Slavery is Heritage?
Yesterday’s Washington Post contained a story, quoted in full below, which is interesting in at least two ways: first, the reliance of whites on, and the general conceptual shoddiness of, “symmetry arguments” (ones in which some right or privilege of white people is defended based upon some ostensibly symmetrical right or privilege of people of color); second, the degree to which people who claim to want to “celebrate Southern heritage” consistently fail to do so in ways which might include, rather than alienate African American Southerners — which seems a tacit admission that no part of “Southern heritage” (whatever that is or isn’t supposed to be) is worth celebrating by whites unless it gives offense to African Americans.
It took 15 minutes of googling earlier today to find 4 — 3 white, 1 black — antebellum North Carolinian abolitionists. Why aren’t they celebrated as part of Southern heritage?
CANTON, Ga. — At the beginning of the school year, Dixie Outfitters T-shirts were all the rage at Cherokee High School. Girls seemed partial to one featuring the Confederate battle flag in the shape of a rose. Boys often wore styles that discreetly but unmistakably displayed Dixie Outfitters’ rebel emblem logo.
But now the most popular Dixie Outfitters shirt at the school doesn’t feature a flag at all. It says: “Jesus and the Confederate Battle Flag: Banned From Our Schools But Forever in Our Hearts.” It became an instant favorite after school officials prohibited shirts featuring the battle flag in response to complaints from two African American families who found them intimidating and offensive.
The ban is stirring old passions about Confederate symbols and their place in Southern history in this increasingly suburban high school, 40 miles northwest of Atlanta. Similar disputes over the flag are being played out more frequently in school systems — and courtrooms — across the South and elsewhere, as a new generation’s fashion choices raise questions about where historical pride ends and racial insult begins.
Schools in states from Michigan to Alabama have banned the popular Dixie Outfitters shirts just as they might gang colors or miniskirts, saying they are disruptive to the school environment. The rebel flag’s modern association with white supremacists makes it a flashpoint for racial confrontation, school officials say.
“This isn’t an attempt to refute Southern heritage,” said Mike McGowan, a Cherokee County schools spokesman. “This is an issue of a disruption of the learning environment in one of our schools.”
Walter C. Butler Jr., president of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, said it is unreasonable to ask African Americans not to react to someone wearing the rebel flag. “To ask black people to respect a flag that was flown by people who wanted to totally subjugate and dehumanize you — that is totally unthinkable,” he said.
But the prohibitions against flag-themed clothing have prompted angry students, parents, Confederate-heritage groups and even the American Civil Liberties Union to respond with protests and lawsuits that argue that students’ First Amendment rights are being trampled in the name of political correctness.
“This is our heritage. Nobody should be upset with these shirts,” said Ree Simpson, a senior soccer player at Cherokee who says she owns eight Confederate-themed shirts. “During Hispanic Heritage Month, we had to go through having a kid on the intercom every day talking about their history. Do you think they allow that during Confederate History Month?”
Simpson said no one complains when African American students wear clothes made by FUBU, a black-owned company whose acronym means “For Us By Us.” Worse, she says, school officials have nothing to say when black students make the biting crack that the acronym also means “farmers used to beat us.” Similarly, she says, people assume that members of the school’s growing Latino population mean no harm when they wear T-shirts bearing the Mexican flag.
Simpson believes the rebel flag should be viewed the same way. The days when the banner was a symbol of racial hatred and oppression are long gone, she contends. Far from being an expression of hate, she says, her affection for the flag simply reflects Southern pride. “I’m a country girl. I can’t help it. I love the South,” she said. “If people want to call me a redneck, let them.”
It is a sentiment that is apparently widely shared at Cherokee, and beyond. The day after Cherokee Principal Bill Sebring announced the T-shirt ban on the school’s intercom this fall, more than 100 students were either sent home or told to change clothes when they defiantly wore the shirts to school. In the weeks that followed, angry parents and Confederate heritage groups organized flag-waving protests outside the school and at several school board meetings.
“All hell broke loose,” said Tom Roach, an attorney for the Cherokee County school system. When principals banned the shirts at other county high schools in the past, he said, “there was no public outcry. No complaints. No problems.”
But the Confederate flag was a particularly hot topic in Georgia this year. Gov. Roy Barnes (D) was upset in his reelection bid last month in part because he successfully pushed for redesign of the Georgia state flag, which was formerly dominated by the Confederate battle emblem. On the new state banner, the emblem is reduced to a small icon. During the campaign, Barnes’s opponent, Sonny Perdue, called for a referendum on the new flag, a position that analysts say helped make him the state’s first elected Republican governor since Reconstruction.
Elsewhere in the South, civil rights groups have mobilized to remove the banner in recent years. Activists had it removed from atop the South Carolina statehouse and from other public places, saying it is an insult to African Americans and others who view it as a symbol of bigotry and state-sanctioned injustice. But that campaign has stirred a resentful backlash from groups that view it as an attack on their heritage.
“We’re not in a battle just for that flag, we’re in a battle to determine whether our Southern heritage and culture survives,” said Dan Coleman, public relations director for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, one of the groups that joined the protests at Cherokee High School.
The battle over Confederate-themed clothing has made its way to the courts, which generally have sided with school dress codes that prevent items that officials deem disruptive. In a 1969 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District that school officials could not prohibit students from wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, but only because the court found that the armbands were not disturbing the school atmosphere.
By contrast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit earlier this year revived a lawsuit by two Kentucky students suspended for wearing shirts featuring the Confederate flag. The court said the reasons for the suspension were vague and remanded the case to a lower court, where it was dismissed after the school district settled with the students.
Also, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit earlier this fall sided with a Washington, N.J., student who challenged his school’s ban on a T-shirt displaying the word “redneck.” The student was suspended from Warren Hills Regional High School for wearing the shirt, which school officials said violated their ban on clothing that portrays racial stereotypes. The school’s vice principal said he took “redneck” to mean a violent, bigoted person.
But the court overturned the ban, saying the shirt was not proven to be disruptive. School officials, noting the school has a history of racial tensions, have promised to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
“Since last year, we have gotten well over 200 complaints about the banning of Confederate symbols in schools,” said Kirk Lyons, lead counsel for the Southern Legal Resource Center, a North Carolina-based public-interest law firm that works to protect Confederate heritage and is in discussions with some families at Cherokee High School. He said the center is litigating six lawsuits and that dozens of others challenging Confederate clothing bans have been filed across the country.
As the controversy grows, Confederate-themed clothing has become more popular than ever. The owner of Georgia-based Dixie Outfitters says the firm sold 1 million T-shirts last year through the company’s Web site and department stores across the South. Most of the shirts depict Southern scenes and symbols, often with the Confederate emblem.
“This is not your typical, in-your-face redneck type of shirt,” said Dewey Barber, the firm’s owner. “They are espousing the Southern way of life. We’re proud of our heritage down here.”
Barber said he is “troubled” that his shirts are frequently banned by school officials who view them as offensive. “You can have an Iraqi flag in school. You can have the Russian flag. You can have every flag but the Confederate flag. It is puzzling and disturbing,” he said.
In an angry letter to Cherokee Principal Sebring posted on its Web site, Dixie Outfitters called the two families who complained about the shirts — but asked not to be identified publicly — “race baiters.”
“Are you going to ban the American flag, if one or two people out of 1,800 find it offensive, because it had more to do with the slave trade than any other flag, including the battle flag?” the letter asks.
It is an argument made by many who do not understand why some people find the Confederate battle flag deeply offensive. “The Confederate flag itself is not racist,” said Rick Simpson, Ree’s father. “It was the American flag that brought slaves to this country.”
David Ray, a Cherokee County contractor, said his son, Eric, has been punished with in-school suspensions a couple of times this year for defying a Confederate T-shirt ban at Etowah High, another Cherokee County school. He said he couldn’t understand why the shirts are causing such a fuss.
“Slavery ended almost 150 years ago,” Ray said. “You might have some parents who still hold the slavery issue or black versus white deep in their hearts. But for the most part, I think, people are over that.”
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 30, 2002; Page A01
January 2nd, 2003 at 12:04 pm
In this instance rebel Pride equals black pain just as nazi pride equals jewish pain and it would do the rebels and nazi smpathizers well to just admit that they are longing for the way things were and stop fooling them selves,they are not fooling us (descent human beings) we know they believe that they are better and should be entitled to do what they want by virtue of their pigmentation in spite of the lack of humanity which is indicated by the insensitivity to the thoughts and emotions of the relatives of the victims (Blacks & Jews) of the wavers of the of the banners(Rebels & nazi’s) that have come to symbolize hate death in the name of racial supremacy founded a on contrived racial mythology. To gain a insightful presective into the issue of the stars and bars do research into the fact that it is illegal to fly the swastika in Germany to this day.
January 4th, 2003 at 6:07 pm
I think you guys are going a bit overboard. There are racists in Southern States just as there are in the North. Racists come from all cultures and walks of life, including African-Americans. Every time you protest something like this, you’re creating a chain reaction similar to that of something like 2 Live Crew’s banned albums. You’re creating publicity and demand that people are going to flock to, whether or not they know or like what the message is.
I think some people like to wax nostalgiac about things, but to be completely oblivious to the feelings of blacks (intentionally) seems highly unlikely. Racism exists in all walks of life, why fuel it? It is when we come to the point of not trying to imply it’s at every turn that when we will be past it.
Again, I am Irish and the stereotypes people have of me are ridiculously inaccurate. But I realize that these people are ignorant and that me complaining won’t do anything to help the situation. What will do good is for me to be a good person and achieve the amazing things I’m capable of. I am capable of proving everyone wrong.
January 13th, 2003 at 2:35 pm
I find it hard to understand why so many whites are so defensive about engaing in productive discussions about racism. There is no way to de-historicize the Confederate flag and have it mean anything else to African Americans than a reminder of the injustices that were perpetuated against them. A second concern I have is the blatant way that the first amendment defense is raised and basically obliterates discussion of the issues. Would it not be more educational (in a school, no less) to discuss not what are the rights of students, but what are the ethics and implications of various behaviors?
January 17th, 2003 at 2:50 am
I find it strange and disappointing that so many black people here seem to be completely in touch with their African heritage, but have no concept whatsoever of their Southern heritage. At least there are some blacks in the South (like H.K. Edgerton, who is currently marching hundreds of miles for this very cause!) who recognize the Confederate flag as symbols of their heritage, as they should, considering they were born in the South and into Southern tradition, and have learned to have pride for their brothers and sisters, black or white, and not hate.
These are educated men and women who have learned to put the hate behind them. They want to take back the Confederate flag as a proud symbol of The South, and take it away from the hate mongerers who seek either to suppress it, or use it as a symbol of slavery. Use the Confederate flag, instead, as a symbol of progress, of the new South. Never forget slavery, but remember how far people have progressed, and how Southern men and women can work together now without getting caught up in issues of race.
Isn’t that what Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of? Of a day when men and women and children could work and play together, and not get caught up in these petty and superficial issues of skin color? Can’t we all have some pride here?
January 17th, 2003 at 10:15 am
Those comments are equivalent to these:
I find it strange and disappointing that so many Jews here seem to be completely in touch with their Jewish heritage, but have no concept whatsoever of their German heritage. At least there are some Jews in Germany who recognize the swastika as symbols of their heritage, as they should, considering they were born in Germany and into German tradition, and have learned to have pride for their brothers andsisters, Jew or Aryan, and not hate.
These are educated men and women who have learned to put the hate behind them. They want to take back the swastika as a proud symbol of Nazi Germany, and take it away from the hate mongerers who seek either to suppress it, or use it as a symbol of genocide. Use the swastika, instead, as a symbol of progress, of the new Germany. Never forget genocide, but remember how far people have progressed, and how German men and women can work together now without getting caught up in issues of race.
The Confederacy was a systematically unjust, evil society, its symbols will forever be symbols of that evil, and the suggestion that African Americans should adopt those symbols (in fact, be forced by the power of the state to adopt them) is as morally wrong as suggesting German Jews should adopt symbols of Nazi Germany.
The hatred and arrogance necessary to make such a suggestion is hard to imagine; no wonder the comments were made anonymously.
January 25th, 2003 at 9:11 pm
The CSA flag is indeed apart of history. I accept that fact. I do not become offended when I see it ( I see it quite often attending Texas A&M University), because I know that everyone needs to have pride in something.
However, it also stands for treason against the USA and oppression. How can you make good out of this?
Therefore, you wont see me waving it. And very few things can change that. I once heard of a woman who had it tattooed on her back, then asked why were people looking at her funny, especailly people of color. The same ideals can be seen on these posts. Its like saying: “Well I dont understand why they have a problem with this symbol, because I dont!”
To people who think this way, please think about your actions when handling issues such as these, because when the shoe is on the other foot, dont expect others to be so understanding when you weren’t. (please forgive my spelling)
January 27th, 2003 at 12:09 am
Confederat Flag issue just won’t go away:
With no disrespect intended, but a friendly reminder to Congressman Gephardt what the Confederate flag stands for. The Confederate flag is a tribute to the Confederate War, it is a part of our history. A number of Confederate Flags were used during the war, and also many regiments and companies had their own unique Confederate flags. For example, the Bonnie Blue flag, which was the unofficial first flag of the Confederacy: Robert E. Lee’s headquarters flag, uniquely used to identify Gen. Lee’s Command Center; The Palmetto Guard Flag; the C.S.A Navy Jack flag; I could go on. But for most people the Confederate Battle flag, the Southern Cross, represents the blood of men who bore it. The Confederate soldiers died for individual and personal rights, and for the rights of the individual states. The Confederate flag also symbolizes the noble, the brave, the conscientious and chivalric people of all generous minds. The world honors the magnificent efforts of the South. My question to Congressman Gephardt is, are you going to try to ban the P.O.W. flag as well and say it is no longer acceptable in the State of Missouri either? That flag flies over our state as well and it also represents the blood of men who bore it? Instead of concerning yourself with these flags that fly over our state and cemeteries and battlefields, which are a part of our American history, please try to concern yourself with today’s economy, the homeless, for mankind, the war that President Bush is taking us into. I could go on. If I have not touched your heart in any way, please take the time and read a poem written by Mrs. D. Giraud Wright, which is entitled “The Confederate Flag.” It has touched many hearts across this old nation of ours. She was the daughter of Col. Louis T. Wigfall, a Confederate senator. At the end of her poem she writes, “The only stain on our banner is the stain of our hero’s blood.”
Lisa Stathem
Sedalia, MO.
February 16th, 2003 at 12:37 am
I don’t agree with what the flag stood for and I dont agree with some of the things the US flag once stood for, but it is OUR history. I can’t erase this history. I have lived in the South for many years (not native), and I consider myself a Southerner, but I as an individual cannot fully accept the flag, no matter how hard I try, just as no one can sugar-coat what it stood for (The Cornerstone Address).
February 24th, 2003 at 11:44 am
I am African American with strong roots in the south. I am proud of my southern heritage in the respect that my people, my family, made it through a system that was designed to deny them their very existances as human beings. Did you know slaves were considered less than horses? Is that what some one wants me to be proud of that I was less than a horse? Also consider the fact that the Confederate flag was one that was raised in treason. Is that also what someone wants me to be proud of? No thank you.
That the flag has an important significant historical context is undeniable and it should be honered as such an item in a museum. Not flying over state capitals or in schools. The confederacy is not a country nor a state. It was the losing side of a battle. If one wants to represent the new south, pick a new symbol
April 21st, 2003 at 5:30 pm
The Confederate flag (rebel flag) is a symbol of heritage. Over 180,000 black people assisted in the Confederate Army with pride. Today we have black people like H.K. Edgerton fighting for that flag to save it. he marched in 2002 1,5500 miles to save that flag. How’s is this flag racist when black poele are even marching for it. Go to www.dixieoutfitters.com to find more research on this guy. It’s part of our history. ALso the war was fought on state’s rights not slavery. The North issued a 47% on the SOuth. If somebody did that too me i would leave the country or succeed. That is a lot of money. Lincoln even said if the was fought on slavery he wouldn’t have had the war. Also, didn’t the Emancipation Proclamation only free the slaves in the south not in the north. And for all of you educated fools the north had slavery until 1867, three years after the war was over with. I guess we need to get rid of the U.S. flag we had slavery under that flag. ANother thing on the slave boats there was a U.S. flag not a Confederate flag. Is this educating anybody yet. Again should we get rid of the U.S. because a bunch of Americans kicked Indians off their own land in America. Americans tortured the Indians under the American flag. Should we get rid of the American flag? You know if we got rid of something everybody didn’t like we wouldn’t have anything. That would make us COmmunists right. Please help me fight for this flag.
May 1st, 2003 at 6:21 pm
Today, our union flag, the stars & stripes, is honored b/c of the thousands of soldiers who died fighting for it. Well, what about the soldiers who died fighting for the Confederate flag? Were their lives any less important just b/c the south lost the war? I don’t think so. Any life lost is 1 too many. The way I understand it, I can wear a shirt with the Iraq flag on it and that says “Way To Go Saddam!!”, but I can’t even wear a shirt that represents my southeren heritage. That is so stupid and ridiculous.
June 13th, 2003 at 6:10 pm
Hey, you can bitch all you like. But, all you people are going to do is just seem silly. Take my advice and just get a life. Will you?
June 26th, 2003 at 6:45 pm
I have read all of these comments and I am a desendant of some of the brave men that fought for their country under the Confederate flag. Believe it or not NONE of them owned slaves. The war was not over slaves. Blacks, whites and Indians all fought for the south. One last comment not one single ship bringing slaves from Africa had a Confederate flag on it, they had American and British flags maybe we should ban them
July 6th, 2003 at 8:36 pm
Jeff you have an excellent point. Most of the men who fought for the south did not own slaves, they fought for their way of life, for their land, and for their families. The Confederate flag is a symbol of the south and thats it, it has nothing to do with slavery, just pride. Its sad, today we aren’t free to express our pride because its misinterpreted and people get their feelings hurt. Its the south it’ll always be around.
August 22nd, 2003 at 5:19 pm
i have something to tell you educated people #1 treason:the confederate flag never did or ever will stand for treason.no one was ever convected of treason.was it treason when the U.S.went to war with great britain for ther freedom? the treason did not come into the war becouse the 12 amendment was not added to the constitution until 1867 2 years after the war was lost to the north and it said no one can leave the union and foem another country with out being tried for treason.point #2 slavery:the slave ships were under U.S. flags and off loaded slaves in the north and when the north did not need the slaves any more they sold the slaves to the south.the confederate flag only flew over slavery for 4 years.the U.S.flag flew over slavery for 84 years.witch flag should stand for slavery? lets keep our southern pried and let the confederate flag stand for freedom as much as the U.S.flag dose.
November 8th, 2003 at 11:54 am
Hey Folks don’t you think it’s time for us all to concentrate on our own government officials who disregard all of our needs and well being in the interrest of party power.And should we not be watching to make sure they never use genocide again right here on American soil.Can we not see that they(the government)keep folks like jessie jackson around to make sure the blacks and whites stay at odds with each other therefore assureing that we as american citisens can’t or won’t ban together for a good common cause and fix the real problems we as the back bone of this country face?
People there’s a lot wrong out there that the policy makers in washington and states don/t reconize nor fix because they are isolated from the real world we as citisens have to live in and face every day.They need to try walking the streets without armed guards,send their children to publice schools ,go shopping on minimum wage and have to answer equally for their actions.
Are we now a nation too blind to see that allowing political coruption to go uncontested we all loose? Wake up people. C.T.
March 20th, 2004 at 9:56 am
this is truly bothersome please get the facts before you go putting ignorant replies. The war was not even fought over slavery and the slaves in the south were free far before those in the north. As one great brand of t-shirts states AMERICA legalized slavery in 1654. 207 years before the confederate states existed……think about it
July 8th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
The rhetorical gymnastics and logical leaps in support of the Confederate flag and the Southern “way of life” are awe-inspiring. Truly. But for all of you White Southerners (or the “many” Black and Indian supporters of the Confederate flag), answer me this:
1. What is Southern culture and what does it stand for apart from the freedom to own slaves/discriminate against Blacks, or free them/stop discriminating when you were good and ready? I’m begging you to help me understand because I, as the daughter of Black Southerners, see it very clearly as advocating White supremacy. I do not identify with what you are calling “Southern culture” whatsoever! It doesn’t include my people now, and it never did - except as chattel and/or second-class citizens. What are you proud of exactly?
Bottom line: Non-slave owners fought to preserve the system of slavery and privilege for wealthy slave-owning families, probably with the dim hope that they too one day could own a slave or two. Lincoln knew that Northerners didn’t want to fight a war to free Black people, and was smart enough to reframe the conflict. White Southerners today are also intelligently reframing their Southern pride as anti-racist, but they have a much harder time. At least the Neo-nazis aren’t trying to get the Jews to accept having to see swastika-themed T-shirts.
July 24th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
As a Georgia resident, and a U.S. citizen of African slave ancestry, I find the perplexities of such a severely-touchy issue (at least seemingly so) to be confusing and amusing. I mean, sure, I respect the fact that the Southern heritage proponents are exercising the right to celebrate their culture, as anyone should, but at the same time, my African slave ancestry, and the fact that most other African-Amercans are of the same ancestry, gets in the way of my acceptance of this flag as a symbol of me and other African-Americans being Southern residents.
However, this ambivalence toward the Southern heritage movement doesn’t press me to advocate the actual banning of the Confederate rebel flag. I mean, considering that it was under the U.S. flag that the US segment of the Transatlantic Slave Trade took place, and that many of the Founding Fathers themselves were also slave owners, I’m not necessarily inclined to diss the Confederate banner with the American flag as the most viable alternative in mind.
So thus, I ask the proponents of Southern heritage if there’s any way to divorce that same heritage and its symbols from the vices of racism, oppression, and slavery in the eyes of the descendants of those who were the slaves themselves. If they can accomplish such, then maybe the heritage of the Southeastern US, aka Dixie and the Confederacy, can look alot less tainted with historic vice than it looks right now.
Is there such a way in which I can look at the Rebel flag with the same admiration that is due any flag, save that of Nazi Germany, which has a far-longer way to go toward acceptance by the general populace?
Dunno, you tell me. But as of right now, I don’t have that much of an opinion except for what I’ve already provided. RSVP, merci.
September 18th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
I wonder what happened to this site. No one has apparently posted in over a year. I wonder if replies to this post were made by people who really believe what they typed.
Maybe someone will stumble upon it like I did and choose to comment. For the record, slavery in the American South ended long after slavery in the American North did. Anyone with any kind of good, basic education should know that.
Also, the first slaves delivered into what would become the U.S. were brought to Virginia, not the North. They were treated as indentured servants. It was not until wealthy landowners and government officials saw how powerful an allegiance poor folks could forge to topple the ruling elite, that they started to distinguish between those servants and former servants who were from European countries and those servants and former servants who were from African countries and brought over to the Americas on slave ships. As a result of the actions of the colonial government in Virginia, the length of servitude for Africans got longer and eventually lengthened to life enslavement. Having Africans as slaves meant: 1) greater investment for landholders who needed servants 2) easier ability to track down runaways (easier to identify escapees of African heritage than their counterparts from European backgrounds 3) appeasement for the lower classes with European backgrounds–if poor colonists from European backgrounds could be convinced that their lots in life, while poor, were at least better than some other group’s (i.e., those with African heritages), then they’d be less likely to rebel.
Wealthy folks still use this rationale to keep the poor from joining together to make real change in this country, which is what Shorty was alluding to. We can go on forever arguing over flags and shouting racism whenever it’s politically feasible and not get very far. Rich folks who like their power and don’t want to give it up (and I’m including liberals, conservatives, whites, and folks from other minority groups) use race and fear to keep others from getting some of their wealth and power.
Some political groups who, on the surface, act as if they are speaking on behalf of particular minority groups, fit into this category. Their rationale for being is that racism exists and they are there to eliminate it. Racism does exist, but more often than not these groups only exacerbate already existing problems and create new ones. Why? If we make any serious headway, then eventually their main reason for existence will disappear, along with it the political power they enjoy.
Other political groups, who use code language to express their “sympathies” for “decent, patriotic” white folk, blame poor folks for being poor and use race as a way to identify poor folks who are just “using the system”. Never mind that most poor in this country are white. What is the result of their actions? 1) Folks who are working class feel a need to separate themselves from the word poor. They say they aren’t poor but are “middle class” when they are not middle class. 2) Poor minorities become the poster men and women for deserved poverty 3) Poor whites are ignored by the mainstream and targeted by rich racists who recruit for their hateful groups and get their recruits to recruit more poor whites who feel like no one else is speaking on their behalf.
We let this go in our country so that the elite can stay elite and pass on their wealth to their offspring. These folks even often dilude themselves into thinking that they got to be economically successful solely because of their own initiatives / efforts. (Even some born with silver spoons in their mouths believe this!) It doesn’t matter if some minorities succeed. No, that’s great it just makes other folks’ cries of racism, bigotry, and prejudice seem unfounded. The fact that the majority of wealthy in this country are white has a similar result for poor whites. It makes it seem as if their poverty is their fault. That they must be doing something wrong because they are white and they are “supposed to” be doing better financially. These folks use the term “white trash” to say: a) white is the opposite of trash, trash is non-white 2) those whites that do not rise to the standard of “White” are trash, but not regular trash they are “white trash”. Minorities can use the phrase to make themselves feel better “well, at least we’re not trash” not realizing that that is, in fact, what many elitists believe. Poor whites now try to embrace the phrase (much like some blacks have “taken back” the word nigger by respelling it “nigga”) because they want to be proud of something. This also explains some folks’ embrace of the Confederate flag. To them it symbolizes (wrongly, misguidedly, ignorantly) “white pride” (while some blacks fought in the war on both sides, whites were mostly fighting whites. Where is the pride in that?). This overshadows the rationale of some southerners who see the flag (honorably) as a symbol of tribute to their dead ancestors who fought for a southern way of life(yes, there is a general southern culture and these folks were fighting for respect, honor, and the ability to for the South to decide its own affairs; sure many grew up with racists views but the war was not fought to support racism–there were plenty Northern soldiers and politicians who were racists too). And it gets mixed in with the racist rationale by some folks who use that flag to stir up hatred.
We fail to seriously deal with poverty in this country and we hide behind race, blame, and individualism so that we never have to. We attach to symbols and such to further the division and superficially address problems of racism, classism, and privilege. Poor folks are more alike than not. It’s time poor folks of every ethnic / racial background to get together to truly bring about positive, peaceful change!