The Atlantic Magazine states that the Confederacy was an antidemocratic centralized state repressive in nature and dedicated to the maintenance of white supremacy. To those who lament the loss of the Civil War to the northern union states that is exactly what it was. It was a collection of states that rose up and waged treasonous war against the republic. It was a violent insurrection, perhaps, the bloodiest war in US history that saw 650,000 and some say as many as 850,000 deaths. The exact number is not known since records were not pristinely kept. It tore apart the country and I aver that schism is still felt to this day.
The heritage our know nothing president refers to is bathed in racist sentiment and dedicated to the maintenance of a wholly unjust society cemented in racist thought which was, indeed, reinforced by law. The original sin of slavery begun 419 years ago is, I fear, indelibly written into the tapestry of this nation. Slavery was cruel, it was understatedly inhumane and it went against all that was advanced by those nation states that call themselves civilized and beneficiaries of the Enlightenment. It was antithetical to the very tenets of a democratic nation that all men are created equal for which so many American revolutionaries and Founding Fathers dedicated and many patriots gave their lives.
The Civil War was a true conspiracy of men whose desire was to separate themselves from the republic and, most importantly to keep persons unfree solely defined by the color of skin. There is not one thing one can say to give positive spin on the southern states' effort to separate from the union though our president today in the unrighteous might of his office tries hard to do so under the veil of "heritage." He calls those who would take down statues of Confederate Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy and others in memory of it, law breaking anarchists whom he says he will relegate to jail. Does one find statutes of Hitler, Goebbels or Himmler anywhere in Germany today? The answer is an emphatic no and, in fact, it is against the law to fly a swastika flag. How easy it is for this white racist Cretan of privilege Trump to feel no empathy,
to the extent that he feels empathy at all for anyone but himself,
for those persons of color who are descendants of the slave master's lash sentenced to the legacy of slavery through generation after discrimination soaked generation.
The sins of the Confederacy are many. From Slavery to Jim Crow, to segregation, to separate drinking fountains, to segregated schools, and second class citizenship up through voter suppression and police brutality in our time it is the monkey on our back accompanied by a presidency now dedicated to the "very fine people" of right wing extremist sentiment and violence. The Confederates of the Civil War and the Nazis marching with Tiki Torches saying "Jews will not replace us" are favorites of Trump and solely to those whose base he continuously appeals. There is a reason Black Lives Matter marches are occurring all over the world. They march because brutalizing persons of color by police or anyone else unjustly while whites are not accorded equal punishments is just plain wrong. A democratic nation's racist populace must be cited for it and called out, in pertinent part, for the emissaries of hate they are.
The so called stars and bars flag of the Confederacy is to persons of color what the Nazi
flag would be to a Jew. It is emblematic of incalculable, monstrously of unjust suffering and murder. What was
the sole sin of a person of color? He was in that southern culture at
that time and to an extent in our time unlucky to be born black. A Jew in Nazi Germany was
unlucky enough at that time to be born a Jew. He or she of an ascribed status was guilty of
nothing else but to have been born. Now we must rectify this wrong post haste.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/confederacy-wasnt-what-you-think/613309/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
