usmbguest5318
Gold Member
In the wake of the "carrying on" in Charlottesville, we all heard the plangent pronouncements and pleas about preserving history. Some of us may have heard people support that notion using the argument that most Southerners weren't even slaveholders (true), all the while ignoring the fact that most Antebellum Southerner weren't slaveowners because they couldn't be, not because they were unwilling to be or because anathema to them was the notion of profiting from slave ownership. Then as now, if one could the be sole proprietor of a business that afforded one the equivalent of ~$60M net worth, one would. Moreover, the simple fact is that among Confederate Southerners, there was neither a massive plurality of them nor a majority of them who were also Abolitionists or who vehemently and vociferously rallied against oppressing blacks.
But the problem isn't what 19th century or even early 20th century Confederates and their sympathizers did or said regarding blacks' status. The problem is the very existence today of nitwits and palterers who spew that specious line of bunkum about "preserving history and culture" thinking that the rest of us be imperspicacious enough to think it has merit. Truth be told, but for the fact that there are so many clowns who'll utter that line, people of material mental mien wouldn't dignify it with a response.
To wit, riddle me this.
To me, the answer is adamantinely clear. Like those long dead racists, today's defenders of the primacy of place enjoyed by Lee, Davis, Bragg, Pickett, et al have as their intention preserving the memory of the opprobrious view of humanity that, in the form of the Civil War, Black Codes, "separate but equal," etc., beset the U.S. and has ever since sundered, subverted and shook the serenity each of us citizens seeks in these supposedly-united states. Should we forget about the Confederacy? Of course not, but our collective memory of it and its perpetrators belongs in history books, not emblazoned on architraves and placed on pedestals before our most sacred and important institutions.
There is plenty that is both honorable, culturally relevant, interesting and unifying about the contributions of the common, non-slaveowing Confederate seamstress, butcher, baker and cabinetmaker. If nothing else, it's that as is often said, but too infrequently commemorated, this country and its heritage and culture derives every bit as much from the labors of common folk as it does from the likes of world renowned inventors, financiers and industrialists.
To wit, in the U.S. we have a long, rich and tasty tradition built up around Southern cooking, ranging from refined to rustic. And, of course, the heritage, culture and enjoyment of Southern cooking was and is shared by the oppressed and the oppressors alike. I'd even hazard that Southern cooking is one thing that is 100% American and that has been and remains welcomed and appreciated the world over. Indeed, when you think about it, of all the things that we Americans do, lo all of humanity, the one thing that unites us is food. The Confederacy and what it stood for deserves the nullification and interposition attendant to removing statues of them. Accordingly, I think we'd do ourselves some good by renaming streets to commemorate shirmp-'n'-grits, collard greens, cornbread, chicken and dumplings, fried okra, peanuts, jambalaya and gumbo, pecan pie, squirrel stew (aka Brunswick stew), biscuits and gravy, etc. and the Southern men and women who invented, served, perfected and made them famous.
Thread rules:
But the problem isn't what 19th century or even early 20th century Confederates and their sympathizers did or said regarding blacks' status. The problem is the very existence today of nitwits and palterers who spew that specious line of bunkum about "preserving history and culture" thinking that the rest of us be imperspicacious enough to think it has merit. Truth be told, but for the fact that there are so many clowns who'll utter that line, people of material mental mien wouldn't dignify it with a response.
To wit, riddle me this.
- If it's so that the heritage and culture of common Confederate citizens who weren't slaveholders is indeed what the myriad statues and commemorations of dead slave owners, military and political leaders of the Confederacy and profiteers in the perpetuation of black subjugation be about, why do our supposedly egalitarian contemporaries not advocate for replacing/renaming statues of Robert E. Lee, streets named for Jeff Davis, schools named for Stonewall Jackson, a military base named for Braxton Bragg, etc. and in their places erecting sculptures of everyday Antebellum Southerners doing the things that those non-slaveholding men women did?
- Why do we not see advocacy for bridges, streets, schools and buildings named for those non-slave owners and/or groups of them?
- Mississippi Abolitionists Memorial Parkway
- Antebellum Homemakers Senior High
- Birmingham Bricklayers Bridge
- The Stonemason County Courthouse
- The Dairymaid Administrative Building
- Blacksmith Blvd., Harness-maker Hwy, etc.
- Why do we see no push to memorialize the Antebellum and Confederate migrant worker, indentured servant, self-sustaining farmer who had no slaves, shipwrights who employed only paid workers, carpenters, etc?
- Why do we not see and hear advocates for preserving Southern history hollering for exchanging the existing honoraria for alternative honoraria calling attention to people and groups who had no blatantly inextricable ties to the perpetuation of the "curious institution?"
To me, the answer is adamantinely clear. Like those long dead racists, today's defenders of the primacy of place enjoyed by Lee, Davis, Bragg, Pickett, et al have as their intention preserving the memory of the opprobrious view of humanity that, in the form of the Civil War, Black Codes, "separate but equal," etc., beset the U.S. and has ever since sundered, subverted and shook the serenity each of us citizens seeks in these supposedly-united states. Should we forget about the Confederacy? Of course not, but our collective memory of it and its perpetrators belongs in history books, not emblazoned on architraves and placed on pedestals before our most sacred and important institutions.
There is plenty that is both honorable, culturally relevant, interesting and unifying about the contributions of the common, non-slaveowing Confederate seamstress, butcher, baker and cabinetmaker. If nothing else, it's that as is often said, but too infrequently commemorated, this country and its heritage and culture derives every bit as much from the labors of common folk as it does from the likes of world renowned inventors, financiers and industrialists.
To wit, in the U.S. we have a long, rich and tasty tradition built up around Southern cooking, ranging from refined to rustic. And, of course, the heritage, culture and enjoyment of Southern cooking was and is shared by the oppressed and the oppressors alike. I'd even hazard that Southern cooking is one thing that is 100% American and that has been and remains welcomed and appreciated the world over. Indeed, when you think about it, of all the things that we Americans do, lo all of humanity, the one thing that unites us is food. The Confederacy and what it stood for deserves the nullification and interposition attendant to removing statues of them. Accordingly, I think we'd do ourselves some good by renaming streets to commemorate shirmp-'n'-grits, collard greens, cornbread, chicken and dumplings, fried okra, peanuts, jambalaya and gumbo, pecan pie, squirrel stew (aka Brunswick stew), biscuits and gravy, etc. and the Southern men and women who invented, served, perfected and made them famous.
Thread rules:
- Directly answer (as contrasted with merely responding to) the questions posed in the post.
