Once upon a hoopty...

To the victor always goes the spoils and this includes the right to write history the way that puts the winner, or at least the survivor, in the best light. I have often felt frustrated by attempts in many locations in the South to do away with any celebration of the Antebellum Era, in which the South flourished and most of the nation's millionaires lived in Mississippi. I do understand that anytime one people prosper it is going to be at the expense of another people, and the story of the civil rights movement, the story of a group of people captured, taken on ships to faraway lands, sold into slavery and then separated from family and loved ones at owners' whims, beaten and mistreated, eventually freed from slavery, but still not respected, considered less human than others, then eventually given fair and equal, and no longer separate, treatment, allowed to prosper and as of January 20, finding themselves with a representative of their people being sworn in as political leader of their country -- this story is beautiful and good and should be told. However, as it is told, it usually takes the same path that victors and survivors have always taken and it is rewriting history. Any celebration of Antebellum South is considered to be racist, because calling it such is the most subversive way to have it silenced. Any who would celebrate Antebellum South are called ignorant, because disregarding these sentiments as unintelligent will keep them from being respected as legitimate.

All that to say, I am proud of U of L for the way they are handling the problem of having a Confederate War Memorial right next to their campus (see link in title). Instead of creating an outcry and demanding that such a memorial be torn down, they are adding to it the celebration of those whose story is not told by that monument but who lived through the hell of the same time period. It is good to find a way to celebrate the fallen dead of a people and also celebrate the freedom and civil rights of another.

Please understand me. I do not think the South will rise again, at least not in any kind of pro-slavery or Antebellum sentiment way. I do see much of the South growing economically, and I hope that it may someday rise again to a place of economic strength. If it does, I also hope that it is not at the expense of any people group. I love the South and I love Mississippi, for all its strengths and faults and I am proud of my ancestors, even if they refused to see that owning people as slaves is just wrong. They had other issues, too, but it is hard for me to judge them from my 21st century point of view, because I don't know what i would've thought in that time. They also had strength that led to me being who and where I am today.

In this post-modern time, I find it difficult to run across popular opinions that the South has ever been "the bad guy." They had different opinions, opinions which led to bullying in the Congress and a decreased representation because they would not adhere to the opinions of others. When they decided they had had enough, they decided to use the Constitutions offer of secession to leave a government they no longer had any say in. This move was fought against and the secessionists lost the war and their entire way of life. The freed slaves were given positions of authority and those formerly in power were refused the right to vote. I am proud of a people who stuck to their guns and fought against injustice, even if they were supporting injustice of another kind. I don't think they were perfect, but they were never the bad guys. They still aren't. We're just a people who are co-citizens with those who generations ago oppressed our ancestors just as our ancestors oppressed the ancestors of other co-citizens. No one is free from blame in all this, but our say is just as significant as the say of anyone else.

Monday night I had nightmares about Obama winning and the worst-case scenarios that radical far-right talking heads predicted and then McCain won and all the worst-case scenarios from the radically left media predictions came true. I woke up easy enough and then I went to work, where I realized we were going to be handing out free coffee all day with no extra employees on the floor to handle the extra customer count. It was harrying for the first few hours, but by the time I took a lunch break and came back, I had a pretty nasty headache and I started feeling weaker and weaker. I voted in the mid-day after I got off work, and had a headache for most of the next two days. Thursday, I went to work and my first class with a headache and then started feeling a little nastier. I stopped by my prof's office to drop off the paper that was due and to apologize for skipping class, and then drove home through rush hour traffic where I fell into a delirium of hot flashes and chills, sore throat and nausea, not to mention the continual headache. After I gagged at the nothing I had put in my stomach since midday on thursday, I started feeling a lot better and had some chicken-noodle soup, some crackers and my baby got me some jello and vitamin C.

In other news, I've heard several people in the liberal media talk about how much we need to come together as a nation and unify and stand behind our president. I find it interesting that they have decided we should all do this when the president they voted for has been elected and were less focused on standing behind the elected president 4 years ago. I've also noticed, in listening to news, that Obama's biggest problems are going to come from his democratic-voting supporters. There is a large pocket of people who tend to vote liberal/democrat because they are optimistic and/or feel that the world would be a better place if only we would elect the RIGHT president (not that there aren't conservative/republican voters who feel the same way, but conservatives tend to not be quite so optimistic). So now, Obama is going to have to live up to the hype that has been built up around this election. People actually believe that he will turn around the economy, provide jobs, lower taxes and end the war, single-handed. I do hope that whatever programs our federal government work out will accomplish these things. Lord knows we need more jobs and some of the basic foundations of our economy need to be reset in order to fix this mess into which the banking and real estate industries have put us. I do agree that we should stand behind our president, whether he is a knuckle-head or is merely from a different idealogical camp, because it isn't about getting my way: it's about all of us working together to do what we think will best help our nation. So, I'll work hard at my job, spend money on the things I can afford, do my part to help my neighbors and my community and pray and hope that our new President will make wise decisions that benefit us all, and President-elect Obama will do his best to fix what's wrong with our country in the way that he thinks will work. In four years, I may decide not to vote for his re-election and if I choose to do so, I will because I think that I'm doing what's best for the country.

I hope his supporters recognize that Obama is not our Savior, and though he may be a good man and a good leader, he is, at the end of the day, just a man. I hope that in two years when not all of his promises have been fulfilled, that his supporters will continue to support him as president, even if they think they might vote differently in the next elections, because turning around the economy and satisfactorily diminishing the troop presence in Iraq is going to take some time. I hope the "us versus them" feeling that's been going around will die down a little bit now that the election is over, because it has literally made me sick. Or maybe that was substituting at middle and high schools 3 days a week...