Monday Links for 7.6.2015

As I mentioned in my post last Monday, I continue to think about the "identity" I wish these "Monday Links" post to have.  I kind of enjoyed last week's post, with a little more in depth reflection on just one or two articles, so I decided to follow that again for this week.  How long that continues, we'll see...

Ever since the shooting in Charleston, the "history," "heritage," and symbolism of the Confederate flag has been an issues ripe for many "hot takes" in the media.  Because of the shooter's views of race, his connections to the Confederate flag, and the state of South Carolina government's connections to the flag, there have been many references to that history and heritage.  In that light, two articles I read this past week I found interesting - I used to lead tours at a plantation - You won't believe the questions I got about slavery over at Vox and this piece about social studies textbooks' treatment of the Civil War in Texas at the Washington Post.

I think the Washington Post issue highlights a common thread or theme I've seen since Charleston - that the Confederate flag really stands for state's rights, not for slavery.  Thus, when someone is flying the flag proudly, or embracing the symbolism of that flag, its because they support state rights against an overly powerful central or national government.  (Quick digression - I always wonder why more people don't argue that the Confederate flag is UnAmerican.  Its a flag flown by a group of people who had an armed insurrection against the United States?).  As the WaPo article gets to, this involves a bit of cognitive dissonance on the part of the believer.  It is true that state's rights was at issue in the Civil War, the state right to buy and sell people.  Why it can be argued, convincingly, that Lincoln and the North did not go to War to end slavery (preserve the Union being the primary reason), it truly cannot be argued that the South went to war for any other reason than to preserve slavery as an institution.  Primary source documents from the time - be it in the confederate states' declarations of independence, or speeches from the leaders of the confederacy, it is clear that preserving slavery was at the root of their secession from the Union.  Was states' rights involved in that - yes.  But only because that was the legal, constitutional basis they could attempt to argue that they had the right to continue slavery, which was necessary in their eyes.

Frankly, the fact that Texas is trying to minimize the role of slavery does a disservice to students.  As George W. Bush's former Secretary of Education pointed out, "it's our history."  It played a significant part in the way America developed as a nation, both in how the government was initially structured to allow for the continuation of the slavery establishment while fighting for freedom from England, how society evolved between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and how it has evolved since then.  The intentional omission of the Ku Klux Klan, and in particular Jim Crow laws, is tantamount to a lie by omission to our students.  This is obviously not our nation's brightest moments; but minimizing it, or even worse, pretending it didn't happen, is really appalling.

When people don't understand history, or have it taught to them in away that intentionally misrepresents or omits, we have the questions that were asked at the Plantation Tours discussed in the Vox piece.  There's this need, it seems, to recognize that while slavery, as an institution was bad, still involved good people that weren't mean to "their" slaves.  I think it sad that we try to characterize the ownership of people as property as being "not too bad" simply because some slaveowners may not have been physically abusive.  They still owned other people, and often believed they had the right to, by their religion or their government.  It was acceptable to do anything to these other human beings; the fact that some may have been "nicer" than others seems irrelevant to the acknowledgement that slavery, as an institution, and on a personal, individual level, in all situations, is a grotesque evil.  Read the first hand accounts of Frederick Douglass, or "12 Years a Slave."  Read the writings of John Calhoun, Vice President of the U.S. under Andrew Jackson, who actually described slavery as a "positive good."  It should all be repulsive, and never thought to be "not too bad."  But if we are not going to confront our history, and teach it honestly to future generations, then I imagine the questions about the darkness in our history will only get worse, until the worst happens, and it is forgotten.

"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." - Edmund Burke

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history." - George Orwell