This will sound like it's two-sided but please bear with me. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Happy Lee-Jackson Day. (Lee and King's birthdays are 4 days apart, I can't control that)
Robert E. Lee said,
"Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in it's true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret."
These photos are from my hometown of Craigsville, Virginia as I saw them driving home from Little Rock in August. The 2nd story porch in the center was the site of a beautiful nativity scene every Christmas, and across the street is a "Heritage not Hate" flag on the garage where I used to park my bike when I lived there.
The confederate flag in my life as a white Virginian has always been a symbol of nostalgia, heritage, and great leadership. It's about holding on to a team that our commonwealth was a part of once because it chose the ideals of independence, state sovereignty, and agriculture. I went to college and have family in the Shenandoah Valley which was called "the breadbasket of the south" My Aunt and Uncle lived in a house that Stonewall Jackson used as a headquarters in Mt. Jackson (a town named for President Andrew Jackson and then treated like it was named after Thomas Stonewall Jackson after the war). I see the appeal of NASCAR and love me some Dukes of Hazzard. The flag is about the war to us. People I know fly it to say "I'm southern" not "I'm racist" For me, and I think I also speak to anyone between Lexington and Winchester the flag is about the war. The flag is for heritage, not hate for those who fly it.
bear with me.
The way we western Virginians remember Jackson, Lee, the VMI cadets, and the countless other Virginians who fought all over the commonwealth to defend the south, not once are we thinking about racism, white sovereignty, white pride, hate crimes of post-war reconstruction. That's just how we learned it--In our white-dominant, rural public schools that is how the story was slanted. Let's be honest. These generals and this army were hero's defending our state.
I write this knowing my white privilege is showing. But this is how I was raised. Lee and Jackson are just as important and heroic as George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Hellen Keller, Henry Ford, etc. They all made it into my children's book selection. I read Ghost Cadet for Elementary School and learned about the young cadets that fought and died while still in military school at the battle in New Market. I took a civil war summer class when my brother took one on Harry Potter. People fought and died in Shenandoah and we remember and reenact every blessed soul. My uncle dressed up as a relative an re-enacted the battle at New Market. Most of the war happened here in Virginia, and that kind of trauma and damage still hasn't gone away. The Yankee army under Sheridan, Sherman, and others burned courthouses and ruined southerner's place in society by erasing property titles and other history. The damage to our country was done to our homes right here in our family's backyards, and homes even. It's part of life in Virginia.
BUT We ignore the race part. We glorify these men, our relatives, our heroes, and we don't talk about the racial injustices of that. That's not an issue in our minds. I don't want to say we purposely ignore it, we just assume it's gone, that racism is in the past. To people like me, the confederate flag is all about holding on to an unpopular team. I'd compare it to rooting for the Redskins (which I guess is also a pretty offensive name) I imagine it's like being a Cubs or Detroit Lions fan. Something about sticking together with a loosing team gives you all kinds of pride. But unlike the cubs, people like me need to realize that however much Lee's decision to fight for the South had to do with him defending his hometown and not him being a terrible racist, and however much we point out Jackson's incredible military leadership and strategic mind, we forget that the loosing team they decided to lead was perpetuating a system of slavery. Slavery based on skin color. No matter how much it comes down to state's rights race-based slavery was there. Even if a huge majority of southern farms owned less than 3 slaves and worked in the fields beside them, the ENTIRE country benefited economically from slavery (even the north). So don't say, "heritage, not hate" unless you are willing to own the horrible acts of hate associated with that heritage.
Every one of us must remember the history so we don't repeat it.
Sometimes we forget that Robert E Lee nobly accepted the surrender, and fully submitted to the post-war national government. For Lee the war was over and we were one nation again, although he was ridiculed and shamed the rest of his life. He fought for the south so as not to raise a sword against his home state:
"With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army, and save in defense of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword..."
After the war he said, "So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that Slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interest of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this that I would have cheerfully lost all that I have lost by the war, and have suffered all that I have suffered to have this object attained."
Granted Lee didn't support suffrage for blacks because he felt largely they weren't educated, He did support educating them the rest of his life. Lee was in many arguments with fellow southerners to move on and take pride in the United States of America and moving on from the Confedreate mindset.
I'll be honest we Virginians could tell you the ins and outs of Jackson's military strategy, his affinity for lemons, and his last words, but we don't ever really say too much on the history of the reconstruction, or much of anything after the war. Let's recall when the sly republicans in 1877 made a deal to remove federal forces from enforcing the necessary reforms in the south in order to win the election which resulted in the racist southern democrats having hands off from Washington. This gave southerners the freedom to implement the Jim Crow laws, and segregation. Yankees took the power and left the freed slaves out to dry. The southern crazies messed up pretty bad, but the Yankees gave them to much freedom to handle it their own way. That's where the racism got real nasty. That's what we're still working against. And along with my Virginian neighbors, I have to recognize this is what the confederate flag symbolizes everywhere outside of Shenandoah and outside my head.
I spent the last year 900 miles from Shenandoah in Little Rock, site of the famous integration of Central High School. Local whites did not approve of nine black students attending Central High School and violently protested this thought requiring Eisenhower to send the National Guard to escort these kids in. That Confederate flag was flown by the segregationists in Little Rock spitting and screaming at black high school students. Remember that Virginia! these violent acts after the war that made the federal news, KKK rallies, Selma, and countless other acts of violent white supremacy and racism used that flag. The confederate flag was raised at the state house in Charleston, SC during the civil rights movement, as an act of protest to integration. The confederate flag took a new racist meaning in the 50's and 60's than it had during the civil war. That's why we need to take it down and put it away.
Robert E. Lee would not condone these acts after the war. Stop using his name with those acts. He would be ok with the flag coming down. He might even be ok with some of the confederate statues in Richmond coming down. http://www.richmond.com/news/local/michael-paul-williams/article_3edc3670-9d34-54f9-a988-1d55e98f9691.html
Central High School at the time was one of the most expensive best schools in the country. It cost over a million dollars and did not even compare to Dunbar High School, the black equivalent down the street. Thus "separate but equal" did not hold, leading to integration. The year after integration, the school board closed the entire school district to all students to avoid integration. White Christians even protested to keep segregation in the late 50's. There is an incredible museum there in Little Rock, check it out sometime. They have pictures on the wall of white christians like me holding signs that condone racism. But it's heritage not hate.........
Just like many other cities in the US, Little Rock shows signs of segregation in local real-estate continuing to keep neighborhoods segregated by race and income. I think there is just one black lady at my Little Rock church in west Little Rock. One evening in Southwest Little Rock after helping at the ESL lesson for immigrants, I was the only white person in Wal Mart. Interstate 630 mostly divides the city from white and black.
Dear Shenandoah and fellow white people. Racism is still real. It is deeply embedded in our world. Everywhere, not just Little Rock, and big cities. And it will take each of us doing our part to change that. Just one example, look at our prison population compared to US population. The following numbers are from a 2013 report form the US Bureau of Justice Statistics http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5109
"Similar to 2012, non-Hispanic blacks (37%) comprised the largest portion of male inmates under state or federal jurisdiction in 2013, compared to non-Hispanic whites (32%) and Hispanics (22%). White females comprised 49% of the prison population compared to 22% black females. However, the imprisonment rate for black females (113 per 100,000) was twice the rate of white females (51 per 100,000)."The Census Bureau says African Americans only make up 13.2% of the total population, whites are 77%. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html How are there more than five times more whites than blacks, but nearly equal ratios inside the prisons?
This does not mean people get sent to prison because they are black, My former roomate who is a police officer says it's not that they seek out the black neighborhoods but those and public housing happen to be where they get called for slightly dangerous calls more often. Statistically, blacks don't have the same access to jobs, support systems, income, etc due to race which put more of them at risk of falling into a life of crime. Along with a prejudgment in society that blacks are more dangerous.
As a school board leader in Little Rock told me, "It's definitely a lot better than it was in the 50s but it definitely hasn't gone away" Even today, some school board leaders are continuing to push against the desegregation WAAAAYY after all the mess in 1957. The Arkansas board of education has recently taken over Little Rock School District because of controversies directly tied to the segregation in the city that has resulted in a wide gap in funding for certain schools. Here is a recent article in The Atlantic about it http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/segregation-persists-little-rock/479538/
Our privilege is that we don't see much of racial tensions in Shenandoah, and I partly believe that is because most blacks don't live here, and honestly, I don't think they'd feel welcome here.
When we say "heritage, not hate" we need to own that heritage. A heritage that not only represented one particular army of the south and every bit of your and my white heritage, Remember that this army fought to perpetuate an economic and agricultural system based on racial slavery. Remember that racism hasn't gone away, and every reconstruction, racist, act since that war of heritage have held this flag as a symbol of racism. Part of that heritage is hate. Let's be honest with ourselves.
As much as it hurts what I learned in my childhood, when I fly that flag I am showing the world that my own liberties as a white southerner are more important to me than the liberties of others. AND that the historic violence to protect my white southern liberties is worth it. Because of that, The flag is going in my closet. The swhastica was a symbol of auspiciousness, prosperity, and continuing creation until Hitler took it for his Nazi regime changing it's meaning.
My advice: We all need to get our heads out of the sand. Get our heads out of Lexington this weekend of Lee-Jackson Day. My year in Boston and my year in Little Rock got my head out of the sand. There is a world out there with billions of more significant problems than me feeling like someone is stepping on my toes because people don't like the flag.
Learn the stories of the Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, Integration, and leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa Parks, the Little Rock nine, pay attention to the discussions of privilege, and racism now prevalent in the news. Learn stories of civil rights leaders better than you know Lee's and Jackson's. They exhibit characteristics of greatness for their time and we have a lot to learn from them.
Need a place to start? Read Worldchanging 101 by David LaMotte, It's a great blend of inspiration to get you moving on addressing the issues of our day with examples of important behind the scenes members of the civil rights movement.
Keep learning!!! Robert E. Lee said, "Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in it's true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret."
I welcome comments below. Please keep it G rated.
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