Ever since South Carolina’s Rep. Joe Wilson insulted the president and his office during Wednesday’s Health Care speech, the newspapers can’t get enough of his connection with the Sons of Confederate Veterans as well as his outspoken support for the public display of the Confederate flag and “Confederate honor.” Today’s NYT’s column by Maureen Dowd takes this news thread to drive home an essentially reductionist connection between Wilson’s nutty little outburst, his personal past, and the broader history of his home state of South Carolina:
The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. [Therefore] Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.
Others have tried to situate Wilson into a broader historical narrative that includes the likes of John Calhoun, Preston Brooks, and South Carolina’s own place in the story of secession, Civil War, and Massive Resistance. These narrative memes are so predictable, but ultimately tell us next to nothing about what motivated Joe Wilson’s outburst. Oh…I get it. Because Calhoun, Brooks, and Thurmond are so easily lumped together in some vague reactionary category we might as well throw good old Wilson in there. Dowd and others draw much too close of a connection between between Wilson’s past and the broader history of the state that he represents. It’s almost silly that it even has to be pointed out. SCV members are not necessarily card carrying racists; in fact, I read plenty of news reports of members who voted for Obama back in November. It also doesn’t follow that those who identify with the Confederate past by flying a flag on private property are engaged in racial commentary or attempting to role back the clock to the Jim Crow Era. How much do you think Dowd and others know about the SCV to be able to imply such a connection? Please don’t get me wrong, this is not meant in any way as a public statement of support for the SCV or a signal that a Confederate flag is going up on my front porch. I’ve made my position clear on both the SCV and the flag on this blog.
I get the sense that the many reports that have implied such connections present Americans with another opportunity to play with our Civil War memory.
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
Confederate Flag,
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Last night Barack Obama attended the annual Alfalfa Club dinner in Washington, D.C. It’s one of those private/elitist dinners where members celebrate themselves and poke fun at one another. Much is being made of the president’s comments in reference to the origin of the group and the timing of the dinner. The organization was founded in 1913 and was meant to honor the life of Robert E. Lee. On the face of it, not a big deal, but according to Tommy Christopher at the Political Machine the Lee connection has been almost entirely ignored by the press as well as by Obama’s White House Staff in the days leading up to the dinner. Somehow word of this got to the president who chose to reference the connection in his opening remarks:
I am seriously glad to be here tonight at the annual Alfalfa dinner. I know that many you are aware that this dinner began almost one hundred years ago as a way to celebrate the birthday of General Robert E. Lee. If he were here with us tonight, the General would be 202 years old. And very confused.
No doubt, the reference garnered a laugh or two from the audience, but how many members scratched their heads in confusion? Apparently, the connection with Lee has slackened in recent years according to a 2007 Washington Post article:
It is such an obscure factoid that an informal poll of some of last night’s revelers produced none who’d ever known this to be true — and who apparently would rather not have been asked, judging by the defensiveness that ensued. “I don’t think that has any meaning today,” Sen. Norm Coleman (R- Minn.) said of the Confederate connection. “I will be sitting across the table from Kenneth Chenault, the African American chair of American Express.” Jack Kemp hadn’t heard of the Confederate connection either.
The irony of our first black president reminding a predominantly white audience (I assume) of their connection to Robert E. Lee must be savoured like a fine wine.
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
Robert E. Lee
I guess I should have anticipated a decision by H.K. to use the Obama election/inauguration to unify white and black American around the Confederate flag. My local newspaper is reporting that H.K. is making his way up Rt. 29, which will take him right through Charlottesville, Virginia to Washington, D.C. I can’t tell where along the highway he is, but if I find out I am going to make an attempt to meet him in person. No doubt, he is freezing his ass off, but that is a small price to pay when the goal is to highlight the loyalty that African Americans demonstrated as Confederate soldiers throughout the war. Some choice quotes from the article:
I’m an African-American and I’m a Southerner and I believe my heritage, which is represented by the flag bearing the Christian Cross of St. Andrew, is being ignored and destroyed. It’s continuing to divide the black folks and the white folks who have a lot in common.
Mr. Obama said he is about unity and bringing this nation together. If he is truly a man of unity, I hope he will consider showing the Southerner that [the Southerner] is an important part of this country. He could have a Confederate color guard at the White House,” he said. “He could give the Confederate flag a respected place as part of the history and heritage of this country.
It does not represent slavery, although slavery was a fact of life. The flag represents a heritage, a way of life that my forebears had. It represents the men and the families that lived together and fought together to preserve their country from invasion. My family volunteered for the Confederacy and fought side-by-side with white Southerners and Indian Southerners. They are all my family.
I am Southerner. This flag is not about slavery, it’s about family and God and country. I have more in common with fellow Southerners like George Wallace than I do with [the Rev.] Al Sharpton. I’m from the South. I’m of the South and my family is Southern, be they white, red, black or yellow. We share a heritage and a way of life.
I’ve commented extensively on the issue of black Confederates/Confederate slaves so I will refrain from belaboring the point. However, it is worth reflecting a bit on Edgerton’s emphasis on the Confederate experience as somehow constituting a point of unity between black and white Americans. It’s not simply a reflection of poor history, but also of the Confederacy’s overwhelming place in Southern/American memory. Of course this is no surprise given its importance to the region and the nation, but it clearly overshadows in a way which minimizes other significant moments in the history of the South that had the potential to bridge the racial divide. Consider the Populist Movement led by Tom Watson, not to mention the Civil Rights Movement itself.
It’s unfortunate that H.K.’s embrace of American history is ultimately a gross distortion of it. Fortunately, it wouldn’t take much to correct it once he arrives in D.C. I recommend that he approach the reenactors in the 54th Massachusetts and request to march in the inaugural parade as part of a legitimate historically-based unit. You want to honor black Southerners who sacrificed everything for their families and nation (even at a time when the Dred Scott ruling was still on the books) than don that blue uniform and acknowledge the heroism of your fellow black Southerners (1).
(1) Of course, I am aware that the 54th was made up primarily of free blacks from the North, but you get my point.
Tagged as:
Barack Obama,
H.K. Edgerton
