The Ongoing American Civil War

While my research has not been extensive or definitive, imagine my surprise to find that most of the Confederate War statues were erected decades after the Civil War - some as late as the mid-20th Century! Many were sponsored by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and some by other organizations and means. Their placement in public areas, parks, and such is problematic - there are charges they were placed as warnings and reminders to blacks, the charges of placements in predominately black neighborhoods, and many erected in the early 20th Century coincide with the halcyon days of Ku Klux Klan. (Let's not forget their good friend, Jim Crow, and all his "laws.")

You've heard of that terrorist organization, I take it? They marched in New York City, circa 1926. They've rallied in many states, in decades past - and not just in the south. I haven't verified, but have it from a good source that the Klan once held one of its largest rallies ever in a suburb (in the Chicagoland area) near here, one which prides itself on its great schools. I do remember articles in the Joliet Herald News from circa 1988 when this fine, upstanding suburb had a black woman appointed as postmaster of the local post office. She was run out of town. I digress, but not as far as you might think.

Read the Articles of Secession of the Confederacy, and nearly every state cites it "right" to the "peculiar" (in this case meaning "special" and not "unusual") institution of slavery. Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post article:
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. “Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”

Most of the votes for secession, in southern states, by its states Congressmen, were unanimous. It wasn't about states rights - it was about protecting slavery.

Now, I understand that your study of the Civil War means no harm, and that you mean no harm to others. My mom's father was the same way. Here's the problem. The symbols of the Civil War are not relegated to history - not even close!

See, the south may have lost the military war, but they shifted that war to a social war, via the aforementioned Klan and Jim Crow laws. Then, in the Fifties, when "separate but equal" was overturned,  and later, in the Sixties, in the face of civil rights (an era in which four prominent leaders were assassinated, and countless others were injured and killed) the south and white supremacists and the Klan embraced their statues and Confederate battle flag and called it "heritage."

As time goes by, more injustices come to light, such as Emmett Till, who committed the sin of whistling at a white woman? Never happened. After decades, the woman admitted she made it up, and an anguished mother had an open casket funeral, so all could see what was done to her son. Meanwhile, the sign commemorating the young Till is still mostly readable, because there aren't quite enough bullet holes in it!

The tiki torch brigade marched on Charlottesville, VA. Nazis. Not neo-Nazis - nothing new about this crowd, except the boldness to march unmasked to defend a statue of a Confederate general. (I really oughta thank this group. I unintentionally held, for decades, the unofficial title of lamest white guy in America - until these chuckeheads showed up.) They killed a woman, Heather Heyer. Even if she was no saint, that right there should be the end of it. They're Nazis. They killed a woman. Resist? You damned well betcha.

Which reminds me: most of the terrorism and mass shootings in America are committed by men who look like...well...me. When they happen, all my "blue lives matter" / "all lives matter" Facebook friends, and friends elsewhere, are unanimously silent-except to tell me that I'm wrong, or I don't understand. I understand cowardice, when I see it. I understand all the so-called Christians and conservatives who have unfriended me on Facebook, or will no longer talk to me in real life. So secure in their righteousness and almighty God, that they can't / won't stay around to engage. They won't stand for people of color.  Pardon my laughter.

See, the "slippery slope" free speech argument doesn't work: The First Amendment guarantees protection from government action - so far. There are limits to "free speech." You may not, via speech, slander or endanger someone, or threaten their well-being or life.  It's about as bad as the "don't look" argument - a nice little trope, when you have the option - not so nice when said statue is at the end of your street!

Houston Police Sargeant Steve Perez drowned in the flood waters of Harvey. Where are all the "blue lives matter" people, now? My Facebook feed remains utterly silent, except for the news feeds. What? Not shot by a person of color? Or, he is a person of color? Silence. Hypocrisy. Judgement.

Let a black quarterback "take a knee" in silent, peaceful protest? Instant, palpable outrage! Oh, and "laughable." Laughable outrage. NFL had to refund money paid by the Department of Defense for military tributes during games, as a form of recruitment. No outrage. You can batter your wife or significant other, and remain in the NFL. No outrage. NFL teams get taxpayer money to subsidize the building or improvement of stadiums. Little outrage. NFL drags its proverbial feet on concussions and brain injuries to its players. Little outrage. Take a knee? General quarters! All hands, man your battlestations!

It just goes on and on - while I'm assured that racism is not longer a problem, people of color are killed in the most suspicious of circumstances, and the consequences are minimal to none. The video of the Laquan McDonald shooting was suppressed for about a year. If it hadn't been, we'd probably have Chicago Mayor Jesus "Chuy" Garcia instead of Rahm Emmanuel. The video came out, and the city of Chicago flung five million dollar of taxpayer money at the family, to keep it out of court. Gee, wonder why?

African-American behavioral therapist Charles Kinsey was trying to calm an autistic man on a street in Florida. The police arrived. Kinsey lay on his back in the street with his hands in the air. (White people call this "exercise.") The police shot Kinsey. (Blue Lives Matter / All Lives Matter people silent, again.)

The latest? You can lose your police job for telling someone that only black people are killed by cops...but you can actually kill black people, as a cop, and walk away.

So, yes - until the Civil War is finally over? Move the statues out of public places.  Move them to private property or museums. (Not the battlefield monuments - that is an entirely different thing. Stone Mountain? I vacillate.) Tear them down. Knock them down. Resist.  Resist white supremacy, Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan - they are one and the same, and they are emboldened by a presidential administration of the highest cowardice, an administration who invited people of color to vote because, "what do you have to lose?" (Lives, apparently.) An administration which sends mixed messages, so the Nazis are now comfortable with "Heil Trump!" while hate crimes and killings, according to organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, have only increased during the campaign and the incumbency of the most inept administration in our collective lives. Well, not completely inept. Richard Spencer and David Duke are thrilled! An administration which promised to include the the LGBTQ community, and at first opportunity, threw them under the bus. Bus? No. Something closer to the vehicles of more fully militarized police, and whatever wheels of "Justice" may be used to grind them under tread and boot. (All the while, the spiritual advisers of this mess of an administration blame every natural disaster on "the gays." What century is this, again?)

Pull down the slave statues....oh, wait - there are none. No statues to the objects of that peculiar institution. Damned odd, don't you think?

Go to Germany. Find the Hitler statues. Throw the Nazi salute, like some American tourist nimrod did, recently. Hint: it didn't end well for him.

Now, I know I'm not much more than a Facebook keyboard warrior, with a little blog that may have a half dozen followers. I ain't much of anything, any more, but maybe, there will be a time for me to intervene, to stand - and in the parade of inept and lame Facebook memes and posts, let this be my interjection, however brief, however small. I dare to disagree.

We were children of the "space race." We should be heading to the planets and stars, under the benefits of a post-scarcity economy. Instead, we have to fight institutionalized greed and racism, fettered by a budget which is a monument to endless war and this-quarter profits. (Republican Dwight Eisenhower warned us. We didn't listen.) (It's all of a piece. It's all the same thing.) The white men, and their pedestaled white women, will lose, eventually. See, in about twenty-five years, they'll be the physical minority. What then, I wonder?

The needed justice is not only needed in the courtroom, it is needed on Wall Street, on Main Street, in our schools, and in our prisons. The problems are systemic, and endemic, and the burden is no longer with people of color. Have they not carried it long enough? The paradigm shift needs be enormous - but it is within our grasp, if we have the will. One Love.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html?utm_term=.832d46e259da