In the circus called American politics, Confederate-Americans have risen from their slumber to protect their collective ego from actions taken by Republican-Americans.
For decades, Republican-Americans sat idle while Confederate-Americans claimed that their most-cherished emblem represented “southern pride” and “southern heritage”.
Then, Republican-Americans began to realize that plenty of southerners weren’t represented by that emblem.
Black Americans born and raised in the southern USA are genuine southerners, and yet, they have no pride in a culture that enslaved their ancestors and racially discriminated against their elders. Their heritage is a shameful element of U.S. history.
Confederate-Americans insist that Confederate soldiers be honored because the latter fought against Union soldiers who invaded the South. The ancestors of black southerners actually welcomed those same Union soldiers, because those Union soldiers invaded the South in order to free the slaves.
During the Civil Rights Era, Confederate-Americans indicated their rebellion against racial equality by displaying their most-cherished emblem on state property as well as on private property. Black southerners understood this action by Confederate-Americans as a symbolic attack on them.
Contrary to what Confederate-Americans and naïve people claim, the most-cherished emblem of Confederate-America has always symbolized the oppression of black southerners.
None of that pertaining to black southerners matters in the alternate universe of Confederate-America. In that universe, black southerners aren’t really southerners, and so, they have no say in what should represent the South, in whether or not Confederate soldiers should be honored for fighting to preserve slavery.
Meanwhile, in this universe, Republican-Americans are turning against the Nineteenth-Century mentality of Confederate-Americans. The former realize that a heritage of racial oppression isn’t something that should be honored on government property. The former understand that Confederate-America is a part of U.S. history – a bad part of U.S. history – which is why the former want the emblems of Confederate America to be displayed in museums and history books.
Republican-Americans understand that, although Confederate-Americans have joined their political party, the latter don’t represent the GOP as a whole. The Republican Party is much bigger than Confederate America, and thus, Republican-Americans aren’t giving in to the rantings and shrill screeds of those who cherish a particular emblem while being in denial about the racial oppression that emblem stands for.
Republican-Americans aren’t saying or implying that Confederate-Americans shouldn’t have the right to display the latter’s emblems on their private property. However, those emblems don’t symbolize the Republican Party, don’t symbolize American conservatism and definitely don’t symbolize the USA.
Republican-Americans aren’t capitulating to liberals and Democrats, as some have claimed. Instead, Republican-Americans are acknowledging an unpleasant reality within this universe. Whether or not Confederate-Americans will abandon their alternate universe and join this one remains to be seen.
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Featured Image: Tragic Prelude by John Steuart Curry, illustrating John Brown and the clash of forces in Bleeding Kansas.
Featured Image retrieved from Wikipedia Commons.
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