Truly, one of the funnest things you can do when you're in the South is get into an argument over why the Confederate states seceded from the United States. You don't have to talk to some poor dumbass cracker (note: It's not racist because the Rude Pundit's got poor dumbass cracker friends). Oh, no, you can talk to your average, middle class redneck who seems perfectly logical, if conservative, on many issues. And he'll get all huffy, spitting about states' rights and taxation and tariffs and other such bullshit. Remember: you are doing this for your amusement, so don't get upset. Merely say, "And you're telling me that the Civil War would have happened even if there wasn't slavery in the South?" Because it wouldn't have. No way, no how. It was about
slavery.
There's a particular delusion that Confederacy apologists have. They have to be in deep denial about secession and the war because it prevents them from acknowledging that it's just fucking racist to honor the Confederacy. And they'd have to acknowledge that it wasn't the honorable beliefs of citizens being oppressed by the federal government. It was just a bunch of traitorous, rich scumbags who didn't want to lose their biggest moneymaking asset: free labor. Remember: when you honor Confederate soldiers, you honor terrorists. Having a party to celebrate secession is not unlike a group of extremist Muslims in a Pakistan cave hosting a let's-fuck-this-goat party every September 11.
Of course, that doesn't stop the goat-fucking. The South Carolina Secession Gala was big time fun last
night, with ladies and gentlemen all suited up in
Gone With the Wind drag. For a hundred bucks each, attendees were promised a not-at-all racist
evening: "We have a 45 minute theatrical play re-enacting the signing of the original Ordinance of Secession with Senators and famous individuals as actors in this performance. We even have President Pro-Tempore of the SC Senate, Glenn F. McConnell as Convention Chair, David F. Jamison of Barnwell." Yessiree, ol' times there are not forgotten. But wait, there's even better news. No, not a minstrel show: "The wonderful news is that the ORIGINAL
Ordinance of Secession will be available for viewing by our guests. This is not a lithograph, but the ACTUAL document which has been protected for years in the vault and hasn’t been seen in years. Those sponsoring tables will be able to have a group photograph with all Sponsors made with the ORIGINAL ORDINANCE." Man, that's like fucking your cousin on Martin Luther King's grave while using the Emancipation Proclamation as a condom, it's so good.
Meanwhile, we can learn much about the more recent history of the South through the
interview in
The Weekly Standard with Mississippi's totally not racist governor, Haley Barbour, who, it should always be pointed out, talks like Foghorn Leghorn gargling balls. Barbour has caused a
stink on the
left and the
right by whitewashing (ha!) the history of his hometown, Yazoo City, and praising the White Citizens' Council as totally not like the Ku Klux Klan.
Of course, history will always bite you on the ass. Despite Barbour's seemingly idyllic childhood, unclouded by the nasty civil rights battles going on all around him, Yazoo City wasn't the nice little Southern town that time forgot during Barbour's early years:
In 1955, parents of schoolkids in Yazoo City had signed an NAACP petition calling for schools to be integrated. The White Citizens' Council published the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all those who had signed in an ad in the local newspaper, saying it was a "public service." Medgar Evers' widow, Myrlie, stated how this act essentially killed the possibility of change in Yazoo City since those listed, like carpenters and plumbers, saw their incomes plunge. A grocer on the list couldn't get food from his wholesale suppliers. Local white merchants inflated the price of bread to those who had signed. The Citizens' Council
asked its members to fire any black employees or evict any black tenants who signed. All but two parents eventually removed their names from the petition.
In 1957, the only so-identified race-based murder in Mississippi was of Charles Brown, a black man killed in Yazoo City for "visiting a white man's sister."
In 1965, members of local Klaverns, the stupid name for groups of KKK fucktards,were
listed for the House Un-American Activities Committee (which also looked at the KKK), and, lo and behold, despite Barbour saying that the Klan had been run out of town, it had leaders in Yazoo City.
Barbour, though, is just another incarnation of the Confederacy apologists. Of course it was a wonderful life for Barbour. He was white and ignorant. You put on blinders as a kid, but you're supposed to realize when you're an adult, "Oh, shit, Mom and Dad weren't blissfully happy all the time. Oh, shit, blacks in my town were treated like shit." So, one has to wonder, is being white and ignorant still his excuse now?
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