Re: rebel flag flap in Dixie

["Hunter Gray" <hunterbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is, of course, a Marxism Discussion stream -- but I'm also posting this
on the Redbadbear list.

Mark Lause isn't off the mark at all.  I'm not, of course, a Southerner.  I
come from the Real Southwest -- but I do know something of the South. And
two of my four children were born there: one at Jackson in early '62 and
another at Raleigh in '65. [The other two were born at Chicago and Gallup.]
And a grandson is one-half Mississippi Choctaw [Neshoba and Leake counties.]

I keep up with the South.  BTW, how many other folks on Marxism Discussion
are Life Members of the Mississippi Historical Society -- and can attend
august meetings where Old Enemies these days fall asleep in their chairs?

The American South  -- and there are actually several Souths, including the
endless progression of "New Souths" -- is an extraordinarily complex piece
of turf.  In the United States, it remains still  -- by far and away -- the
most socio-culturally unique piece of geography vis-a-vis the so-termed
mainstream culture.  And its prime symbol -- for better and worse -- remains
the Flag of the Southern Confederacy.

The South is certainly consistently interesting.  Even now, with the Changes
and All, my blood quickens as I drop -- whether it's via motor vehicle, air
or the IC railroad --  below the line.  And I love grits and shrimp and
fried chicken and sweet potatoes and endless ice tea -- and meals and
leisurely discussion that last two hours.  And, for all of my own  many
painfilled and literally sanguinary Southern memories, I don't flinch at all
when I see the Stars and Bars -- in the South. And the song, Dixie, is a
favorite of mine.

But I still to this day -- if I'm traveling as I generally do, in my own
vehicle --  take along a firearm when I go down behind the old Cotton
Curtain..

 In the Mississippi state-wide vote -- a very heavy turn out of about a year
and a half ago -- on whether to change from the traditional flag [which
includes the Confederate Symbol], the vote was extremely heavy on behalf of
keeping the Old Flag.  And it was heavy, to use the Magnolia expression,
with "Black and White, Chinese and Choctaw."  As a matter of fact, I know
very committed and veteran Mississippi Black civil rights activists who
voted to retain that particular piece of Tradition.

And much of Southern tradition is an Old Way which doesn't universally by
any means simply connote white supremacy and feudal rebellion and
exploitation -- but also involves a frequently attractive regional
gemeinschaft quality. And by that I mean folk society and catfish and possum
and grace -- in contrast to the harsh and often alienation-drenched
urban/industrial time-dominated lands of the Yankees.

It's also a setting where, in the rural and small town and small city
setting, people have always known one another in the most primary sense --
deeply and very well -- across all sorts of racial lines.  I recall fondly
one of the homes in which I was boarded during the Movement days -- and
where the breakfasts served me by my Black hosts were the grandest I've ever
had -- ever.  But I remember so well that  one  morning especially when the
matriarch, recognizing my deeper interests, spent two hours giving me a most
intricate and powerfully fascinating anthropological/sociological lecture on
how, in that particular county, everyone by a certain Scottish name was
related by blood: whether Black, Indian  -- or White.

Now, with the formal segregation barriers gone, the deep and positive ties
between people are becoming increasingly paramount. Militant and democratic
interracial unionism has a great future in Dixie -- if the unions want to
really invest genuine time and effort.  And much remains even today Down
Yonder of the old civil rights movement  -- with which committed labor
organizing could easily make solid and productive alliance.

A slightly heretical thought which I've spoken many times in the past couple
of years:  Along with other outfits, the NAACP did a quite effective job in
registering new voters for Election 2000.  But it would have been better
advised to put its really intensive energy -- not into the so-far fruitless
efforts to remove Confederate flags from Southern state capitols -- but
instead into the kind of tedious voter education/preparation for which, in
addition to the historic confrontations of drama, the old Southern Movement
was much noted.  Had that been done two years or so ago, Florida would have
been a considerably different story.

I've always liked the old symbol of the Southern Student Organizing
Committee [SSOC] -- a sensibly militant and effective civil rights
organization which formed in '64.  Working very closely with the Student
Non-violent Coordinating Committee, SSOC was made up primarily of very brave
young Southern whites who risked much -- including family ties -- by
fighting for social justice on many critical fronts.

Its symbol was an interracial handshake -- across the backdrop of a
Confederate flag.

Hunter Gray  [Hunterbear]
www.hunterbear.org
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'




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