Civil War Semantics and Secret Society Pacification
We've all heard stories about the patriotism, the willingness to give their lives in combat with all varieties of the US military, the tradition, the mint juleps, the lilting drawl, the gentility, the awareness of history...but the stories we northerners hear are biased and slanted, a history told inaccurately. The southern states of the USA are not the hot, lazy, verdant landscapes that you see in the tourist manuals or the sanctioned history books; rather, they are a prime locus in the USA for divisive, racist, hyperreligious, and separatist ideologies. It is my belief that this pugnacity and tendency towards violence is characteristic of Southern society itself. Slavery left a huge bloodstain on the South's regional soul, obviously, but what is often overlooked or underemphasized in Civil War histories is that the Confederacy was formed to protect that "peculiar institution" and for very few other reasons.
Defense of an immoral and brutal institution like slavery is softened now into defense of homeland and tradition, and rarely are indications given that the idea of secession was not necessarily a hugely popular one among the lower-class whites of the South. James Loewen's book Lies Across America (Simon and Schuster, 1999) is a handy resource to find how much of a positive spin the South puts on its actions in the 1860's and 1870's. Organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy began to rewrite the history of the conflict in the South, while the Ku Klux Klan's terror campaigns helped to re-establish white supremacy in government and economy throughout the region. These activities were presented as the right way to respond to the "scalawags and carpetbaggers" that trooped in from the North (and, ironically enough, from the Republican Party) to exploit the victimized and defeated South.
Eric Foner's excellent history of the post-Civil War era South (Reconstruction, HarperCollins 1988) also paints a vivid picture. Reconstruction brought unprecedented levels of civil disobedience to the South, and inculcated a tradition of violent resistance to state or federal governmental intrusion. A statistic from the era records over 2000 murders between 1870-74 in Texas alone, most of the victims being freed slaves and their families or governmental officials attempting to enforce the decrees of the state or federal governments. With heartwarming stories like these repeating themselves all over the region, it is small wonder that the federal government (under Presidents Johnson and Grant) was intimidated into allowing the South some measure of autonomy contrary to the articles of Reconstruction. Every state in the Confederacy fought against Reconstruction and every state had its own bouts of political assassination. Blacks were attacked by mobs, by klansmen, by police, and even by the courts--there were actual pitched battles fought between black US Army Civil War veterans and whites in Virginia, Texas, and Oklahoma. Foner's book relates the story of a black woman brutally beaten by a group of whites in 1870 Alabama (one can only imagine what she did--or didn't do--to incur such treatment) who was then charged a $16.45 fee to have her complaint heard in court. After scraping the money together she got her day in court. She then saw her assailants released by the judge, who warned her that further pursuance of the matter would result in a jail term for her. Levels of harassment were thorough indeed in the Reconstruction Era.
I mention all this as a background to the story of Edgar Ray Killen, who was convicted of manslaughter today in Mississippi. The aptly named Killen did some killing, or at least helped organize and direct it, and will now pay his price for his racism. Most entertaining to me, however, was the former mayor of Philadelphia, MS saying that he viewed the Klan as "a peaceful organization" that "did a lot of good up here". A statement like this shows these redneck bastards for what they really are--violent racists whose repugnant philosophy runs counter to their professed religiosity. The problem is that these men reproduced, and ideas like these will never die in these communities because of that fact. Too many children grow up in an atmosphere of racism--they carry it like a virus with them through their lives unless they are smart enough to reflect upon it and reject it. Incidents like the Cheney/Goodman/Schwerner incident have been repeated (James Byrd, anyone?), clearly showing that the psychology that caused the murders to occur still exists in the South.
The Civil War was supposed to have ended this bullshit; here we are 140 years later still dealing with its fallout. Perhaps if the whole South was coerced into paying slavery reparations it might change, but that is unlikely--they've gotten away with treason and civil war, along with rejecting the Constitutional Amendments pertaining to slavery's abolition, so why should they be affected by the specter of reparations? Until their schools teach that the Civil War was fought to preserve a conservative slave-based economy, these mental habits will continue among Southerners. No self-respecting teacher should ever teach the Civil War using the appellation "the War of Northern Aggression", yet 33% of the region still refers to the conflict as such.
The semantic trickery involved in describing the Civil War in such a fashion has no place in history. The creation of a lawless secret society to keep the peace has resulted in the creation of a region where guns are plentiful and ready to be used, where tobacco is grown to addict and kill its customers, a region where dollars still outweigh any ethical and moral considerations. Economic concerns are the primary concerns of the South, and it still holds its laborers in contempt, though not as harshly as it did in the 19th century. What I despise about the South in general is its reputation for decency, friendliness, and piety--this region viewed mankind through the darkest lens possible, interpreting the horrific violence of slavery as an ennobling experience, one in which the "savages" were saved by the mercy of a mercurial Jesus. In addition, its vaunted historical consciousness is barely conscious at all...it may no longer be deliberate, since children taught lies will propagate them throughout their lives, but in the 50-year period after the Civil War the attempt to distort its own sordid history was performed as well as Josef Stalin's rewritings of Communist Party history in the USSR.
Patriotism and piety. Such noble concepts, yet in the case of the American South they are invoked to hide a tower of skeletons that still wear the shackles of their servitude.
Defense of an immoral and brutal institution like slavery is softened now into defense of homeland and tradition, and rarely are indications given that the idea of secession was not necessarily a hugely popular one among the lower-class whites of the South. James Loewen's book Lies Across America (Simon and Schuster, 1999) is a handy resource to find how much of a positive spin the South puts on its actions in the 1860's and 1870's. Organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy began to rewrite the history of the conflict in the South, while the Ku Klux Klan's terror campaigns helped to re-establish white supremacy in government and economy throughout the region. These activities were presented as the right way to respond to the "scalawags and carpetbaggers" that trooped in from the North (and, ironically enough, from the Republican Party) to exploit the victimized and defeated South.
Eric Foner's excellent history of the post-Civil War era South (Reconstruction, HarperCollins 1988) also paints a vivid picture. Reconstruction brought unprecedented levels of civil disobedience to the South, and inculcated a tradition of violent resistance to state or federal governmental intrusion. A statistic from the era records over 2000 murders between 1870-74 in Texas alone, most of the victims being freed slaves and their families or governmental officials attempting to enforce the decrees of the state or federal governments. With heartwarming stories like these repeating themselves all over the region, it is small wonder that the federal government (under Presidents Johnson and Grant) was intimidated into allowing the South some measure of autonomy contrary to the articles of Reconstruction. Every state in the Confederacy fought against Reconstruction and every state had its own bouts of political assassination. Blacks were attacked by mobs, by klansmen, by police, and even by the courts--there were actual pitched battles fought between black US Army Civil War veterans and whites in Virginia, Texas, and Oklahoma. Foner's book relates the story of a black woman brutally beaten by a group of whites in 1870 Alabama (one can only imagine what she did--or didn't do--to incur such treatment) who was then charged a $16.45 fee to have her complaint heard in court. After scraping the money together she got her day in court. She then saw her assailants released by the judge, who warned her that further pursuance of the matter would result in a jail term for her. Levels of harassment were thorough indeed in the Reconstruction Era.
I mention all this as a background to the story of Edgar Ray Killen, who was convicted of manslaughter today in Mississippi. The aptly named Killen did some killing, or at least helped organize and direct it, and will now pay his price for his racism. Most entertaining to me, however, was the former mayor of Philadelphia, MS saying that he viewed the Klan as "a peaceful organization" that "did a lot of good up here". A statement like this shows these redneck bastards for what they really are--violent racists whose repugnant philosophy runs counter to their professed religiosity. The problem is that these men reproduced, and ideas like these will never die in these communities because of that fact. Too many children grow up in an atmosphere of racism--they carry it like a virus with them through their lives unless they are smart enough to reflect upon it and reject it. Incidents like the Cheney/Goodman/Schwerner incident have been repeated (James Byrd, anyone?), clearly showing that the psychology that caused the murders to occur still exists in the South.
The Civil War was supposed to have ended this bullshit; here we are 140 years later still dealing with its fallout. Perhaps if the whole South was coerced into paying slavery reparations it might change, but that is unlikely--they've gotten away with treason and civil war, along with rejecting the Constitutional Amendments pertaining to slavery's abolition, so why should they be affected by the specter of reparations? Until their schools teach that the Civil War was fought to preserve a conservative slave-based economy, these mental habits will continue among Southerners. No self-respecting teacher should ever teach the Civil War using the appellation "the War of Northern Aggression", yet 33% of the region still refers to the conflict as such.
The semantic trickery involved in describing the Civil War in such a fashion has no place in history. The creation of a lawless secret society to keep the peace has resulted in the creation of a region where guns are plentiful and ready to be used, where tobacco is grown to addict and kill its customers, a region where dollars still outweigh any ethical and moral considerations. Economic concerns are the primary concerns of the South, and it still holds its laborers in contempt, though not as harshly as it did in the 19th century. What I despise about the South in general is its reputation for decency, friendliness, and piety--this region viewed mankind through the darkest lens possible, interpreting the horrific violence of slavery as an ennobling experience, one in which the "savages" were saved by the mercy of a mercurial Jesus. In addition, its vaunted historical consciousness is barely conscious at all...it may no longer be deliberate, since children taught lies will propagate them throughout their lives, but in the 50-year period after the Civil War the attempt to distort its own sordid history was performed as well as Josef Stalin's rewritings of Communist Party history in the USSR.
Patriotism and piety. Such noble concepts, yet in the case of the American South they are invoked to hide a tower of skeletons that still wear the shackles of their servitude.
posted by alyosha mcbain at 12:18 PM
2 Comments:
Nice post, gimp.
Weird!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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