The Alamo: America’s Shrine to White Supremacy

[Judi Lynn]

The Alamo: America’s Shrine to White Supremacy
November 6, 2015
by Lee Ballinger

Phil Collins, the former drummer with Genesis who went on to be one of the biggest pop stars of the 1980s (“In The Air Tonight,” “Invisible Touch”) was in San Antonio on June 26, 2014 for a press conference at the Alamo. Collins announced that he was donating his vast collection of artifacts related to the 1836 Battle of the Alamo to the museum which sits on the Alamo grounds, just up the street from San Antonio’s famed Riverwalk.

Collins, who traces his Texas obsession to recreating the Battle of the Alamo with figurines as a kid in his English backyard, has been visiting the site periodically since 1973. He has written a book, The Alamo and Beyond, which is a coffee-table tome with photos and essays he’s written about each of the two hundred items in the collection. Collins has also written a forward to a book on music about the Alamo.

Collins claims he may have actually been at the Battle of the Alamo 178 years ago. Perhaps it’s that psychic backstory which causes him to speak, ad nauseum, about only the details of the 1836 battle in which Mexican troops annihilated a force of two hundred men of the Republic of Texas army. Yet Collins says he supports a full interpretation of the Alamo’s entire history. So let’s go there.

The Mexican troops who attacked the Alamo are always described in the history books as the aggressors, so the first thing to clarify is that the Alamo was in Mexico. The so-called “Texians” who were in the fort representing the Republic of Texas were part of an attempt by U.S. slave states to expand the scope of slavery westward.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/06/the-alamo-americas-shrine-to-white-supremacy/

[Nitram]

1. I never understood why a band of American pirates are held in such esteem.

And it's too bad Texas didn't remain an independent republic.

[gregcrawford]

2. We could take The Donald's idea...

... and build a big fence around the whole damned state and let them eat each other.

[Paladin]

5. And we Texas liberals could just fuck ourselves, correct?

Spare me the suggestion that I move elsewhere. Texas is my home, and it's worth fighting for.

[gregcrawford]

6. Guess I should have included the sarcasm smiley...

... but seriously, you Texas Liberals seem to be nearly as outnumbered as Bowie and Crockett, and have an uphill battle. How can you hope to overcome such entrenched malice and pervasive ignorance? I wish you luck.

I married a Texas girl back in the seventies, and I spent a little time there, a bit north of Lubbock; damned if I can remember the name of that town now. Being an Eastern Liberal breezin' in from California was a double whammy, and the only thing that saved me was that I could ride and shoot, and knew what a Bob Crosby roper was.

[geek tragedy]

7. No, don't fuck yourselves. But, winning a statewide race at least once per generation

would be a nice start.

Failing that, at least be competitive enough such that the Republicans can't run up massive margins while running candidates (Cruz, Cornyn, Perry, Abbott) who make George W Bush look like Eugene V Debs.

[Paladin]

8. Please sir, may I have another?

Thanks so much for putting me in my place, sir. Excuse me, I need to go fuck myself now.

[geek tragedy]

9. Texas liberals are great. But there just aren't enough to make a difference statewide nt

[Aristus]

3. I was born and raised in San Antonio. I was steeped in the myth and legend of the Alamo.

I didn't know that they were slave-owners, attempting to defend and expand slavery in Mexico until I was an adult.

Now I just shake my head any time someone talks about the 'heroes who died at the Alamo.'

[raccoon]

4. Great article. I never realized all that. Needless to say, that wasn't what I was taught about the

Alamo.

2.5 million tourists visit the Alamo every year. They have no idea what it represents.

I had no idea, either.