious, beautiful Confederate Battle flag down (long may she wave).
Federal back-ground checks were brought about as a result of demands by people like Nico Lang, not by southern conservatives.
It is the Democrat Party that has this heritage of hate. No Republican EVER held slaves - ONLY DEMOCRATS. The Democrat Party has NEVER apologized for slavery! If we are going to ban anything meaningful because of slavery - BAN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY !!!
Thanks for the link! I will read it and keep it in my archives.
The liberal solution is to take guns away from law abiding citizens.
Typical of modern democrats. I employed at a factory, the union thugs are most racist.
Sure, in the Upper South and Border States were many who did not support secession, or the Confederacy or its war against the United States.
Many of these sent their sons to fight for the Union Army.
That some of these Southern opponents of the Confederacy may have been themselves slave-holders is possible, though must have been quite rare, especially as the war progressed.
In general, the dividing line between Southern Confederates and Southern Unionists was the degree to which a family depended on slavery for its livelihood.
hondact200: "many of the Union soldiers went AWOL after the Emancipation Proclamation was announced..."
Not enough to make any difference in the course of the war.
hondact200: "the Emancipation Proclamation was hoped that the slaves would rise up in revolt to the slave owners - did not happen"
But something far more important did happen -- about 200,000 blacks, both freed and runaway slaves, joined the Union Army (in 163 units) and Navy.
They contributed significantly to the Union war effort, and many continued to serve in decades that followed.
hondact200: "Lincoln wanted to remove all slaves elsewhere never happened.
There was one country decided for free slaves - Liberia in Africa - how did that turn out"
The idea of buying freedom for slaves and transporting them to Africa went back at least to President Jefferson, and was advocated by many prominent leaders, North and South.
So Lincoln's ideas on this were "conventional wisdom" at the time.
What Lincoln did which no previous leader had done -- Lincoln sat down and talked to black leaders, asking them what they wanted.
Did they want to go back to Africa?
Answer: no they wanted to live as free men in the United States.
As a result, Lincoln changed his own ideas about what should happen.
Conservatives should immediately link the Confederate flag with Islam: if you ban one, then you should ban the other.
While it makes no sense on the surface, the idea is to force leftists to qualify their attacks against the Confederate flag by saying that they don’t mean to ban Islam.
Surprisingly, such muddying of the water works.
Another idea would be to put the Planned Parenthood logo on the Confederate flag. “Against the Confederacy and against abortion.”
Such people have very weak brains and cannot handle having ideas that they hate merged with those they love.
Democrats have a long history of gun control, which escapes this reporters public school taught education.
Beginning even before the Civil War was officially lost, pro-Confederate myth-makers began rewriting the real history to make it look like they were the victims, and not the perpetrators, of a war which cost hundreds of thousands of lives, North and South.
But the truth is, they were the perpetrators, and it's a Big Lie to pretend otherwise.
Those who know the facts are not going to look at the Confederate Battle Flag the same way you do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.