Re: rebel flag flap in Dixie

["Hunter Gray" <hunterbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

While this isn't a heavy disagreement, Louis, it is one of our rather rare
ones.  Unless I'm misreading things -- and Mark Lause speaks well for
himself and his perspective -- he and I are both in our own unique ways
making reference to the fact that The South [actually a number of
multi-faceted chronological and geographical Souths] is far too complex to
be neatly boxed in by any person or any organization  -- or captured with
any ideological precision.  Aside from Yankee perspectives, there are
certainly many Southerners  of all races who see the Confederate flag as
reactionary and deeply resent it. And there are certainly many Anglos who
use it openly and cunningly for nefariously reactionary purposes.  But there
are many other Southerners who see it purely and simply as a traditional
expression of regional loyalty and home -- and that and nothing more,
nothing less. And there are many others who now see it as irrelevant.

[And it may now be irrelevant on this List.]

But as I mentioned in an earlier post, the massive and wildly heated
grassroots Mississippi vote of a year and a half ago saw overwhelming
support -- multi-racial support -- for the traditional Mississippi flag
[which  very boldly encompasses the Confederate flag.]  Many Yankee analysts
had predicted otherwise.  I was not at all surprised.

I don't see the Institute for Southern Studies as being the definitive word
on the South.  I'm familiar with it and hold it in high regard.  It does
much good work. [Many of its old veteran civil rights staff are now long
gone.] But the Institute is one good perspective of many good ones -- and
it's one that, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, receives substantial
funding from the North.  Flag issues -- which I'm inclined to see as
comparatively irrelevant and diversionary [unless we're speaking of the
Blood Red Flag !] -- are sometimes far more easily grasped by good folks on
the social justice edges than, say, the critical importance of hard, tedious
grassroots organizing [including voter ed] of the "people of the fewest
alternatives."

If outside radicals and union organizers are going to make any meaningful
headway in the South -- they're going to have go there and live and observe
and listen.  And with a long-term commitment.

As Ever -

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2002 2:06 PM
Subject: Re: rebel flag flap in Dixie


> lause@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> >I don't know what it's worth to say that you don't know of
African-Americans or
> >Asian-Americans that like the Confederate flag.  They can be as deluded
as
> >whites, right?
> >
> >
> This is one of the most disgusting arguments I've seen on this email
> list for a couple of years now. The rebel flag is a totally reactionary
> symbol. The movement today to remove it from southern courthouses, etc.
> is progressive. For an alternative to this screwy cultural studies
> nonsense bordering on racism, I urge folks to take a look at the
> Institute for Southern Studies website at:
http://www.southernstudies.org/.
>
>
> --
>
> Louis Proyect
> www.marxmail.org
>
>
>
>
>



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