QOTW: Ta-Nehisi Coates
by digby
This is a great piece in which Coates simply assembles a chronology of quotes and speeches by leading Southerners from before, during and after the civil war making it explicitly clear that their cause was the perpetuation and expansion of the institution of slavery. His conclusion is stark and true:
The Confederate flag should not come down because it is offensive to African Americans. The Confederate flag should come down because it is embarrassing to all Americans. The embarrassment is not limited to the flag, itself. The fact that it still flies, that one must debate its meaning in 2015, reflects an incredible ignorance. A century and a half after Lincoln was killed, after 750,000 of our ancestors died, Americans still aren’t quite sure why.
I would guess that while many Americans aren’t sure why, which is indeed embarrassing, the ones who are most vociferous in their defense of that flag aren’t among them. They do know why.
People like this:
@CharlieDaniels The rewriting of history continues. Slavery, which is NOT a race issue, was only a small factor in the civil war.— William Gaines (@WilliamFGaines) June 24, 2015
The slow tedious progress that’s been made has brought us only to the point at which they have to pretend that slavery wasn’t an issue. And that’s not good enough anymore.
Update: After reading that piece by Coates, get a load of this Democratic party flag apologist, former Senator and possible presidential candidate Jim Webb, who is anything but ignorant of the facts. Say what you will, he’s not pandering to the Democratic base. He’s taking up the Lost Cause as his own:
This is an emotional time and we all need to think through these issues with a care that recognizes the need for change but also respects the complicated history of the Civil War. The Confederate Battle Flag has wrongly been used for racist and other purposes in recent decades. It should not be used in any way as a political symbol that divides us.
But we should also remember that honorable Americans fought on both sides in the Civil War, including slave holders in the Union Army from states such as Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware, and that many non-slave holders fought for the South. It was in recognition of the character of soldiers on both sides that the federal government authorized the construction of the Confederate Memorial 100 years ago, on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.
This is a time for us to come together, and to recognize once more that our complex multicultural society is founded on the principle of mutual respect.
It’s not really complicated at all. People like Webb just want to pretend it is. The flag is, and always has been, a “political symbol that divides us.” It has no place in public in a decent society in 2015 — it is a historical artifact that should be studied for what it has represented — and not a damn bit of it was good. By 1860, after most of the rest of the world had long outlawed slavery, there was nothing honorable in being a slaveholder or fighting for slaveholders. I’m sure these people had good qualities. I’m not saying they were all evil. But there were plenty of people in this world at the time who understood slavery to be an abomination and they were not among them. In fact, they were willing o die for it and many of them did. And as for the “principle of mutual respect” I’m afraid that was sadly lacking toward our African American citizens in the South during slavery, during the war for more than a century after that war was over. The effects of their unwillingness to acknowledge that are obviously still with us today.
The South is America. It’s filled with wonderful people and a rich and interesting history just as the rest of the country is. This particular part of it is not a source of pride.
.