A number of commenters on the Facebook link to my earlier post about the Confederate memorial in Rockville have brought up the familiar trope that veneration for the Confederate flag and “legacy” is in order to celebrate Southern “legacy” and “heritage.” This kind of response is nothing new, but it is ignorant and smug and I hate it. Indulge me a bit while I explain why.
My late wife, Rebecca Lord, was a Texan. A real one, whose family history in Texas went back to the early 19th century. She had ancestors who died at the Alamo, others who served with John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade at Gettysburg, and yet others who island-hopped across the Pacific in World War II. She used to joke that when Jim Webb wrote “Born Fighting,” he was talking about her family.
She was also a historian, earning a Ph.D in Latin American history at College Park in 2002. She despised the faux history of the South that the modern Republican Party (and plenty of Democrats too) had foisted upon a class of people who didn’t know any better. It’s one among many of the reasons she left the South and ended up married to yours truly.
That Southern history, often referred to as the Lost Cause, has long been known to be complete bullshit by reputable historians, yet it persists. The history is inextricably linked to current Southern politics as practiced by the modern Republican Party. But say the word “history,” and people’s eyes glaze over. History is boring, and history is irrelevant.
No, it’s not, and today, Politico has a remarkably good (oh, dear, did I just say that?) piece on the direct connection between modern flag wavers and the 1915 D.W. Griffiths film “Birth of a Nation.” The article then proceeds to trace the history, noting how it has evolved both before and after that remarkable and infamous film, and continuing to this day. Go read the whole thing, it’s that good, and I’ll give you just the final paragraph as a sample:
The United States has come a long way since 1865 and 1915. But until all of the leading presidential candidates from both major political parties are able to acknowledge that the Civil War was about slavery, that the Confederate flag is a symbol of white supremacy and that “American exceptionalism,” if it exists, is defined as much by violence as by progress, then we are still a very long way from where we need to be.
And to the “legacy” and “culture” and “history” defenders of the Confederate flag, let’s sit down some time and watch “Birth of a Nation,” OK? Bet you won’t feel so comfortable after that experience.
