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Lies I learned as a Southerner:
[font color="black" size="5" face="bold"]Lies I learned as a Southerner: Racism, the Confederate flag and why so many white Southerners revere a symbol of hatred[/font]
Myths about the "Lost Cause," never mentioning race, came from our schools, from everywhere. Time to smash them
CHARLES MCCAIN
“This is where my grandfather shot and killed the Yankee soldier trying to rob us,” the retired Army colonel said, pointing to a bullet hole in the wood lining the entrance hall of his home.
My Boy Scout troop was visiting to view this noble reminder of the Civil War and how Southerners had resisted Union soldiers. It was 1970. I was fifteen. All of us gazed with reverence upon the hole as if medieval Catholics peering at the toe of a saint.
We were absorbing the Southern narrative of the Civil War. In February of 1865 Sherman’s bummers had invaded my small hometown in the South Carolina low country. This man’s grandfather had defended his home as any honorable Southerner would have done.
In the history of the Civil War preached to us lads growing up in the South in those years, slavery was never mentioned. Just perfidious Yankees and our brave boys in gray who repelled them until they were “compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources,” as General Lee described the situation in his General Order No. 9 announcing the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Only a fool would interpret his words as admitting defeat. We weren’t defeated. We were just compelled to surrender. Completely different, of course.
...
Myths about the "Lost Cause," never mentioning race, came from our schools, from everywhere. Time to smash them
CHARLES MCCAIN
“This is where my grandfather shot and killed the Yankee soldier trying to rob us,” the retired Army colonel said, pointing to a bullet hole in the wood lining the entrance hall of his home.
My Boy Scout troop was visiting to view this noble reminder of the Civil War and how Southerners had resisted Union soldiers. It was 1970. I was fifteen. All of us gazed with reverence upon the hole as if medieval Catholics peering at the toe of a saint.
We were absorbing the Southern narrative of the Civil War. In February of 1865 Sherman’s bummers had invaded my small hometown in the South Carolina low country. This man’s grandfather had defended his home as any honorable Southerner would have done.
In the history of the Civil War preached to us lads growing up in the South in those years, slavery was never mentioned. Just perfidious Yankees and our brave boys in gray who repelled them until they were “compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources,” as General Lee described the situation in his General Order No. 9 announcing the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Only a fool would interpret his words as admitting defeat. We weren’t defeated. We were just compelled to surrender. Completely different, of course.
...
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/15/lies_i_learned_as_a_southerner_racism_the_confederate_flag_and_why_so_many_white_southerners_revere_a_symbol_of_hatred/
9 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Many conservative white Southerners remain in denial about the brutal reality of African-American slavery in the South. Black slaves were the property of their owners just like master’s house or horse.
Owners could kill their slaves if they wished. Rape the females—which they did. (And the males, too). Or starve them. Or make them work for twenty hours a day to get the harvest in—which they did. Whip them, which they did. Torture them, which they did. Even castrate them—a practice so barbaric it was outlawed in the Roman Empire by successive decrees of Emperors before the coming of Christ.
Owners could kill their slaves if they wished. Rape the females—which they did. (And the males, too). Or starve them. Or make them work for twenty hours a day to get the harvest in—which they did. Whip them, which they did. Torture them, which they did. Even castrate them—a practice so barbaric it was outlawed in the Roman Empire by successive decrees of Emperors before the coming of Christ.
It boggles my mind how some right-wing people think that the white people did the blacks a favor by enslaving them.
didnt allow blacks to vote for nearly 100 years, denied them of an equal education, promoted segregation, prevented interracial marriage, conducted forced sterilization, made sure that the only jobs available to black people at that time were working in the fields or cleaning houses, beat and turned water hoses on people who just wanted to be equals.
It was great men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington who stood for liberty, freedom and were anti slavery this is why I fly the America flag with pride. This flag stands for everything opposite of the confederacy.
