Confederate Chic

I took this photo in a touristy ice cream shop in Harper's Ferry last weekend and it seems a bit puzzling. West Virginia, after all, isn't rebel country. Indeed, that's kind of the point of the whole state. Obviously, you see Confederate iconography outside of CSA territory (the young George Allen in California, obviously) but this really doesn't seem intended in a white supremacist kind of way. But there it is in a state whose entire existence is owed to the fact that West Virginians didn't want to commit treason in defense of slavery.

Comments

It was for sale. Cultivating a continued interest in the Civil War and all of the war's paraphernalia is in the interest of local merchants. Virginia is literally a stone's throw away. Virginians no longer use COnfederate money, so their money spends just fine.

Posted by Njorl | August 2, 2007 8:34 AM

Not coordinating your shoes and your belt is one thing, but failing to coordinate your confederate kitsch with your local history? Tisk. Tisk.

Growing up just a bit north in southern Pennsylvania, I saw my fair share of stars-n-bars decals on the backs of pick-up trucks too.

Posted by Art | August 2, 2007 8:35 AM

Very little of the Stars and Bars iconography was intended in a white supremicist kind of way. It was always a country/rural vs city/urban, jeans vs suits, South vs. East Coast, Heartland vs. Washington D.C., Good Ole' Boys vs. Uptight cityslickers kind of way.

then, of course, academics got a hold of it, created their controversy, and redefined it. Its all about power (if you can tell people how to behave, how to decorate their pickup trucks, what to draw on their cookbooks, you have power over them).

By and large, of course, the academics won. You won't see a non-ironic "Rebel Yell" automobile on broadcast television ever again. There are still a few holdouts (witness the cookbook, above), but it will only be out of the mainstream.

Sk

Posted by Sk | August 2, 2007 8:48 AM

You'll see the same identification with the confederacy in other areas that trended loyal in 1861-1865; both Huntsville Alabama and Chattanoga Tennessee were loyalist hotbeds, but when you pass through those areas today you see a lot of Confederate symbolism.

Posted by Richard Welty | August 2, 2007 8:53 AM

Nice op-ed today, Matt.

Posted by DC Elite | August 2, 2007 8:54 AM

pretty common phenomenon of revanchism, not only in W. VA.

It is said of Kentucky, for instance, that it is the only state to have joined the Confederacy after the war was over.

And despite SK's drivel above, the core issue has always been racism.

Posted by Count Cant | August 2, 2007 8:57 AM

Love the treason meme btw.

Posted by mickslam | August 2, 2007 9:01 AM

Indiana has an interesting relationship with the South. We still have our share of Dixiecrats down in southern Indiana, but due to cultural memories of the war, particularly John Hunt Morgan's raid, there is less sympathy for the South than you would expect. They may vote that way, but they're not Confederates, and don't make the mistake of suggesting it.

In the northern part of the state, which was basically untouched by the war, racists commonly display confederate flags; while Malcolm X was out, the catchphrase was "You show your X, and I;ll show mine". Fewer people may vote with the South, but more are willing to identify with it.

Indiana politics is pretty schizophrenic in many ways, though. Doesn't help that our little state has almost twice as many counties as California.

Posted by Nick | August 2, 2007 9:12 AM

All the border states and regions, such as West Virginia, had significant pro-secessionist minorities and were scarred by partisan warfare. The Hatfields, of the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud along the Kentucky-West Virginia border, were famous Rebels (in fact that was the origin of the feud as the McCoys were Kentucky Unionists).

Posted by Rickster Sherpa | August 2, 2007 9:13 AM

West Virginia's eastern panhandle lowlands have few geographical, economic or cultural ties to the rest of the West Virgina. The eastern panhandle counties did not choose secession from Virginia; they were made part of the new state to ensure Union control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that ran up the Potomac.

West Virginia is an Appalachian state dominated by mountains and coal. Harper's Ferry lies east of the mountains; it has the lowest elevation in West Virginia, and has no connection to its coal dominated economy. Isolated by the mountains from the rest of the state, it has always had more in common with the two states into which it wedges, Maryland and Virgina, than with the rest of West Virginia. Discovering sympathy for the confederacy in the eastern panhandle is like discovering coal in the rest of the state.

Posted by West Virginia Native | August 2, 2007 9:21 AM

West Virginia's eastern panhandle lowlands have few geographical, economic or cultural ties to the rest of the West Virgina. The eastern panhandle counties did not choose secession from Virginia; they were made part of the new state to ensure Union control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that ran up the Potomac.

West Virginia is an Appalachian state dominated by mountains and coal. Harper's Ferry lies east of the mountains; it has the lowest elevation in West Virginia, and has no connection to its coal dominated economy. Isolated by the mountains from the rest of the state, it has always had more in common with the two states into which it wedges, Maryland and Virgina, than with the rest of West Virginia. Discovering sympathy for the confederacy in the eastern panhandle is like discovering coal in the rest of the state; you don't have to look far or dig very deep.

Posted by West Virginia Native | August 2, 2007 9:22 AM

Art--

Never mind when I was "Growing up"; I still see tons of this stuff in and around Pittsburgh.

My Catholic high school was just up the hill from the original HJ Heinz plant, and maybe 2 miles from 3 Rivers Stadium. About as urban as you could get--and an absolute cesspool of racism.

Not surprisingly, they're finding it very easy to raise a few mil from the alumni, to move the whole shebang to a shiny new campus 25 miles out in the exurbs.

Posted by Captain Goto | August 2, 2007 9:28 AM

Come to think of it, how long has this been going on?

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2006/07/a_confederacy_o.html

Last time I checked, New Jersey was north of the mason/Dixon line

Posted by jonathan | August 2, 2007 9:29 AM

SK is right on this one. While there are, no doubt, racial overtones to the display of the Confederate flag, the dominant motivation is not racism, or even rebellion, but redneck pride.

Posted by Spike | August 2, 2007 9:34 AM

And one of the constitutive, distinguishing features of redneck pride is racial pride.

Posted by DivGuy | August 2, 2007 9:37 AM

And despite SK's drivel above, the core issue has always been racism

Be fair. Sometimes it's the treason.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 2, 2007 9:38 AM

I am dieing to know what is inside that book.

Posted by MP | August 2, 2007 9:38 AM

It's odd; black Southerners never seem to make the mistake that Confederate iconography is about anything but race. They understand full well that, in the South, redneck pride and racism are deeply intertwined.

As to West Virginia, the state capitol has a statue of Stonewall Jackson...

Posted by Rob Farley | August 2, 2007 9:46 AM

jeans vs suits

Ah, yes. This explains all the confederate flags displayed in the offices of IT sysadmins and computer programmers everywhere.

Posted by Tyro | August 2, 2007 9:53 AM

the dominant motivation is not racism, or even rebellion, but redneck pride.

So, not racism, just anti-intellectualism? Well, that might be better, but not by much...

Posted by Cyrus | August 2, 2007 9:55 AM

West Virginia is a state that is based on exploited raw materials, primarily coal. The confederate symbols and association is an association with economic exploitation. Yes, it historically implies racism and decreases the ability of economically exploited blacks and whites to work together. Doh.

I disagree with "Sk" but since he is likely the person most likely to adopt the iconography, he is most likely to present reasons for its adoption. And his hostility is to academics (those with educational opportunity) and markers for wealth (suits, urban, East coast as if the FL did not run to the Atlantic). These are the descriptions the lily-white ReThugs have turned into "liberal". To the extent that this display is about class, not race, there is common ground.

Posted by Karen Smith | August 2, 2007 10:04 AM

The confederate battleflag stands for: 1. treason, 2. the right of people to own people, and 3. an attempt to romanticise and accomodate 1 & 2 in today's world. Make no mistake, the cover was an attempt to appeal to white supremacists in a white supremacist kind of way.

As for the geography of white supemacism, Taneytown, Maryland, like the rest of Maryland was occupied by Union forces throughout the War. It is the home of Roger Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision, widely acknowedged to be a leading cause of the secession. There is a fight about removing the statues of Taney from Annapolis. Maryland, like West Virginia is still south of both the literal and figurative the Mason Dixon Line.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | August 2, 2007 10:12 AM

The West Virginia State Capitol has a ton of statues of West Virginians of import, such as Booker T Washington and Robert Byrd (you don't even have to be dead to get a statue!). Stonewall Jackson was a damnable confederate, but he was also a brilliant tactician, and was from what is now West Virginia. Developing the notion of a flanking maneuver is probably a statue-worthy achievement.

Other than the Wheeling area in northern West Virginia, union sympathy was by no means universal in the western half of prewar Virginia. Antipathy towards the corrupt, self-serving eastern half of the state was perhaps more common. The origins of West Virginia's desire for independence from Virginia go back before the Revolutionary war.

Posted by ol'jn | August 2, 2007 10:12 AM

Last time I checked, New Jersey was north of the mason/Dixon line

If you extend the Mason/Dixon line eastward from the Maryland-Delaware border until you reach the Atlantic coast, a sizeable chunk of New Jersey will be located to its south.

Posted by Peter | August 2, 2007 10:19 AM

I too love the TIODS meme. My second favorite thing about Boston (after Harpoon IPA, natch) is all the utterly shameless Union boosterism.

Posted by Trevor | August 2, 2007 10:24 AM

Forget the racial aspects. Supporting treason is the real issue.

Posted by FS | August 2, 2007 10:26 AM

>So, not racism, just anti-intellectualism? Well, that might be better, but not by much...

It amuses me that the intellectual left, which proports to favor policies supporting the poor and working class, really has very little respect for the rural, lower and middle class population of the country.

While the antipathy is deep, and, indeed, mutual, I don't think it justifies the myopic views these two groups have of each other. Urban elites probably hold as many unfair stereotypes and prejudices against the rural working class as rednecks do against black people. In both cases, there is a snide attitude of superiority that betrays a lack of any deep understanding.

That said, I live near Taneytown, Maryland, and I would certainly describe it as a bastion of intolerance in what is generally a more tolerant and integrated state. I don't care for Taneytown at all.

Posted by Spike | August 2, 2007 10:30 AM

Posted by Peter Driscoll | August 2, 2007 10:12 AM:"The confederate battleflag stands for: 1. treason, 2. the right of people to own people, and 3. an attempt to romanticise and accomodate 1 & 2 in today's world. Make no mistake, the cover was an attempt to appeal to white supremacists in a white supremacist kind of way."

Well I would not argue about that much - although would you agree the only difference between that and the Union flag vis-a-vis treason is that the British lost? However symbols have a lot of meanings and those meanings vary from person to person. It is likely that the Confederate flag also stands for a certain form of ethnic identity. The South is different and it is not, to say the least, much respected. It is also probably that it is often used as a form of class marker as well - poor whites would, I would suggest, be far more likely to display it as a way of marking themselves off from the sort of prissy Yale boys like George Bush Senior. Whether or not West Virginians know their history, I bet any number of Bostonians do not and to them a cracker is a cracker is a cracker. Leading to common identity.

As well as that whole race thing.

If you take a TV show like "Designing Women", and it is a long long time since I saw it, there was an obvious ethnic issue there that no one much had any problems with that I recall. Of course they did have to have a token Black man and regularly denounce racism, but that is the price you pay for putting White southerners on the small screen. The interesting question would be when the ethnic and class markers become more important than the racial ones.

Posted by HeiGou | August 2, 2007 10:33 AM

I would second the comments of Art and Sk. I grew up in suburban Connecticut, and in the mid-to-late 70s it was very common to see pick-up trucks, vans, bedroom walls, jeans and denim jackets festooned with the confederate flag. Again I don't think there was any significant racist intent behind it - which isn't to say that the people wearing it were non-racist, but I just don't think any kind of racial message was uppermost in the minds of these guys. In fact, I suspect a lot of the people displaying it wouldn't have recognized the term "confederacy" and had no clue about the historic significance of the flag. They would have called it the "rebel flag", and it had just become a generic symbol of rebellion. It was all somehow tied in culturally with the very popular 70s wave of southern rock, which carried its own ambiance of southern chic.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 2, 2007 10:42 AM

somehow tied in culturally with the very popular 70s wave of southern rock

You mean like "Sweet Home Alabama"? Not helping.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 2, 2007 10:47 AM

Very little of the Stars and Bars iconography was intended in a white supremicist kind of way. It was always a country/rural vs city/urban, jeans vs suits, South vs. East Coast, Heartland vs. Washington D.C., Good Ole' Boys vs. Uptight cityslickers kind of way. then, of course, academics got a hold of it, created their controversy, and redefined it. Its all about power (if you can tell people how to behave, how to decorate their pickup trucks, what to draw on their cookbooks, you have power over them).

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that southern legislatures started adding the confederate battle flag o their state flags and started flying them above their statehouses during the civil rights era of the 50s just out of down-home country pride?

The confederate battle flag did not gain widespread popularity or usage in the south until the civil rights movements of the 1950s. During reconstruction and the Jim Crow era it simply wasn't much used and and southern states didn't start adding it to their flags and flying it at official events until the 1950s. It has ALWAYS been more about racism than either southern pride or "country" heritage.

Posted by Kent | August 2, 2007 10:49 AM

Very little of the Stars and Bars iconography...

Oh, and by the way, what we are talking about is the confederate battle flag not the stars and bars. The "Stars and Bars" was an entirely different flag:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:StarNBars13Stars.gif

Posted by Kent | August 2, 2007 10:52 AM

Developing the notion of a flanking maneuver is probably a statue-worthy achievement.

Yeah, but the statue would probably be of a spider monkey.

Posted by Ed Marshall | August 2, 2007 10:53 AM

"Well I would not argue about that much - although would you agree the only difference between that and the Union flag vis-a-vis treason is that the British lost?"

No. The confederate states ratified the United States Constitution.

Posted by Tom | August 2, 2007 10:55 AM

Very little of the Stars and Bars iconography was intended in a white supremicist kind of way. It was always a country/rural vs city/urban, jeans vs suits, South vs. East Coast, Heartland vs. Washington D.C., Good Ole' Boys vs. Uptight cityslickers kind of way.

No, you have it backwards. For about 80 years that flag was flown by the militia units that terrorized blacks into a second class status. It meant "Rally to suppress the blacks" long before it meant "Good ole' boys".

In 1877, people were not flying that flag to show that they liked grits. Everybody liked grits. They flew it to signify that they did not want blacks to vote, own property, file lawsuits or get fair trials.

Eventually, the flag became associated with the more benign aspects of the lifesyles of the people who flew it. It then was adopted by people who shared a defiance of authority, withdrawl from the pressures of city life, and a love for deep fried food. But the racism came first.

Posted by Njorl | August 2, 2007 10:55 AM

Spike: Two things, (1) The "poor and working class" do not ipso facto equal anti-intellectuals any more than rich and priviledged neccessarily means you're a bastion of wisdom and, (2) just because a person happens to be both poor (or middle-class for that matter) and ignorant doesn't mean we should "respect" their stupidity; much better to try to do something about it.

Posted by Tim P. | August 2, 2007 10:55 AM

To a large extent, the State of West Virginia was established during the Civil War as an instrument to secure the B&O Railroad.

The role of the railroads before and during the Civil War in securing links between the Northeast and the MidWest cannot be underestimated. Before then, the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys connected the Midwest with New Orleans. The railroads were crucial in fastening them to the East. During the wars, the North used the railroads to transport soldiers back and forth.

The differences between Northern and Southern culture are complex. Equity jurisprudence, for example, was far more prevalent in the old South than in the North and right-to-work labor policies also have been far more prevalent there. Secessionism, on the other hand, was not purely Southern. Many pre-Civil War abolitionists advocated secession precisely because they found union with a Federal government that condoned slavery to be abhorrent. (And there is something inherently anti-federal about Walden, if you think about it.)

My own viewpoint on the South? Slavery, as it was found there, actually dates from the Italian Renaissance. (While the Middle Ages had serfdom, outright slavery had been abolished.) Venice had established slave-using sugar plantations in Crete and Cyprus prior. Following Columbus, this system was transplanted to the Caribbean, where - combined with the African slave trade - the system we are familiar with emerged. So there is - seriously - something linking Petrarchan humanism, on the one hand, and Southern slavery, on the other. All of this is sketchy on my part; I have yet to figure many things out.

What has all this to do with rednecks with Confederate flags on their pickups? Good question, I'm not sure. But it has an obvious connection with Greek Revival plantation houses and mint juleps on the columned front porch.

Posted by Duncan Kinder | August 2, 2007 10:58 AM

That the symbolic meaning of the confederate battleflag is an intentional insult to a large part of our population is not seriously debateable. It is also intended to announce to the world that the bearer of the flag does not care that it is an insult. I am sure that there is a high correlation between anti-intellectualism and the bearers of this symbol but they understand this content. That may not have been true in 1970's suburban Connecticut, or the TeeVee when HeiGou watched Designing Women, or the Dukes of Hazard. But that's what it means today. If you fly that flag on your truck and don't know that, be careful where you drive that truck.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | August 2, 2007 10:59 AM

That the symbolic meaning of the confederate battleflag is an intentional insult to a large part of our population is not seriously debateable. It is also intended to announce to the world that the bearer of the flag does not care that it is an insult. I am sure that there is a high correlation between anti-intellectualism and the bearers of this symbol but they understand this content. That may not have been true in 1970's suburban Connecticut, or the TeeVee when HeiGou watched Designing Women, or the Dukes of Hazard. But that's what it means today. If you fly that flag on your truck be careful where you drive that truck.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | August 2, 2007 11:01 AM

Posted by Peter Driscoll | August 2, 2007 11:01 AM:"That the symbolic meaning of the confederate battleflag is an intentional insult to a large part of our population is not seriously debateable. It is also intended to announce to the world that the bearer of the flag does not care that it is an insult."

That it is so used I agree is not debateable, but that it is always and everywhere intentionally so use is a different matter. Some countries have happier histories than others. The question of what to do if your "national" history is so tightly tied up with a particularly nasty piece of history is complex. I do not doubt for a second that there are southerners who are not proud of slavery but who are proud of their ethnic identity such as it is. Regardless of how it is most commonly used.

Posted by HeiGou | August 2, 2007 11:11 AM

That it is so used I agree is not debateable, but that it is always and everywhere intentionally so use is a different matter. Some countries have happier histories than others. The question of what to do if your "national" history is so tightly tied up with a particularly nasty piece of history is complex. I do not doubt for a second that there are southerners who are not proud of slavery but who are proud of their ethnic identity such as it is. Regardless of how it is most commonly used.

Ummm...knee-jerk contrarian, much?

Posted by DMonteith | August 2, 2007 11:18 AM

I grew up in suburban Connecticut

I'm assuming you meant suburban to mean "suburban" and not "rural." If so, suburbanites co-opting confederate imagery in the 70s isn't that much different than adopting the trappings of hip-hop culture in the 80s and 90s. The former was simply less scandalous because it was "white."

I'm not sure that "northeast suburbanites are poseurs" is really a decent defense of confederate imagery. :) Growing up in the 'burbs, we teens did and said all sorts of stupid, stupid things that we didn't realize were highly, highly offensive out of ignorance or casual racism, or, as conservatives would say, "politically incorrect."

Posted by Tyro | August 2, 2007 11:22 AM

Tim P., my objection is to the general attitude that "Those people are the problem and we are better than them." If you are an urban intellectual, "Those people" often takes the form of poor, rural rednecks, and if you are a poor, rural redneck, "those people" is often "black people."

Specifically, in this case, I was pointing out that redneck pride is not ipso facto anti-intellectualism and racism. Its also about loving Jesus, and your momma, and NASCAR, Country music, and big trucks. And its about saying "fuck off" when the government involves itself too much with your business, which, from a Southern redneck point of view, is really what the Civil War was about.

When they fly their flag they are representing all those ideas that are central to their ethnic identity - not only the racism and not only the war memories. And while I certainly don't agree with most of the values that the flag represents, I do recognize that it has far deeper meaning than "support treason and hate black people."

Posted by Spike | August 2, 2007 11:23 AM

Posted by DMonteith | August 2, 2007 11:18 AM:"Ummm...knee-jerk contrarian, much?"

As in, not at all. A subtle and entirely quiet, non-confrontational, in fact non-arguable discussion of history, symbology and its legacies is proof that you'd be wrong if that was the claim you were making.

What is contrarian about that previous piece?

Posted by HeiGou | August 2, 2007 11:23 AM

Some of you guys need to sit down and listen to "Southern Rock Opera."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Rock_Opera

"Such is the duality of the southern thing."

Posted by too many steves | August 2, 2007 11:33 AM

You mean like "Sweet Home Alabama"? Not helping.

My sense was the very same people in CT who liked "Sweet Home Alabama" a lot, also liked Neil Young's "Southern Man" a lot, and were not particularly interested in the political or regional debates or disputes invoked by the songs.

There was just a lot of callow and clueless adolescent gravitation to certain "styles".

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 2, 2007 11:33 AM

Plus, Ronnie and Neil were actually buddies, and Neil loved "Sweet Home Alabama." C'mon, guys, you gotta listen to the Drive-By Truckers.

Posted by too many steves | August 2, 2007 11:40 AM

I'm assuming you meant suburban to mean "suburban" and not "rural." If so, suburbanites co-opting confederate imagery in the 70s isn't that much different than adopting the trappings of hip-hop culture in the 80s and 90s. The former was simply less scandalous because it was "white."

Yes - definitely suburban. And agreed about the hip-hop analogy, with one caveat. Hip-hop and rap place a high value on words, and even white suburban hip-hop fans tend to know what those words are, and are even capable of reciting them. For 70's era southern rock fans, words were typically less important, were mainly heard as the vehicle of melody, and often just constituted the inconsequential stuff that came between the guitar jams.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 2, 2007 11:47 AM

Amazon has it.

Posted by ogged | August 2, 2007 11:49 AM

Just the good ol' boys
Never meanin' no harm
Beats all you've ever saw
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day they was born
Straightenin' the curve
Flattenin' the hills
Someday the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will
Makin' their way
The only way they know how
That's just a little bit more than the law will allow
Just the good ol' boys
Wouldn't change if they could
Fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood

Posted by waylon j. | August 2, 2007 11:58 AM

Western NC seems relatively sparse in terms of Dixie tat, which is closer to its Union history. Cross into SC on US 25, and one of the first stores over the state line (after the fireworks warehouse) sells Confederate memorabilia.

(And jonathan pointed out the Dixie tat in NJ.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | August 2, 2007 12:12 PM

I beg you, don't judge West Virginia entirely by its souvenir shops.

Posted by JBJ | August 2, 2007 12:15 PM

I remember riding a bus once from Ohio to Georgia for a protest with a bunch of protester types. As soon as we crossed into Kentucky, we stopped at a rest area that sold a bunch of confederate brik-a-brak. Soon many of the passengers returned to the bus bearing dixie shotglasses and other similar paraphernalia. I don't think they realized that Kentucky was a Union state. The same is likely true of ignorant visitors from greater DC coming to eastern parts of West Virginia.

Posted by ol'jb | August 2, 2007 12:34 PM

Harper's Ferry after all was a major civil war battlefield (not to mention the prewar bit with John Brown)--not surprising to see Confederate parapahnalia there.

Posted by rea | August 2, 2007 12:41 PM

Dumbass white southern tourists, meet the magic of the free market.

What's TIODS?

I also like Union boosterism!

Posted by chris | August 2, 2007 12:47 PM

Hey, I'm white and I live in the South. Well...Central Texas which is actually a weird combination of southern and western. But Texas was certainly a confederate state during the war.

Thing to remember about the south is that EVERYTHING is about race. EVERYTHING. Politics? It's about race. Just ask Harold Ford. I suspect that as many southerners vote Republican because it's the "white" party as vote Republican because it's the conservative party. Seriously. Education? It's about race. Just look at how the school district boundaries are drawn anywhere in Texas. Religion? It's about race. Just look at how few churches in the south are desegregated. Or why the Baptist church split into Southern Baptist and First Baptist. Geography? It's about race. Just look at the urban geography of any southern town. Etc. etc.

As for the ridiculous idea that the confederate flag waving is just a country boy thing? Until recently, the stands at Ole Miss football games were a sea of confederate battle flags. Many of those flag-waving white kids were the sons and daughters of the southern aristocracy. Hardly uneducated poor white trash. The university didn't get around to banning those flags until the football coach finally complained that all the confederate flags in the stadium was hurting his ability to recruit black athletes.

Posted by Kent | August 2, 2007 1:53 PM

Thing to remember about the south is that EVERYTHING is about race. EVERYTHING. Politics? It's about race. Just ask Harold Ford. I suspect that as many southerners vote Republican because it's the "white" party as vote Republican because it's the conservative party. Seriously. Education? It's about race. Just look at how the school district boundaries are drawn anywhere in Texas. Religion? It's about race. Just look at how few churches in the south are desegregated. Or why the Baptist church split into Southern Baptist and First Baptist. Geography? It's about race. Just look at the urban geography of any southern town. Etc. etc.
*************************************************

I know it hurts your head to have to consider that some phenomena are multi-causal. So much easier to reduce it all to simple absurdity

Posted by Campesino | August 2, 2007 2:09 PM

I know it hurts your head to have to consider that some phenomena are multi-causal. So much easier to reduce it all to simple absurdity

You'll note that nowhere in my post did I claim that anything in the south is solely or exclusively about race. Of course not. However race permeates almost every aspect of southern life and to claim otherwise is simply absurd.

Posted by Kent | August 2, 2007 2:47 PM

Some of us in this part of the country still honor the great Southern traditions that made us what we are today: rebellion, treason, and the rape of slave women. The South Shall Live Again!

Posted by Max Edison | August 2, 2007 2:49 PM

How is the concept that the those involved in the CSA were traitors a novel meme? Treason sparked by the fear that Lincoln's election would signal an end to the slavocracy in the south is the _reason_ the Civil War happened. It's not a meme invented by the netroots, it's common historical knowledge.

Posted by Chuck | August 2, 2007 4:27 PM

You'll note that nowhere in my post did I claim that anything in the south is solely or exclusively about race. Of course not. However race permeates almost every aspect of southern life and to claim otherwise is simply absurd.

Posted by Kent | August 2, 2007 2:47 PM

************************************************
Thing to remember about the south is that EVERYTHING is about race.
*************************************************

Care to try that again? I'm merely quoting you.

Having been born and raised in the South what I have found - and it especially comes out in forums like this - is that some people seem to be obsessed with race. So of course when they examine a particular topic they manage to turn it into something ALL about race, when most non-obsessed wouldn't see race involved at all.

Frankly, with the same mindset you could go just about anywhere in this country and make a case that EVERYTHING is about race.

Posted by Campesino | August 2, 2007 5:22 PM

Mostly, yeah, it's a cheap way of positioning cookbooks in a very competitive market. I personally bought something called a Mayberry RFD Cookbook from a local women's civic-school group, and if you like ketchup and coffee in your red-eye gravy and gravy on everything, it's a five-star guide to the world's best cuisine.

But the larger issue is, would we expect to find the National Socialist Cookbook in a Polish tourist trap? Uncle Joe's Soviet Horsemeat Surprise Cookbook in Rumania?

Not bloody likely, and the comparison is a fair one, as I will now demonstrate.

Anyone who reads the Cornerstone Speech by the CSA Vice President (Alexander Something Or Other; Fields? Fielding?) quickly becomes aware of the White Supremacist heart of the old Confederacy, a heart which beat true through Freedom Summer (and the assassination of Medgar Evers), the Pettus Bridge incident (Bloody Sunday), and indeed into the 1980, when a bunch of KKK 'droids fired into a crowd, killing at least one or two black student protesters and wounding others in Orangeburg, S.C.

Jeff Davis's VP, during the Recent Unpleasentness (1861 - 1865, but a recent humiliation here in the Capitol of the Confederacy), said the CSA was most emphatically not based in the precept that all men are created equal, indeed, the CSA was dedicated to the precise opposite notion, that all men are unequal, with the implicit proviso that some men were born to serve others.

So much for the "War of Southern Liberation." Inherited privilage was one of the most important European institutions tossed out by patriots with the American Revolution and the adoption of our Constitution.

Whether it's one man who gets to run the show because his daddy was a king or a duke or a whole bunch of men who get to run the show because of their ethnic heritage, the proposition is the same: The enlightened CSA Rebel is born into hereditary privilege by virtue of the color of his skin.

Exactly the sort of thing we fought King George to put an end to ...

The romanticization of the Lost Cause is an enduring national myth, and a pernicious one.

Only when we see the CSA Battle Flag in the same consistently negative contexts as we see swastikas and hammer-and-sickle banners will we be able, as a nation, ot divine the true existential and spiritual sickness that drove the secessionists of 1861.

Yers,
Mark

Posted by Mark Dorroh | August 2, 2007 7:40 PM

West Virgnia, as others here have noted, was far from unanimously Uniionist; see my discussion at http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/ea3e94146f2daec2

As I note there, the best study of the divisons of opinion on secession in what would become West Virginia is Richard Orr Curry, *A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia* (University of Pittsburgh Press 1964). He distinguishes between northwest Virginia, Southwest Virginia, and the Shenandoah Valley; the eventual West Virginia included parts of all three areas. He argues that the vote was about 30,000 to 10,000 against secession in northwestern Virginia but 9,000 to 4,000 for it in the other areas of the future West Virginia--which, incidentally, in terms of area (as distinguished from population) made up a majority of the state. The counties he gives as favoring secession are Logan, Boone, Wyoming, Mac Dowell, Mercer, Raleigh, Monroe, Greenbrier, Fayette, Nicholas, Clay, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmore, Braxton, Webster, Pocahontas, Randolph, Barbour, Tucker, Pendleton, Hardy, Hampshire, and Jefferson. (The present-day counties of Mingo, Grant, and Mineral did not yet exist; they were within pro-secesionist counties.) In short, half the counties and at least 36 percent of the population of what was to be West Virginia favored secession. (Pro-Confederate sympathies in some counties may have eventually become stronger than the vote indicates. For example, Berkeley County, in the Valley, voted against secession, but furnished at least 400 Confederate troops as opposed to 200 Union soldiers. Perhaps they originally voted against secession because they knew they would likely become a battlefield of the war, but once the war came, favored the Confederacy.)

In any event, nearby Jefferson County, which voted for secession, includes Harpers Ferry.

Posted by David T | August 4, 2007 1:04 AM

I worked for Americorps in Maryland and saw a few Confederate flags there.

Posted by aleks | August 4, 2007 2:30 AM

Re: Inherited privilage was one of the most important European institutions tossed out by patriots with the American Revolution and the adoption of our Constitution.

Don't overemphasize this aspect of the Old South. It was a very minor factor in Southern society. Large areas of the CSA had been settled (by whites) for about a generation when the war broke out. It was not old lineage families running the show, it was a upstart nouveau riche. In Gone With The Wind Rhett Butler (the black sheep and war-skeptic scion of an old money family) calls Scarlett O'Hara's father "a smart mick on the make". Minus the ethnic slur, that probably described most of the Southern upper class in 1861.

Re: but 9,000 to 4,000 for it in the other areas of the future West Virginia--

How limited was the suffrage in these areas?

Posted by Jonf | August 4, 2007 2:34 AM

I worked for Americorps in Maryland and saw a few Confederate flags there.

Posted by aleks | August 4, 2007 2:39 AM

I was in Bowling Green, Kentucky, at a 4th of July celebration, of all things, and saw a guy wearing a t-shirt with the CSA battle flag and a message somewhere along the lines of "If this flag offends you, you need to read your history books."

So, what exactly is the message there? I didn't ask the guy.

I also remember visiting friends of my parents in Arkansas in the 1980s, and their daughter had a rebel flag in her bedroom. She said it was just about Southern pride --- which means a lot of different things. The thing is, this family, which was white, regularly attended a black church.

Anyway, no, it's not all about race. It's a part of it, but it's definitely not the whole thing to everybody who flies it.

Posted by Adam Villani | August 4, 2007 6:02 AM

Jonf wrote:

Re: Inherited privilage was one of the most important European institutions tossed out by patriots with the American Revolution and the adoption of our Constitution.

"Don't overemphasize this aspect of the Old South. It was a very minor factor in Southern society. Large areas of the CSA had been settled (by whites) for about a generation when the war broke out. It was not old lineage families running the show, it was a upstart nouveau riche. In Gone With The Wind Rhett Butler (the black sheep and war-skeptic scion of an old money family) calls Scarlett O'Hara's father "a smart mick on the make". Minus the ethnic slur, that probably described most of the Southern upper class in 1861."

Ooops! I didn't make myself clear. I meant that inherited privilage via your Daddy being white vs. your Daddy being black (or actually, since there was so much master-on-slave misegenation, the color of your Mom made the most difference, as any of Jefferson's black kids could have told us) was every bit as pernicious, to an American who believes what the Declaration and (amended) Constitution state, as inherited privilage from being "born to the purple."

And yes, many southerners (including the Mississippi branch of my own family) owned only a slave or two, who worked in harness with their masters and shared in the bounty or good times of a given harvest in their own measure. And poor white southerners owned no slaves at all, because they were poor and couldn't afford one.

On the other hand, Africans who had either bought their own freedom or been manumitted were free to buy their own slaves, and plenty of them did.

So it was less of a race deal than a class deal.

But the fact remains, when called upon to defend themselves from an alien way of life which did not include legal involuntary servitude, poor cracker line doggies were every bit as willing as their rich officers to fight for their native "way of life" as well as for their right to exclude non-whites from anything they wanted, from voting to attending their lilly-white church services to marrying their sisters. This may be affirmed by a reading of "The Life of Johnny Reb," a historian's compliation of letters home, diaries, etc. from the front-line crackers who shed their blood in what they believed to be the service of Jesus.

Kinda makes you think twice about condemning Islam for the acts of the Islamofascist community, wot?

Mark

Posted by Mark Dorroh | August 13, 2007 11:41 AM