Today's South is still not grown up

Whiskey and Rye
    By John Schochet

The American South sometimes acts like a spoiled child. It is responsible for perpetuating slavery long after it died out elsewhere, nearly tearing apart this nation, and struggling to keep us in the social Dark Ages well into the 20th century. Nevertheless, the South believes it has some divine right to revel in its racist, violent, primitive, and intolerant past. This is all especially odd considering that we're supposed to be entering the age of the "New South." After all, Atlanta is a progressive, cosmopolitan city that hosted the Olympics. Employment is expanding all over the region, and Northerners are moving down south in droves. And supposedly, the Civil Rights Movement has taken hold of all but the most reactionary whites in Dixieland.

SHAWN CHENG/YH

Given these signs of enlightenment emanating from the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line, I fail to understand why many southerners are still obsessed with Confederate symbols and dogma. The Confederate battle flag is incorporated into the state flags of Georgia and Mississippi. While most states fly the "Stars and Stripes" above their state houses, South Carolina flies the "Stars and Bars." Virtually every southern town has a Confederate memorial.

This behavior is treasonous. State governments sponsor Confederate symbols on their flags. Local governments support war memorials—for men who died violently rebelling against the United States of America. These memorials honor those who fought to protect the right to own other human beings, or—in the case of poor whites— those who were tricked by the wealthy aristocracy into joining the Western World's last feudal army. Private citizens can say and believe whatever they want, but state and local governments have no business supporting such treasonous statements.

Let's dispense with the usual nonsense about "protecting southern heritage" or "supporting states' rights." At the beginning of the Civil War, the South had its collective head stuck in the ground, unwilling to step out of prehistory. Plantations and slaves made the aristocracy feel important, and they were willing to murder American soldiers in one last desperate attempt to hold on to their "dignity." We should be saddened by the strife these Confederate soldiers brought to this nation, instead of building memorials to their misguided cause.

A generation after the war, southerners started constructing legends to make them feel proud again—as if Jim Crow wasn't enough to give southern whites a false sense of importance. Beginning in the '50s, idols from the Civil War were used to rally opposition to the Civil Rights Movement.

But aren't these governmentally-sponsored Confederate flags important emblems of southern heritage that have represented the South since the dawn of time? Nope. Mississippi was the first to adopt its faux-Confederate flag in 1894, right around the time blacks were losing the right to vote. Georgia's adoption of the flag in 1956 conveniently corresponded to the launching of the Civil Rights Movement. South Carolina has a long and noble tradition of flying the Battle Flag of Dixie over its State House—since 1962. Strom Thurmond has been in the Senate longer than that flag has been flying. It's bad enough that the South proudly displays these symbols of racism and rebellion, but these revivals of the Confederate flag were actually meant as direct responses to civil rights advances.

The insult doesn't stop with the flags. Remember how relieved America was when Arizona became the last state to declare Martin Luther King, Jr. Day an official state holiday? By implication, therefore, all southern states have celebrated King's birthday for quite some time, right? Wrong. Virginia doesn't have a Martin Luther King Day. Instead, subjects of the Old Dominion State celebrate Lee-Jackson-King Day. In Alabama, they have Robert E. Lee- Martin Luther King Day, in addition to Confederate Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis Day.

It is a mockery to Martin Luther King's memory to place his good name next to those of two racist traitors. Celebrating Lee-Jackson-King Day is like having a Romanov-Hitler-Israeli Independence Day. It's a disgrace, and Virginia and Alabama owe humanity an apology for this pathetic and offensive stunt. Granted, the argument from the flag and holiday supporters is no longer "Confederate symbols are necessary in order to preserve white dominance in the South." It's changed to the somewhat more palatable (though much less honest) "Confederate symbols are not at all racist; they simply represent the Southern heritage of all races." Go to an Alabama cotton field in 1861 and ask the first slave you meet whether he'd like this "heritage" celebrated.

My message to the South: grow up. This attitude is disgraceful. You're making yourself the second laughingstock of the civilized world—after France. Take advantage of the wave of prosperity hitting your region and the surplus of Northern ex-patriots in your midst. Start remembering the Confederacy fiasco as an unfortunate error on your part which we kindly helped you correct.

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