No, I’m not referring to Pope-gate. I mean, that’s definitely a WTF situation, but as I said before, I’m not going to go there. Let Catholics wrestle with their own embarrassments, I’ll try to be amused. Or even bondage-gate or whatever they’re calling it – definite amusement quotient there, but no commentary required.
What I’m talking about is Confederate History Month, because the brouhaha over celebrating rebel heritage is a real mind-blower. There are a helluva lot of Civil War buffs out there and probably even more Southerners who’ve been brought up to never forgive or forget the War of Northern Aggression. Meanwhile, everyone turns a blind eye to slavery as casus belli.
But wait a minute. We have in this country all these people living in the past to the extent of re-enacting it, but can you imagine Germans similarly celebrating the Third Reich? What makes the American experience so different? How come rednecks get to be sore losers when krauts don’t?
There’s no escaping the fact that Third Reich and the Confederacy were both established to uphold racism. Yet today the former is vilified but the latter continues to be celebrated. WTF? There seems to be a subtle difference between national shame and regional indignation. Germany wasn’t conquered per se, just defeated; and after the war, Germans woke up to the fact that they had murdered people who used to be their friends and neighbors and felt really shitty about it. The South, on the other hand, was brought to heel, reabsorbed back into a Union they wanted no part of; and its citizens were informed that they couldn’t have free labor from their darkies anymore and resented the hell out of it. Germans read Gunter Grass and wondered what had come over them. Southerners never accepted guilt, and they retaliated with the KKK and Jim Crow.
Doesn’t it all come down to education? Passing on indignation as part of the curriculum. Immediately after the war, Germans were taught about the evil men who had seized their country; but for generations, it would seem that Southern children have been urged to honor their forebears as heroes of states’ rights while glossing what was once euphemized as their “peculiar institution” – an inconvenient truth if ever there was one.
Today Germany is a paragon of democracy and decency (Joseph Ratzinger notwithstanding) where swastikas are outlawed. The South... I’m not so sure. As long as you still see the Confederate flag proudly displayed, it’s fair to wonder if the concept of liberty and justice for all will ever really take hold.
What I’m talking about is Confederate History Month, because the brouhaha over celebrating rebel heritage is a real mind-blower. There are a helluva lot of Civil War buffs out there and probably even more Southerners who’ve been brought up to never forgive or forget the War of Northern Aggression. Meanwhile, everyone turns a blind eye to slavery as casus belli.
But wait a minute. We have in this country all these people living in the past to the extent of re-enacting it, but can you imagine Germans similarly celebrating the Third Reich? What makes the American experience so different? How come rednecks get to be sore losers when krauts don’t?There’s no escaping the fact that Third Reich and the Confederacy were both established to uphold racism. Yet today the former is vilified but the latter continues to be celebrated. WTF? There seems to be a subtle difference between national shame and regional indignation. Germany wasn’t conquered per se, just defeated; and after the war, Germans woke up to the fact that they had murdered people who used to be their friends and neighbors and felt really shitty about it. The South, on the other hand, was brought to heel, reabsorbed back into a Union they wanted no part of; and its citizens were informed that they couldn’t have free labor from their darkies anymore and resented the hell out of it. Germans read Gunter Grass and wondered what had come over them. Southerners never accepted guilt, and they retaliated with the KKK and Jim Crow.
Doesn’t it all come down to education? Passing on indignation as part of the curriculum. Immediately after the war, Germans were taught about the evil men who had seized their country; but for generations, it would seem that Southern children have been urged to honor their forebears as heroes of states’ rights while glossing what was once euphemized as their “peculiar institution” – an inconvenient truth if ever there was one.
Today Germany is a paragon of democracy and decency (Joseph Ratzinger notwithstanding) where swastikas are outlawed. The South... I’m not so sure. As long as you still see the Confederate flag proudly displayed, it’s fair to wonder if the concept of liberty and justice for all will ever really take hold.
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