Predator56
Senior Member
I did not write this, it was sent in an email:
The Stars-and-Bars is a diversion in the nation's
fight for racial harmony
One Sunday morning shortly after the Civil War ended,
Robert E. Lee attended church in Richmond, Va. On that
morning, a black man shocked the congregation by
making his way to the communion rail where he knelt to
take communion. In that time, in that place, this
simply was not done. The congregation held back. The
church took on the silence that descends at moments of
extreme discomfort. No one else came forward to join
the black man. The minister was clearly embarrassed,
unable to decide how to proceed.
And then Robert E. Lee, defeated defender of those
Southern states newly returned to the larger union,
came forward and knelt beside the black man to
participate in the key sacrament of his faith.
Following Lee's example, other members of the
congregation slowly began to make their way toward the
communion rail to kneel together with a former slave
and their former military commander.
Two rare acts of moral courage on a long-ago Sunday
morning down in Dixie, one black, one white.
I was reminded of this story by a brief skirmish over
the Confederate flag that arose at Thursday night's
debate among the Democratic presidential candidates in
South Carolina. It wasn't the first time. Back during
the 2004 Democratic presidential primary when former
Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said he wanted to reach out
to American Southerners who drive pickup trucks with
Confederate flag stickers on their bumpers. He caught
idiotidiotidiotidiot for saying so. Al Sharpton, whose wit and passion
are often admirable, said: "If I were to say that I
wanted to be the candidate for guys with swastikas, I
would be asked to leave the race." It was a
disingenuous remark by a man who sometimes slips back
into the rhetoric of automatic outrage.
Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt chimed in, too, taking his
own lick at the front-runner. "I will be," he said,
"the candidate for guys with American flags in their
pickup trucks." The Democratic Party, according to
some, no longer has room for poor white trash, or for
those who fly a flag Sharpton would equate with the
swastika.
Some of my forebears fought under the Confederate
banner that is, once more, causing a tempest in a tea
cup as Rudy Giuliani tries to figure out what he
thinks about that symbol in the context of his bid to
head up the Republican ticket in '08. As a nation, we
have bigger fish to fry, but this one keeps flopping
back into the boat, and so presidential wannabes all
have to kill it and cook it up, and see if their
recipe will be swallowed by the pundits and the
electorate.
Although I had ancestors who fought under the Stars
and Bars, I've yet to find one of them who owned
slaves. I suppose I could take offense at people who
would make my great-great-great uncles into the
equivalent of the Nazis that my more modern uncles
fought against in Normandy, but I'm inclined to let it
go. It's just political grandstanding, and whichever
way these political winds blow will have no bearing on
the daily lives of Democratic voters, black or white.
The vast majority of soldiers who fought for the South
owned no slaves, and most of them were fighting not
for slavery, but for the principle of state's rights,
an issue that is still the focus of much controversy.
Between 60,000 and 90,000 black men, both free and
slave, also served under the banner of the Stars and
Bars.
One such soldier, a free black man from Louisiana
wrote: "The free colored population love their home,
their property, their own slaves and recognize no
other country than Louisiana, and are ready to shed
their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for
Abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have
plenty for Louisiana. They will fight for her in 1861
as they fought in 1814-15."
And Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate hero and later
founder of the Ku Klux Klan, had both slaves and black
freemen serving in units under his command. Of them,
he wrote: "These boys stayed with me ... and better
Confederates did not live." Nazis, all, those boys.
By our standards, black Confederates were misguided,
or scoundrels, or the victims of coercion, but there
they are, historically, southerners and Americans,
too, people of color, most of them poor, who fought
beneath that much-hated banner.
And, it should be remembered that the Union flag, the
Stars and Stripes, flew over the entire nation before
1861, and that flag, too, symbolized a slave-holding
nation. That flag, plus a few stars, is the flag we
still salute at ball games and at parades.
Other flags throughout the world are likewise sullied
with histories of slavery. The first slaves in the
Americas were offloaded from ships that flew the Union
Jack, but slave ships also carried Dutch, Spanish,
Portuguese, Danish and French banners. Slave trading
was the basis of various Islamic economies before
boundaries were drawn, states established and flags
designed, but those countries, too, carry a heritage
of slavery, and some, like Somalia and Sudan, still
practice it. If flags symbolize all the acts done
under them, perhaps all flags should come down because
none is without stain.
People's sensitivities should be respected, of course,
and I'm sure that there are many black people who are
affronted by the sight of the Confederate flag.
Nonetheless, a recent survey disclosed that most young
black people associated the flag with "The Dukes of
Hazzard," a cartoonish TV show many of them had grown
up with. Such is our national ignorance of history
that the flag does not carry much historical
significance for young people of either color, most of
whom cannot name the century in which the Civil War
was fought.
Any country music concert you might attend will be
festooned with that flag, either in the parking lot,
or in the apparel of those attending, whether the
group appearing is Alabama, Willie Nelson, Toby Keith
or the Dixie Chicks. Does that mean that all those
people are professing a belief in the rightness of
slavery? Are they all racists?
Maybe there has been a paradigm shift since the
1960s. Just check out Montel Williams, Maury Povich or
"The Jerry Springer Show" if you want to see where the
races are currently coming together most commonly. For
those people, the flag doesn't symbolize slavery, but
a heritage of defiance, a fierce regional pride, and a
thumbing of the nose to those who persist in looking
down at people like them with unearned superiority.
There was a time when the Democratic Party didn't
sneer at people like my parents. Because of that
sneering, lots of people like them have left the party
over the last 40 years, most voting against their own
best interests rather than join forces with people who
look down at them. Howard Dean was right when he
sought to win them back.
Robert E. Lee fought in the interest of a bad cause,
but he, too, was an American, as noble as any who has
ever drawn breath, or knelt down to pray. The
character of a man like Robert E. Lee would put to
shame millions of faux patriots who have, since his
time, wrapped themselves in the banner he fought
against. A man like Robert E. Lee would put to shame a
whole lot of self-righteous liberals and dim-witted
rappers when it comes to defending human dignity.
Though the Confederate flag remains an easy target for
politicians looking to take cheap shots, the heritage
represented by that flag is far from simple. Though it
retains negative power, there surely is not a soul
left on the planet who waves that flag in support of
slavery. Voters whose ancestors gave their lives under
that banner should not be written off by the party
that has, historically, best defended their interests.
The Stars-and-Bars is a diversion in the nation's
fight for racial harmony
One Sunday morning shortly after the Civil War ended,
Robert E. Lee attended church in Richmond, Va. On that
morning, a black man shocked the congregation by
making his way to the communion rail where he knelt to
take communion. In that time, in that place, this
simply was not done. The congregation held back. The
church took on the silence that descends at moments of
extreme discomfort. No one else came forward to join
the black man. The minister was clearly embarrassed,
unable to decide how to proceed.
And then Robert E. Lee, defeated defender of those
Southern states newly returned to the larger union,
came forward and knelt beside the black man to
participate in the key sacrament of his faith.
Following Lee's example, other members of the
congregation slowly began to make their way toward the
communion rail to kneel together with a former slave
and their former military commander.
Two rare acts of moral courage on a long-ago Sunday
morning down in Dixie, one black, one white.
I was reminded of this story by a brief skirmish over
the Confederate flag that arose at Thursday night's
debate among the Democratic presidential candidates in
South Carolina. It wasn't the first time. Back during
the 2004 Democratic presidential primary when former
Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said he wanted to reach out
to American Southerners who drive pickup trucks with
Confederate flag stickers on their bumpers. He caught
idiotidiotidiotidiot for saying so. Al Sharpton, whose wit and passion
are often admirable, said: "If I were to say that I
wanted to be the candidate for guys with swastikas, I
would be asked to leave the race." It was a
disingenuous remark by a man who sometimes slips back
into the rhetoric of automatic outrage.
Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt chimed in, too, taking his
own lick at the front-runner. "I will be," he said,
"the candidate for guys with American flags in their
pickup trucks." The Democratic Party, according to
some, no longer has room for poor white trash, or for
those who fly a flag Sharpton would equate with the
swastika.
Some of my forebears fought under the Confederate
banner that is, once more, causing a tempest in a tea
cup as Rudy Giuliani tries to figure out what he
thinks about that symbol in the context of his bid to
head up the Republican ticket in '08. As a nation, we
have bigger fish to fry, but this one keeps flopping
back into the boat, and so presidential wannabes all
have to kill it and cook it up, and see if their
recipe will be swallowed by the pundits and the
electorate.
Although I had ancestors who fought under the Stars
and Bars, I've yet to find one of them who owned
slaves. I suppose I could take offense at people who
would make my great-great-great uncles into the
equivalent of the Nazis that my more modern uncles
fought against in Normandy, but I'm inclined to let it
go. It's just political grandstanding, and whichever
way these political winds blow will have no bearing on
the daily lives of Democratic voters, black or white.
The vast majority of soldiers who fought for the South
owned no slaves, and most of them were fighting not
for slavery, but for the principle of state's rights,
an issue that is still the focus of much controversy.
Between 60,000 and 90,000 black men, both free and
slave, also served under the banner of the Stars and
Bars.
One such soldier, a free black man from Louisiana
wrote: "The free colored population love their home,
their property, their own slaves and recognize no
other country than Louisiana, and are ready to shed
their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for
Abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have
plenty for Louisiana. They will fight for her in 1861
as they fought in 1814-15."
And Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate hero and later
founder of the Ku Klux Klan, had both slaves and black
freemen serving in units under his command. Of them,
he wrote: "These boys stayed with me ... and better
Confederates did not live." Nazis, all, those boys.
By our standards, black Confederates were misguided,
or scoundrels, or the victims of coercion, but there
they are, historically, southerners and Americans,
too, people of color, most of them poor, who fought
beneath that much-hated banner.
And, it should be remembered that the Union flag, the
Stars and Stripes, flew over the entire nation before
1861, and that flag, too, symbolized a slave-holding
nation. That flag, plus a few stars, is the flag we
still salute at ball games and at parades.
Other flags throughout the world are likewise sullied
with histories of slavery. The first slaves in the
Americas were offloaded from ships that flew the Union
Jack, but slave ships also carried Dutch, Spanish,
Portuguese, Danish and French banners. Slave trading
was the basis of various Islamic economies before
boundaries were drawn, states established and flags
designed, but those countries, too, carry a heritage
of slavery, and some, like Somalia and Sudan, still
practice it. If flags symbolize all the acts done
under them, perhaps all flags should come down because
none is without stain.
People's sensitivities should be respected, of course,
and I'm sure that there are many black people who are
affronted by the sight of the Confederate flag.
Nonetheless, a recent survey disclosed that most young
black people associated the flag with "The Dukes of
Hazzard," a cartoonish TV show many of them had grown
up with. Such is our national ignorance of history
that the flag does not carry much historical
significance for young people of either color, most of
whom cannot name the century in which the Civil War
was fought.
Any country music concert you might attend will be
festooned with that flag, either in the parking lot,
or in the apparel of those attending, whether the
group appearing is Alabama, Willie Nelson, Toby Keith
or the Dixie Chicks. Does that mean that all those
people are professing a belief in the rightness of
slavery? Are they all racists?
Maybe there has been a paradigm shift since the
1960s. Just check out Montel Williams, Maury Povich or
"The Jerry Springer Show" if you want to see where the
races are currently coming together most commonly. For
those people, the flag doesn't symbolize slavery, but
a heritage of defiance, a fierce regional pride, and a
thumbing of the nose to those who persist in looking
down at people like them with unearned superiority.
There was a time when the Democratic Party didn't
sneer at people like my parents. Because of that
sneering, lots of people like them have left the party
over the last 40 years, most voting against their own
best interests rather than join forces with people who
look down at them. Howard Dean was right when he
sought to win them back.
Robert E. Lee fought in the interest of a bad cause,
but he, too, was an American, as noble as any who has
ever drawn breath, or knelt down to pray. The
character of a man like Robert E. Lee would put to
shame millions of faux patriots who have, since his
time, wrapped themselves in the banner he fought
against. A man like Robert E. Lee would put to shame a
whole lot of self-righteous liberals and dim-witted
rappers when it comes to defending human dignity.
Though the Confederate flag remains an easy target for
politicians looking to take cheap shots, the heritage
represented by that flag is far from simple. Though it
retains negative power, there surely is not a soul
left on the planet who waves that flag in support of
slavery. Voters whose ancestors gave their lives under
that banner should not be written off by the party
that has, historically, best defended their interests.
