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.