Yes, the people who gathered in Lexington, Virginia are incensed about the removal of replica Confederate flags from Lee Chapel. They view it as a threat to their preferred narrative of the history of the Confederacy and the symbolism of the flag both during and after the war.Ah, no. They view it as what it is -- the first salvo in an effort to dishonor General Lee. Because if Lee can be attacked and tumbled, all commemoration of the Confederacy and its army can be wiped out.
The fact that the replicas will be replaced by original flags appears to have been lost by just about everyone.Ah, no. The flags in the Chapel alcove where The Recumbant Lee rests will not -- that's N-O-T, NOT -- be replaced. (That they were replicas is not significant in any way, except that their use preserved historic flags.) The original flags will be placed in the basement museum, not in the alcove, where the flags were removed.
Besides, original flags could have been placed in the basement museum without removing the flags in the alcove -- a fact that appears to have been lost by just about everyone on the flogger side, especially Kevin Levin.
It suggests to me that this is not entirely about the removal of flags, but about who instigated it.The operative words here, "It suggests to me..." That's because his mindset predisposes him to such suggestions.
This is about the fact that it was a group of African-American students who successfully petitioned their school to acknowledge their interpretation of the Confederate flag. It is a reminder that African Americans will never subscribe to their preferred interpretation of this history and its iconography.Nope. It's not about African American interpretations or some leftist understanding like that. It's about deploring any dishonor and besmirching of heritage, any effort to eradicate it, regardless of who does it. I guess Kevin's memory is short, or his powers of observation limited -- BUT Mimi Elrod and Anna Brodsky are not African American and thus their interpretation of the Confederate flag is not an African American interpretation. But their besmirching and dishonoring of Confederate heritage, as justification for eradicating it (in the form of flags in Lexington) was deplored and opposed.
The Confederate heritage movement has gone to great lengths in recent years to shape their stories to appeal to African Americans and other minorities. This butchering of the Lost Cause narrative likely goes beyond what most Confederates themselves would acknowledge as a realistic depiction of their cause. The rise of the black Confederate narrative in the 1970s is the most obvious example of this revisionist agenda.Some within the community have done that. Most have not. I have not. If African Ameicans and other minorities want to participate in or commemorate Confederate heritage, that's fine with me. But I don't have the leftist mindset that these folks must be recruited to legitimize a cause (like NASCAR some years back, desperately recruiting black drivers and fans to a sport they largely were not interested in -- as if they were needed to legitimize NASCAR).
In the end groups like the Virginia Flaggers can highlight their black member and post all of the photographs of black passers-by on the Boulevard they want on their websites. The SCV can schedule an unlimited number of appearances with H.K. Edgerton. The racial profile of the students is a reminder that this project has largely been a failure.The Virginia Flaggers don't highlight their black member any more than they highlight any of their other members -- it's just that "black" is what rivets Levin's attention, and thus what he focuses on. The VaFlaggers post photos of those who stop and talk... some of them are black. What should they do, hide the photos of black visitors?
The hysteria on display by the Confederate heritage community belies the fact that the students in question actually got very little of what they demanded. You decide.The hysteria is on display primarily in Kevin Levin's imagination. The student activists got what they wanted -- victory in the first small salvo in the dishonoring of Lee and his role in the Confederacy.
Topple Lee and the whole of Confederate heritage will crumble under the Gramscian-leftist onslaught that will follow. And that, folks, is the ultimate goal of Committee-types and floggers.
Leftists seem to like wallowing in ignorance. Original flags would most likely be displayed in climate controlled cases, as they would be 150 years old. And Leftists are curious people. They see people as purple people, green people, and any other group they can divide people into, and create victims, which they can then bend to their purposes.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering about the original flags, in that sense, as well. I would not want the original flags to hang in the tomb, because of how old and delicate they are. They need to be in a museum, where they can be kept safe, while "replicas" are hung up in their place.
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ReplyDeleteYes, remove the Lee's, Jackson's, Davis's, then it is time to move on to the Washington's, Jefferson's, Madison's, et al. It is a very slippery slope.
They already have tried to remove school names that had Presidents that owned slaves.the catch is African Americans are a minority within minority's.there is no love lost between Native Americans organizations .African Americans,Asians Latinos etc as a group. People of all colors can get along but political groups do not if there is a conflict. Would could be Lee High school today becomes King High school and in turn a few years later Caesar Chavez High.
DeleteOne simply cannot have a dialogue with a ideologue why would you even try there are certain basic realities that are not going to go away, no matter how much the politically correct crowd and the anti-Confederate bloggers would like for one while the confederate flag may be taken down from certain government institutions it's not going away. It has become a permanent symbol of rebellion and resistance to unjust authority. Now the civil wrongs industry as hopeless is your situation to redeem a substantial majority other people, violence subculture, and the drugs and poverty which goes with it they need a diversion. Now I can separate some of these organizations such as the Urban League and a few others whose primary attempt is to address the issues of crime and poverty.
ReplyDeleteThe NAACP with its long history of anti-Semites, radical or hate filled professional race baiters like Julian Bond has found bashing Southerners(as proxies for all white America) via its anti-Confederate flag campaign has been good for business.
While a majority of African-Americans and its growing middle class are interested in hundred and 50-year-old arguments they're mostly interested in getting ahead in life, there are enough hate Whitey's internets to fill the coffers. Now on the Internet you can find any sort of blowhard, self-styled genius, race haters of all shapes and sizes and colors, so you have a wide selection of people to quote from if you're building a strawman. Now this is particularly true of such characters as Al Mackey, and his sidekicks. When you begin to label your opponent's views in this simplified context of the term neo-Confederate you turn them into a class of people that you can marginalize an insult with impunity.
Then attach a label to them such as Reparationists and dismiss all their arguments. Unfortunately many people who defend the Confederacy or any aspect of it are guilty of not being assiduous in making sure that there quotations and facts are accurate,so there you have it This allows Mr. Mackey and his cohorts to equate someone like Prof. Donald Livingstone was a professor of philosophy at Emory University with some angry 15-year-old who post something absurd about Yankees all being scum etc. Since they make statements like how dumb do you have to be to be a Neo Confederate
I do not subscribe to some of the traditional arguments in favor amongst Confederate apologists using that word in the sense of apologia, not in the common sense the matter of secession was not resolved when the war for Southern Independence, or the war of rebellion which ever you want to call it started. We know they were very many people who felt that secession was in effect accordance with the spirit of the American Revolution and with the Declaration of Independence as outlined by Thomas Jefferson. Others felt the union was in dissolvable. Ideologues on either side are going to argue their case to extremes, but such disparate individuals as Civil War historian Gary Gallagher and Pres. Dwight David Eisenhower were of the opinion that that was the case. Of course the right to do something doesn't always mean it's a good idea. The one thing we have to keep in mind is that the law has to be interpreted and the law changes.