The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Kitra Mwania,
Branson, MO.
The confederate flag clearly means something important to the people around here. Being a black person who learned that this flag represented slavery and injustice makes me nervous about why this flag is an accessory.
Keith F Thompson,
Brookline, NH.
Growing up as a white male in generally liberal surroundings, I assumed so much. I assumed I knew what racism looked like, and I assumed I would never witness it firsthand.Seeing the Oprah Winfrey Show do the Blue Eye/Brown Eye experiment on their audience was very revealng to me. Overt racism may be dying, but subtle, everyday slights have flooded into the vacuum
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Then I moved from all-white New Hampshire to greater Los Angeles, and I saw minorities treated differently all the time. By police, by banks, by retail personnel, by landlords.
It’s not always about Confederate Flags and hoods. It’s about the pettiness required to denh even the smallest courtesy, to make the slightest accomodation.
As demonstrated by the Blue Eye/Brown Eye Experiment, minorities endure a thousand small cuts every day, with a general grace and strength. Subjected to the same slights, people used to privelage notice their abscence quickly and will not stand for it.
It’s not about demonizing people,it’s about asking everyone to be thoughtful, to be kind, and to consider others in our actions.
Steve Morris,
Seattle, WA.
In the mid-1950s my father made a business trip from our home in Connecticut to Florida and back. He decided to make the trip by car, and to take my mother, my brother, and me along with him for a family travel experience. In the Deep South I witnessed undisguised segregation for the first time. I was 10 years old. At a gas station I asked the attendant why there were different bathrooms and drinking fountains. I told him my best friend in Connecticut was “a negro” (the terminology hadn’t changed yet). and I described how we did all the same things at school, and used all the same facilities. The attendant said, “Well that’s not the way we do it down here, sonny.” My parents, watching this exchange, sensed an edge — and perhaps a threat — to the man’s tone. They instructed me to address my questions to them in the future, and they bought me a little Confederate flag. I carried it everywhere, waving it around as I would have any other colorful souvenir. I was unaware of any meaning it might carry beyond its attractive surface. Years later my parents told me their side of the story, and explained that the flag was intended to smooth our journey through the South, and perhaps to provide a degree of safety. They had been more concerned than they let on, about the gas station attendant’s tone.
Lillian J. Hall,
Dallas, TX.
I was a freshman in college. I was sitting in the dining hall with a friend, near a window. It was “Texas Day”. The theme was obvious by the bails of hay, western-wear-clad employes and of course, barbecue on the menu. My friend and I were chatting, when all of a sudden two middle-aged men dressed in Confederate-era uniforms were passing by outside. The one that lagged slightly behind looked at me, looked at my friend, then stopped. He was a big guy. Burly. He backed up, turned his body to face me, propped his foot on the window ledge, and prominently displayed his rifle on his knee. Then came the staring contest. I stared at him. He stared at me. I refused to look away, ignoring my friend’s pleas. The other “soldier’ finally grabbed the burly one by the elbow and dragged him away. The smirk he had seemed like a badge of honor. He was quite amused.
That was when I realized I was black.
Granted, I went to all-black schools from elementary to high school. I chose a predominantly white school in west Texas that had a 1% population of black students. My friend, by the way, was biracial, but could “pass” as white. I went to my dorm and cried and vowed to never be intimidated by a white man again. The hatred that one encounter produced should have ruined me, but it didn’t. My great-grandfather was white. He had five children with my great-grandmother in rural east Texas at the turn of the 20th century. He allowed them all to call him ‘daddy’ in public. He was not ashamed. The society he lived in was and they burned down my great-grandmother’s house to prove it. Enough in my life has happened to cause me to hate one group or another. I made a choice to accept people as I receive them. Have you made that choice?
Jesse Dukes,
Charlottesville, VA.
This question was on my mind recently, when I wrote an article for Virginia Quarterly Review about Confederate reenactors at the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg. I don’t actually have any Confederate ancestors I’m aware of, but most of the reenactors do. All of the reenactors I talked to considered slavery to be an abomination, considered Jim Crow to be evil, and espoused no prejudice against people of color. But, they feel a powerful connection to the Confederacy because of their heritage; because their great-great-great-grandfather marched up a hill in Gettysburg or some other battlefield and watched his friends get shot, or got shot himself. They’re proud of their forebears. They imagine their ancestors as brave and noble people, and say things like “Those boys weren’t fighting for slavery, they were fighting for state’s rights and freedom”. And in certain individual cases, they might be correct, even if the Confederacy collectively fought to preserve slavery.
Historical arguments aside, if white southerners wish to oppose racism today, what responsibilities do they have toward the past? Must they forget or renounce their Confederate ancestors? Is there a way they can honor their memory and the vastness of their sacrifice, while still acknowledging the racism of the 19th century South, and the horrors of slavery?
Listen to Jesse Dukes’ story NPR’s Morning Edition.
Daisy Martinez,
Holland, MI.
The Confederate flag does not represent and never has represented racism. It’s a symbol of the southern heritage, representing freedom, states rights, individual responsibility, and resistance to an out of control federal government.
It may be true that some racists have used the Confederate flag, but racists also wave the American flag. So another words the Confederate is NOT racist, us American’s also waved around a flag (the American flag) so why should us American say it is racist that they are waving around there flag when we are waving around our own flag. They have the right to wear and or wave around the Confederate flag it is up to the how they feel about it.
Mechanicsburg, PA.
Messiah College, Faculty.
Just look at race by census track. The “West Shore” is over 90% white pretty much all over the place, while the “East Shore” is much more diverse and white is the minority in Harrisburg. We lived in Lemoyne, right across the river from the city, and saw a Dixie/Confederate flag flying on a pole in a backyard less than a block from our house. As an adoptive father to two biracial kids, this was deeply unsettling. We are north of Gettysburg and the Mason-Dixon line, but at times it is hard to tell.
Gunner
Goshen, UT
Just because I have confederate flags and my family comes from the south does not mean I am a racist.
Schung,
Philadelphia, PA.
Joe Fricke
Greenwood, IN
My mother’s Great-Grandfather fought for the 121st Illinois Volunteers in the Civil War, was shot and killed in action against the Confederates near Resaca, Georgia. He is buried in an unmarked battlefield grave. I guess he gave his all for the cause too.
Richard Stein
San Juan Capistrano, CA
Judah Philip Benjamin, QC (August 6, 1811 – May 6, 1884) was an American politician, lawyer, and slaveholder who served in cabinet level positions in the Confederate States of America, including Secretary of War and Secretary of State. It was a shock for me, a Jew, to learn that Benjamin and other Jews owned slaves and supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. Especially, because the story of the flight from slavery in Egypt is so central to Jewish life and practice.
Charles H. Sides
Westminister, MA
I always felt superior because my great-great grandfather Sides was conscripted against his will or support into the Confederate Army, deserted, was captured by the Army of the Potomac, and imprisoned at Elmira where he died. Then, as I learned more about my personal genealogy, I discovered that every other branch of my family owned slaves in North Carolina. A national conversation that still is largely ignored.
Liberty Boersen
Holland, MI
The confederate flag is basically a “punch in the face” to African Americans….
Courtney Potter,
Ann Arbor, MI.
Patrick
Ann Arbor, MI
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