Because they don't want to accept the fact that if their ancestors actually received their well-earned punishment, they wouldn't exist.
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(WaPo) Sins of the Fathers: The Confederacy was built on slavery. How can so many Southern whites still believe otherwise?
- Thread starter BossAttack
- Start date
Because it means admiting a problem that needs correcting. For much of white America, actual acknowledgement of the sins of slavery and racism in general means having to fundamentally change so much about present day America to actually fully repent for those atrocities. By sanitizing, ignoring or outright wiping them from history they can claim their ancestors were heroes and that nothing about the past affects the present.
Another point of how the confederacy has been rebranded is that the "confederate flag" was just a battle standard; it wasn't intended to be the actual proper flag of the confederacy. Two of the actual confederate flags were primarily white as an explicit symbol of white supremacy.
While our education system could always use an upgrade, the real problem here is there's independent interest groups wanting to push this narrative and if you try to suppress it they yell "free speech" and suddenly everyone around you gets cold feet. We need to get over the idea that all speech is worthwhile before we can even begin to push back against this.
Alternatively you can fight propaganda with even louder propaganda but I doubt your flaky allies would be willing to establish a liberal propaganda machine.
That is also fucked.
But most people I talk to in this country have no idea wtf is happened before 1945. And after.
Yeah, that's just ridiculous. They should still reconcile with the fact that grave mistakes were made, considering each of us is here by the result of uncountable small decisions and circumstances.
Yeah, this reason for their denial makes sense. No guilt, no acceptance of the fact that they didn't "bootstrap" their way to whatever their station in life; they stepped on people. It certainly doesn't help that there's so much media that romanticizes the rebels and popularizes the tropes of the southern belle, southern hospitality, "good old boys", "kind slave owners" and all that bullshit like the confederacy is some lost city of Atlantis.
They didn't even properly punish the rebels and yet their leaders are still martyrs.
If a bunch of neo-confederates were flying the stars and bars I imagine most people wouldn't even know what the hell they were promoting.
Our education definitely needs work and could help with this (I mean the guy is leaning on a 50s-era book because none of the history texts, even the most soft-pedaling ones you could choose, would support his version of events) but at some point no presentation of facts that critically harms your worldview is going to make a difference.
The guy's entire line of argumentation is about taking an atypical fact and trying to turn that into a truth. So the masters who didn't treat their property abhorrently become "they were mostly kindly masters" to "well it wouldn't have made economic sense to mistreat their slaves, so they didn't"; the black soldiers who fought for the South (some voluntarily, some basically out of necessity or by force) become proud confederate soldiers, ignoring those that fled to join the Union or the particular horrors visited upon black POWs; and the non-slavery reasons for succession are hyped up to argue that slavery wasn't a key component. He starts with actual facts and then twists them in a funhouse mirror to arrive at his defense, which also helps to explain why he's so resistant to having his mind changed; he's looked at the evidence and already selected the narrow path through them that would support his worldview.
Surprised the guy didn't bring up the few black slaveholders in the antebellum south to try and buttress his claims too. Seemed like it would have come right after the "most white southerners didn't own slaves" smokescreen.
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I just enjoy how he outs himself as a racist while proclaiming not to be in the same sentence when he says that enslaved blacks "weren't ready for the civic responsibility" that freedom entailed.
That's right, us pea brain niggas couldn't understand the concept of freedom and fair elections. No master, we needed it to be gradually, slowly, introduced to us such that we wouldn't get too confused and causing a ruckus.
That's right, us pea brain niggas couldn't understand the concept of freedom and fair elections. No master, we needed it to be gradually, slowly, introduced to us such that we wouldn't get too confused and causing a ruckus.
Having grown up in the south and then escaped to travel basically everywhere, in hindsight it really seems like a bizarre alternate reality. The confederate identity is taken for granted and worked into everything. Even when it isn't openly stated as such, and maybe not even recognized, the attitude is still there.
some people desperately have the need to think of themselves as good people, even if it requires believing in and propogating blatant and destructive falsehoods
The North was always much more interested in the Union than ending slavery. Doesn't mean the war wasn't about slavery since as you point out the states only left to preserve it.
One of the key problems, as you saw in that thread yesterday, is that people don't respect experts in general.
Americans on the whole, and this is not at all limited to the right, aren't interested at all in actual historians. People only care when it backs up something they already believe.
For one thing most of the narratives in this thread are still incredibly superficial.
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A lot of liberals, of the "we have to heal this country" variety, needs to realize this. There's no compromise to be had when you don't even really share the same history.
As always, I maintain Andrew Johnson's milquetoast Reconstruction makes him the worst President in our history.
As someone born and raised in the south, let me tell you something:
They don't believe otherwise.
It was ineffective on purpose
They don't believe otherwise.
It was ineffective on purpose
There's such a lot to unpack here. This man (and his wife) are delusional. He's living in a state of extreme self-denial. However, obsessive as he is, I've heard some similar sentiments from many white Americans I've spoken with over the years. It's usually the "my ancestors didn't own slaves so why do I owe you shit?" But also "the Civil War was about states' rights."
I will say this:
Has been used in modern times to justify the continuation of other horrors by the United States. It's essentially the moderate creed- "let's not do anything drastic no matter how awful the situation."
I will say this:
Has been used in modern times to justify the continuation of other horrors by the United States. It's essentially the moderate creed- "let's not do anything drastic no matter how awful the situation."
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Cause to admit other means everything is a lie, their life, success, what they believe, the country they love, the government, the police, the negative representation of black people. Their world shatters, and it's not just southern whites. It's America completely.
It was 100% about slavery, we agree. I was simply pointing out the one fact they were correct about while also showing that the motivation from the north doesn't in any way negate the fact that slavery was the entire motivating factor for the south.
People who practice this kind of historic revisionism only look at the one true thing they think supports their case while conveniently ignoring the actual printed documents where the southern states very clearly say they're doing this because of slavery.
A significant portion of the American population believes there are virtues and nuances of the Confederacy that must be preserved. And this isn't just in the South: my history class made me regurgitate Lost Cause in order to pass, and I was in New York. In Westchester.
To change the education system, you need to change this fundamental mentality.
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And the irony is they keep saying shit like the Democrats were bad because they were associated with the Confederacy and slavery, but the Confederacy was great and we need even more monuments to it.
Like...what?
Like...what?
Probably because the only mistakes these people think their ancestors did wrong was emancipation
I can't imagine being a fully functioning member of society with a mindset so thoroughly broken.
Correct! Birth of a Nation wishes it was as responsible for promoting Confederate whitewashing and apologetics as Gone with the Wind.
Of course they know it's about slavery.
They just know saying that they support that part aloud will get them in trouble so they lie about it and give other reasons.
Trying to educate them is pointless because you're engageing with a lie they dont actually believe in.
They just know saying that they support that part aloud will get them in trouble so they lie about it and give other reasons.
Trying to educate them is pointless because you're engageing with a lie they dont actually believe in.
I used to live in rural upstate New York, and I saw confederate Stars and Bars there. It's obviously not about "Southern Heritage". Have southerns ever really made a contribution to their "culture" anyway?
Let's not forget the famous and long popular quote like that proved that Robert E. Lee believed that slavery is wrong. The one that proved that it was actually a good guy leading the whole thing.
And let's also not forget how from the next fucking line of the same letter he went on to talk at length about what a great thing slavery was and justifying doing nothing to stop it. The 1856 ancestor of "thoughts and prayers".
Robert E Lee said:
And let's also not forget how from the next fucking line of the same letter he went on to talk at length about what a great thing slavery was and justifying doing nothing to stop it. The 1856 ancestor of "thoughts and prayers".
Robert E Lee said:
I have to imagine that the people you're talking about aren't talking from any historical standpoint, but I do believe that New York, at least New York City, was actually a major supporter of the south at one point because they were a major business partner. Don't forget that a large part of the support for abolition was economical; not out of any concern for enslaved people, but because they just thought people should go where the money is and switch over to immigrant labour.
This is a #1 concern/solution for many woes. Good education changes minds and transforms lives.
That was due to a conspiracy theory called The Lost Cause. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I think the Union was trying to appease the south.
It's due to an organization called the United Daughters of the Confederacy whose entire purpose was to create the Lost Cause narrative.
Not a conspiracy so much as a movement among southern historians to revise the reason for "The Southern Cause", namely by framing it as the Confederacy fighting for state rights.
Fixed, then they got their leg/head blown off at Antietam. Just ask NC!
There's a reason a ton of rich post-bellum leaders were scared shitless and started this. Hog farmers/ranchhands/lumberjacks/swamp people figuring out the leadership don't really care about them just like the leaders' forefathers didn't care about the hillfolk in the Appalachians but did ask them to do the above, and the same later once The New South came in on the bulldozer with Civil Rights in one hand and air conditioning in the other.
It's amusing that the article's premise hinges on the assumption that southern whites are not lying.
...and I get a four minute ad from Ben Shapiro when I click on that video. Wheee
Ain't lying if you actually believe it.
I had a friend in highschool that didn't think the flag was offensive and that the south fought for States rights, not specifically slavery and stuff. I tried so, so hard to convince him that it wasn't the case but I could never convince him. It sucked but I had to let him go. A combination of pride, and being a fucking idiot.
They don't.
Stop assuming good faith from bigots.
They know full well the Civl War was about slavery. They know this and support it.
They wish that black people were still in chains, they just know that society won't tolerate that. So other reasons have been made up. Polite sounding reasons.
It's why they can say that the Confederacy was about State's rights and noble fighters while also claiming that the Democrats were on wrong side of the civil war. The positions aren't meant to be consistent. They're meant to provide a fig leaf to cover their real beliefs.
From an outside perspective, it is kind of hard to find. It's undeniable, but racist have done a pretty good job in covering that up.
Nah, most just use "confederation" instead but it means the same thing. And there's been tons of them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation
This. The narrative he speaks about isn't new. It's been around since before the Civil War. How the South repeatedly had to write new laws that allowed them to keep their slave, bend the rules of democracy so that they could protect their "property" from the tyranny of the North. If you go google it, there are even articles written at the time that use the same crap when it comes to hate laws today. A line I read when I was reading up on this a few years ago we pretty much , if they ban owning slaves, maybe they'll decide to ban owning sheep.
It's just amazing to me that this shit continues to this day.
Hey guys, what a fucking news flash. No one likes to realize they're the bad guy of their own story.
I wish more people were like Anderson Cooper.
he's not racist just thinking if only they educated the slaves before setting them free instead of 400 (no typo) years afterwards