Righteously Angry At The Racist Ways of Trump 2.0 - Trump & The Old South

Van Lathan shared his viewpoint on the Trump Administration reinstalling two statues honoring Confederate soldiers in the DC Area. Point blank - The Trump administration has proven themselves to be racist (most racist in my lifetime & that’s saying something) & anti-Black in a myriad of ways. Too many for me to recount in this post.

My July 17th Facebook Post (see Below) featured a Rebel Flag and started off with this statement: “MAGA - The central question is what time period are those who identify with the MAGA movement referencing? The rebel flag?- The Confederacy? 1860? 1960? I’m all ears - I really want to know! My view is that MAGA is a racist dog whistle!” I’m still waiting for someone who is in support of the Trump administration to respond!

Van Lathan emphasized that it was the post-Reconstruction period in USA history when the Confederate Battle Flag was adopted, the Klu Klux Klan rose to power, and Confederate Monuments and Memorials started appearing throughout the South. Why: “to control and terrorize Black people.” Lathan makes a salient point: “so moving away from Confederate monuments and celebrating people with ties to the Confederacy is actually a strong sign of reconciliation that we don’t want Black people to live in fear of racial terror and slavery anymore. And to re-power those images is saying the opposite of that.” Word!

I was inspired to write this post after reading a passage in “Lovely One,” Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir. Jackson writes about her reaction to seeing a Confederate Flag affixed to the inside of a Harvard student’s window as she entered the quad during her junior year at Harvard:

“I looked up to where she (Lisa) was pointing and my heart sank…Lisa and I were hardly the only ones unsettled by the appearance of such a blatant symbol of the Confederacy. But, as would become evident in the coming days, it was the Black students on campus who seemed most deeply disturbed by its meaning. For us, that flag was an emblem of hate, the banner under with the South had rallied during the Civil War to continue enslaving people of African descent. There was no way for us to interpret its message now other than as a statement of opposition to our very presence on campus, a declaration that we were not wanted there.”

“Seeing that flag in the window every day as I traveled from the quad to classes and extracurriculars felt like a cold slap in the face. In this place where I had begun to feel comfortable, valued, and understood, that flag, so flagrantly displayed, was disputing the right of African Americas to exist and function as full-fledged members of the Harvard Community.”

“The Black Students Association sprang into action, gathering to protest, passing out leaflets, and petitioning the university’s administration to require the removal of the flag. ‘Black students on campus are acutely aware of the unspoken code of the modern South,’ the BSA flyer explained. ‘When white owners display the Confederate flag in their homes, restaurants, and stores, it is a clear signal that African Americans are not welcome. What is the Confederate flag in the window….supposed to tell Black students?”

Later in the passage Judge Jackson shares this Tony Morrison passage: “The function, the very serious function of racism…is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says that you have no kingdoms, and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

JULY 17, 2020 FACEBOOK POST

MAGA - The central question is what time period are those who identify with the MAGA movement referencing? The rebel flag?- The Confederacy? 1860? 1960? I’m all ears - I really want to know! My view is that MAGA is a racist dog whistle!

Wrote the following in 2020:

I was born in 1958 in the segregated South, specifically Winston-Salem, NC. Raised in an all Black neighborhood... I had very limited contact with whites in my early years, except for the Catholic Nuns who taught me at an all Black Catholic primary school (St. Benedict the Moor). I didn't grow up being or feeling OTHERED in this world because my East Winston neighborhood/community was together and thriving. WE were IT! Never lacked for role models at home, on my block, or in my community. People like to talk about white privilege, which is real, but I grew up as a privileged child. Because of my parents, I had uncommon experiences throughout my life.

My first awareness of the symbolism surrounding the War Between the States, aka The Civil War probably happened on a trip to Georgia when my sister's girl scout troop visited Savannah, Georgia, the home of the girl scouts. On that trip, or maybe it was another trip to Atlanta, we visited Stone Mountain, Georgia, the South's answer to Mount Rushmore, except it glorifies the traitorous leaders of the Civil War. I like this description of Stone Mountain: "The largest shrine to white supremacy in the history of the world." Another factoid about Stone Mountain, which is a public park, that was provided to me years ago by Vernon Glenn after he saw my blog post about a negative experience (denied admission a couple of days before it was open to Blacks) my family had in 1971 at Tanglewood Park, which is in Forsyth County, NC -- "A lot of folks have forgotten (or never knew...) that the Tanglewood Park case went all the way to the US Supreme Court and was decided as part and parcel of two cases where private lands were left to public use for "white citizens" exclusively...the other being what is now known as Stone Mountain Park just next to Atlanta..."

I really learned about the Confederacy and the ways of white Southerners during my 7 years of being educated in the state of Virginia, the cradle of the Confederacy. I attended Episcopal High School (EHS) in Alexandria, VA for 3 years then matriculated to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.

In 2018 EHS commemorated the 50th anniversary of Black students attending the school. I was interviewed before the event by a student and was asked the following:

How would you describe the “Old South” and Confederate culture on campus throughout your tenure?

Harmless - wasn't an omnipresent force on campus. I got along with my classmates and enjoyed my time at Episcopal. You have to develop a certain level of tolerance as a minority in a majority environment, especially in the time period where I came of age as a high school and college student. There was one kid who I got along with who was an avowed son of the Confederacy. You always knew where he stood. He would usually have a quip about the Confederacy or the Old South to share with me when we would interact but it wasn't in a mean spirited way. My typical reaction was to smile and laugh at his ways. I'm attaching his yearbook photo where he quotes General George Pickett and is raising the Confederate flag on Hummel's flagpole. He authored the following quotes by his Senior yearbook picture - "I will come up to W&M next year as long as you aren't dating any white women!" xxxxxxxx C.S.A.

Another classmate wrote the following in my yearbook - "To the only black guy I ever met who can take a ribbing with a smile on his face." I wasn't overly sensitive to insensitivity but there was one time I exploded at an underclassmen when he uttered "Nigger" to me. I let him know that wasn't acceptable & I would take measures if he ever had the temerity to utter that word in my presence again. He never did & we steered clear of each other. I'm linking a blog I wrote about "The Power of the N - Word." http://cgscoutperspective.blogspot.com/.../the-power-of-n...

I attended William and Mary from 1976-1980. There was a celebration on W&M's campus every year where students of a fraternity would march around in Confederate Uniforms, waive the confederate flag and celebrate the Old South. The fraternity was probably Kappa Alpha because they still keep the tradition alive at many Southern Colleges. Here's a 2009 article on their celebration at the University of Alabama http://www.nbcnews.com/.../old-south-frat-targeted.../...

I always had a queasy feeling when I saw this brazen celebration of the Old South on William & Mary's campus. Nothing I encountered at Episcopal ever made me feel like that. EHS is a protected & small environment. Everybody knows everybody so you've got to find a way to get along with one another.

P.S. One of my high school classmates sent me this post. I thank him for thinking of me and for inspiring me to share a bit of my past. Be blessed to bless and keep the faith.