Treason Month

“It seems that April is Confederate Heritage month. Why one would want to celebrate a heritage of violent rebellion against a democratically elected government in order to perpetuate a system of chattel slavery is a bit hard for me to say.”

– Matt Yglesias

For the last fucking time people, there is no such fucking thing as fucking “Confederate Heritage”. The CSA existed for significantly less than a decade, that isn’t enough time to develope anything substantial enough to be feasibly called a “heritage”. The confederate flag is, and has always been, a symbol of white supremacism and abject racism. It was used as the official banner for an act of treason in defense of slavery, let’s not mince words.

But I gotta love this guest blogger over at Meagan McArdle’s place, who lands this assertion with all the delicacy of a gang-rape:

Over many years, it gradually became a symbol of regional identification, pride and, yes, rebellion. But rebellion in the sense of “James Dean” rather than “secession”.

Bullshit. There is certainly a celebration of “rebellion” there. Then again, exempting arguably (though not really) the cumulative revolution against British colonialism, the only noteworthy rebellions in southern history have involved racism to a, shall we say, not insignificant degree. That is, there is indeed a history of rebellion against effete coastal lawyer types who kept on telling them they couldn’t lynch those damn negro coke fiends for looking at their female property the wrong way (much less whistling at it). Fight the power! Such is not exactly something a non-racist should be celebrating. Someone who neglects the obvious racism behind the confederate flag is either naive or deliberately deceptive.