The more white people understand and accept their true history the less racist they become. The poor whites of this country have always suffered from a lack of social status and have served as cannon fodder in the wars by which the rich redistribute or amass more wealth. While the situation has occurred over and over, the ability of the rich to control the written and or spoken history of those has created lies that lead poor whites under leadership of the rich to glorify the past misdeeds that occurred at the instigation of the rich. Poor southern whites were drafted and fought for the luxuries enjoyed by slave owners. These poor whites were desperate and financially dependent on a cruel system which oppressed them as it did slaves. Note there is no intent to imply their condition was as dire as slaves, but rather to point out their lack of opportunity and the suffering and often deaths they suffered for the rich slave owners who were exempt.

But first we poor whites need to understand that actual support of the Confederacy and the right to own slaves has been greatly overstated. Even with the harsh economic conditions and the draft, General Lee was having great difficulty getting soldiers at two years into the conflict. Most white people in the slave states were not great beneficiaries of slavery and they knew it. But rich slave owners wrote lies and built monuments to romanticize their cruelty and the destruction they caused and then preying on the insecurities and need for economic support by poor white victims of the war and its economic aftermath created the hate necessary to establish a system of racism and tenant farming that provided most if not all of the income the slave owners had previously enjoyed. For example in Kentucky, where i grew up, I was taught that the Civil War was fought over States Rights and the Tariffs being imposed by the Federal Government under control of the manufacturing states of the North East. We were also taught that slavery had become uneconomical and slaves were being sent to Liberia as freedmen and therefore there was really no need to fight as slavery While these was dying out on its own. In Kentucky there are 97 Civil War monuments and only 4 of these are to honor contributions of Union soldiers. Yet it is not taught that 6 of 7 Kentuckians who fought in the Civil War actually fought for the Union.
I was raised believing the lie that my forefathers like most people's forefathers fought for the Confederacy and therefore to honor their memory, we had to assume some just cause for their willingness to serve the Confederacy. But when I and others can see and accept the true facts, we can see that we have no good reason to honor these romanticized white washes of the truth, and we have no real need to protect our family or our southern Heritage. Certainly we have no need to protect that rich class of slave owners that drafted our ancestors and let them be slaughtered for the continuance of slave owner luxury. But first to accept this history , we have to give up this notion that our ancestors made free choices and independently decided to do what they did. We have to accept that the rich instigated the war, and the poor died fighting it certainly without desire to do so. We have to quit glorifying military service as always for some good cause and recognize soldiers on the whole fight for their comrades in arms. When we can see these lessons of history , we can neuter the bull of Southern Heritage and remove much of the lies that tend to separate us from people of color. As they say, the truth will set you free. Such freedom is sorely needed in poor white southern society.
If you are not familiar with our real history as a nation , read Howard Zinn's - "A People's History of the United States".

eom

Are the racist violent acts committed by some who wave the flag. I'm not feeling any sympathy for the Sons of the Confederacy.

or controversy.

The first time it was used AND every time it was used then they would have Aleg to stand on. But they didn't (some state chapters have) so they don't.

left alone too, but this guy's ancestors ignored that wish.

Being from the south, I have long since been sick and tired of trying to argue with relatives about the obsession with the damn Civil War. Most wars and war dead have a day of remembrance, not 24/7/365 lies aggrandizing people who fought to continue being brutal torturers of millions of people. My aunt just said her 3% bullshit again. She swears up and down on 3% of the households in the south had slaves. I have never heard the same history twice, depending on which flag waving moron is preaching about the damn Civil War at the time.

I'm glad to see they want to be left alone and are NOT being left alone to wallow in their myths and lies.

(at least according to my KKK father), I have yet to see any purpose for an organization which raises traitors to the level of heroes...Probably my great-grandfather had no way to avoid being in the war...I don't know...What I do know is that the pro-slavery south lost the war of secession...by now, the southerners who belong to this group should have gotten over it and tried to build a better South...The only place for the Stars and Bars (a battle flag, not the Confederate flag) is a museum in the South...the members of the SCV should dissolve this anachronistic organization and get on with their lives...

its been a symbol of Hate from its conception ?

would be your first act of cluelessness.

All those African American people the Klan terrorized over so many decades, and who were exploited as cheap labor, segregated and Jim Crowed probably wanted to be left alone, too.

Ever think of that?

No...I didn't think so.

In fact I think we have a failure of empathy here.

Excellent points.........

KEEP IF OFF OF PUBLIC PROPERTY WHERE WE DON'T TOLERATE YOUR BULLSHIT

you get what you deserve. It was racist during the Civil War, it is racist now.

The right wingers are having a fit. Lets press the issue until they are utterly defeated. Every item of right wing focus needs to be ridiculed until they have nothing to take comfort in.

Sons of Surrender Monkeys.

Their cause wasn't worth a fight to the death.

how this issue will be resolved.

Discussion and awareness are good. I'm not sure suppressing the flag
will be successful at least not very soon.

Some French descendants of New France, the French colony in Quebec City,
founded in the early 1600s and lost to the British on the Plains of
Abraham 1759, still fly the French flag, particularly on Bastille Day, and
Quebec and the Quebec Diaspora (immigrants from New France) remain
somewhat segregated by choice. Great Britain was generous in its peace
terms though economic and class inequality grew, which is why so many
fled to other places. Yet they still honor their heritage.

SO what I'm saying is the Confederacy will be with us, or some of us, for a
long time. Heritage, whatever it may be, is difficult to eradicate or erase.

To support ancestors who fought for their homes and the country they were born in is Patriotism. As time goes by, the romanticized notions of the Confederacy will die out as the brutality of the slave owner class on both slaves and poor whites becomes more and more known by those ignorant of the facts. So unlike what you describe, the Confederacy will die. It has only lasted this long as a method to sow hatred and engender more wealth for the rich. If we want to honor the sacrifices of our ancestors, we must never again let the poor victims of economic oppression fight to further the riches of the already obscenely wealthy.

Well said, and it is a different matter, but parallels can be drawn. The losers
in each case had progeny who continue to have their own reality concerning
their ancestors. I'm not defending the antebellum south or system, just saying
the elites had their own views and world and economic system. The institution of
slavery was exploitative and repressive, and certainly some white slave owners
were more humane than others. It's fine that ancestors are honored, they simply
don't have to be honored publicly for their oppression.

Is this from The Onion?

...the Lost Cause. Reinforced by the crap they see on Fox and hear on talk radio.