We are a week away from the formal opening of the Museum of the Confederacy’s Appomattox branch. Many people will find this a cause for celebration, while others will find in the museum much to contemplate. That said, we also know that at least one “heritage” group plans to protest the opening with a demonstration featuring various Confederate flags. “Return the Flags! Restore the Honor!” (Isn’t someone borrowing from Glenn Beck?) In this case, of course, there are no flags to “return,” and I don’t see how a museum can take away honor (someone must do a little reading on the concept of honor, especially in a southern context).
However, this debate, as well as the ongoing skirmishes between self-identified defenders of “southern heritage” (read “Confederate heritage” … none of these folks are terribly interested in defending any other sort of heritage) and white supremacists (who draw freely on southern and Confederate history to demonstrate the connection between white supremacy and Confederate and secessionist ideology) serves to remind us that “heritage” and history are two different things. One cannot escape the notion that many proponents of Confederate heritage look to a selective and distorted reading of the past to seek justification for their present world view, cultural beliefs, and political philosophy (just as certain white supremacists look to the selected sayings of secessionists and Confederates to justify their own principles and to ground them in a historical past).
That said … what is Confederate heritage? Its proponents have trouble defining what they mean. They call for defending Confederate heritage, but they lose their way when called on to define what exactly they propose to defend and how exactly it is being threatened. Restore the honor? What exactly does one mean by this?
Most Confederate heritage groups highlighted by their visibility on the internet have at best a very vague notion of American history, let alone southern history and the history of the Confederacy. What reading they do is highly selective and designed to reinforce existing prejudices. Many of them reject that with which they do not agree by assailing the motives of the historian (they are not alone in this, by the way: even some of their loudest critics do the same). Their understanding of secession and war rejects the ample evidence that exists of a divided South (and, for that matter, a divided North) in an earnest effort to simplify matters so that they can pretend to understand them. Confronted with the fact that the Confederacy was founded upon a cornerstone of white supremacy, they seek to absolve Confederate heritage of the charge of racism by portraying a diverse and multicultural Confederacy incorporating all of the colors of the rainbow, especially those legendary black Confederate soldiers (many of them seem to shy away from issues of sexuality, however). They fail to see how the Confederacy’s very practices challenged the principles upon which it was allegedly founded, and that the Confederate experience further divided white southerners along lines of region and class. The image of a Confederacy symbolized by a flag may appear to unite certain white southerners, but in fact it simply obscures the degree to which the Confederacy itself was a divisive experience for white southerners … and that the only way to achieve some sort of unity was by identifying an enemy consisting of outsiders (Yankees, carpetbaggers, abolitionists) aided and abetted by traitorous insiders (scalawags) and the ignorant, misled, or conniving (African Americans).
Many advocates of Confederate “heritage” behave in the same manner. They attack the NAACP (in truth, the NAACP and the SCV need each other as dancing partners in the heritage waltz), scalawags (hello, Mr. Rawls), and carpetbaggers (formerly Kevin Levin), Yankees (27 championships and counting) and abolitionists (apparently I’m an abolitionist, as if that was a bad thing … next they’ll call me liberal). They rarely interrogate the views of members of their own movement, despite ample evidence of diversity of beliefs (various Facebook groups devoted to celebrating Confederate heritage contain members whose views on race differ slightly if at all from Hunter Wallace, which helps explain why no one among their number rushed to Connie Chastain’s defense a few weeks ago). One notes that there’s enough ranting about present-day politics, and again one must note that in many cases their political views are not all that different from the ones expressed on Occidental Dissent.
In short, one must ask whether those folks who want to honor and understand the service of their Confederate ancestors want to have these folks as the public face of Confederate “heritage.” Do you really want to have yourselves represented by someone who expresses support for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? Do you endorse the idea of southern separatism and a relentless hostility to American values and political institutions to the point that these folks want to be identified as Confederate Americans? Do you really want your beliefs represented in the media by people who twist the historical record beyond recognition in pursuit of their personal hysteria? Do you enjoy being represented by such easy targets and low-hanging fruit?
That’s your choice.
As for me, I’d rather study history in an effort to understand the American past and to share that understanding with others. If I have a blind allegiance to Yankees, it’s to the ones who wear pinstripes at home (and, as other baseball fans I know can tell you, it isn’t exactly blind allegiance, although it’s vocal support). Besides, the Stanley Cup playoffs are on the horizon … and there’s still a little Super Bowl afterglow at the Simpson house, where the only Patriots we mock play for New England. Get your priorities in order.