Yes, it absolutely was. The overwhelming majority of white southerners approved of slavery, depended on it in some way, and believed white supremacy was the natural order of things. It’s completely irrelevant that “only” a third of households owned slaves. Owner or not, everyone who wasn’t enslaved by it was socially invested in it.
Lynyrd Skynyrd isn’t racist, so yeah, you can definitely listen to them. Sweet Home Alabama was a response to what they considered Neil Young’s attack on all southerners. Lynyrd Skynyrd was basically telling Neil that there’s a lot of good in the South and that they aren’t all racists.
The “famous” feud between Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young was also greatly exaggerated.
A lot of folks seem to misunderstand the line “in Birmingham they love the governor”. They are actually booing Governor Wallace and making it clear that the band does not support his ideas about segregation.
They did display the rebel flag. Technically this was forced upon them by their label but they probably could have fought against it if they had really had strong feelings on the issue. Personally I get the impression that they liked the rebel aspects of the flag and just tried to ignore the racial aspects of it. But the flag is about the only thing that you can really legitimately criticize them for. Otherwise, they were very clearly against racism.
Makes one wonder how different things would be if Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated.
I mean, it’s right there in the passage that you quoted, “we’re southern rebels”. You can’t really describe yourself as “southern rebels” and not automatically suggest connotations of the OG “Southern Rebels”.
I am emphatically not saying that Lynyrd Skynyrd or people who like them are necessarily holding or promoting any racist beliefs. I just think it’s kind of a textbook example of the obliviousness of white privilege to cling to that sort of willful disregard of the baggage that one’s beloved symbols are carrying.
Honestly, “liking the rebel aspects” of “Southern culture” while “just trying to ignore the racial aspects of it” is something that only white people could even imagine as a possible thing
This was not James Dean style “rebels without a cause.” They had a cause. The cause was owning people and subjugating them to slavery.
The Confederacy, yes, absolutely.
But for 1970s era “rebels”, this was right in the middle of the counterculture movement. People were rebelling against the war, against Tricky Dick, against the entire Government, against big business and greed, against anything in the “establishment”. Heck, some folks were just rebelling for the sake of rebelling. I personally am not aware of anyone who has flown the rebel flag who was seriously advocating a return to how blacks were treated in the 1850s, outside of a few radical KKK types of course.
I’m not saying that it was OK for them to choose that flag as their symbol of rebellion, but it’s pretty safe to say that most of those 1970s “rebels” were not advocating a return to slavery.
I also don’t want to come off as supporting the rebel flag, because I don’t. So let’s be absolutely clear on that. I’m glad it’s on its way out.
Well, sure. I personally haven’t seen anyone who wasn’t white proudly displaying the rebel flag.
What really used to get me was the redneck types who would display the flag on their monster trucks and such in southern West Virginia. Absolutely clueless. I always felt like saying “hey, a-hole, the entire reason we are a state is so we wouldn’t have to fly that damned flag!” They didn’t get the meaning of the flag at all. To them it was just a generic symbol of rebelliousness against authority.
I just don’t get the relevance of this. We’re discussing a culture, not individual people. We’re discussing a culture that embraced a symbol that was used by the KKK, and their whitewash of claiming it wasn’t about racism. We’re discussing a culture that was whitewashing the Confederacy not to be about slavery. We’re talking a culture that embraced a racist dogwhistle. We’re talking about a culture that so devalued what black people thought that it didn’t occur to them to check to see how they felt about not only the Confederate flag but all the Confederate monuments that were accompanying it.
Sure, because of that culture, a lot of individuals didn’t realize the problem. But that doesn’t change that all the culture around that flag was racist in origin. Ignoring the racist implications of something is a racist thing to do.
Hippie counterculture already had their flags of peace. They didn’t need a flag of war to represent them, let alone the flag of a failed country that was against all of their positions. There’s a reason why you don’t think of hippies when you think of the Confederate flag. In the South, that flag causes you think of the establishment, not the counterculture.
Again, I don’t blame any individuals, because I grew up not knowing how bad that flag was (though I admit I also never really saw the appeal). But I can’t deny that all the culture that grew up around that flag was racist in origin.
That said, to go back to the OP, that flag is not actually representative of Southern Culture. And, no, not all of it comes from slaves. The Southern hospitality culture has more to do with being poor, for example. And, well, most of the foods we associate with black stereotypes came from being poor people food.
That’s not to say slavery and black culture isn’t a part of Southern Culture, or that we don’t need to stop separating the two. We shouldn’t assume by default that Southern Culture means “White Southern Culture.” What I’m saying is that it’s not as simple as saying it’s all cultural appropriation from black people and slave culture.
That said, I’ve never really understood the level of pride that Southerners put in their culture. Nor do I understand any pride based on geographical location—surely it has to be the culture you are proud of. And all cultures have their warts, so I don’t understand being so proud you want to hide those.
I don’t think anyone in this thread is disagreeing with that.
In any event, this was all in response to whether or not someone can listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd (mentioned in the OP) and not be racist. By most accounts the band was not at all racist, but the issue here is that they did use the rebel flag as a symbol.
So the question becomes, can you consider Lynyrd Skynyrd to be non-racist when they have album covers such as this?
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Note that the album cover art was chosen by their label, as the original band members died 10 years earlier in a plane crash. However, rebel flag artwork was used by the band while they were alive. The artwork was chosen by their label, not by the band members.
When this topic comes up I always wonder with the North gets a pass. In the 1950s, New York city practiced de facto segregation in public schools through gerrymandering leaving many black and Puerto Rican students with inferior facilities, overcrowding, and assigning them the most inexperienced teachers. All this while New Yorkers patted themselves on the back for not being like their troglodyte neighbors to the south with their segregation de jure. I don’t bring this up to exonerate or excuse the South, they have a legacy they have yet to live down, but let’s not ignore the culture of white supremacy that pervaded the whole of the United States.
I’m fairly certain (having witnessed some of it while growing up in that part of the country) that culture knew exactly how Blacks felt about those things. That was the whole point.
Modern New Yorkers don’t celebrate that era, the way Southerners glorify the Old South with the plantation weddings and giant stone monuments and rebel flags.
Because it’s not the dominant one in the US. Seems similar to the reaction of many other countries to American culture, which has a powerful influence around the world.
I lived in Virginia for about half my life, and very close to it for a good chunk of the rest of it (although I was born in Kansas to a family of Maryland transplants). I celebrate Lee-Jackson-King day (Yes, in Virginia, Dr. King’s celebration is the same day as Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee’s) in the proper manner: I drink a bunch of mint juleps and then feel terrible about it.
Every argument for banning the Confederate flag (well, the Confederate Battle Flag, which gets a lot more recognition than the "Stars & Bars) can be made just as effectively for banning the Star Spangled Banner. The memes I see on Facebook for banning the Confederate Battle Flag seem to me to be rooted less in principle or racial justice than in regional snobbery. Our hands are pretty fuckin’ dirty, but we don’t otherwise live in a world–or country–of clean handed people.
And everyone who thinks that southern culture is defined by Lynyrd Skynyrd should pick up the annual “Southern Music” issue of The Oxford American. It comes with a CD that might broaden your appreciation for southern music, which certainly includes (but is in no way limited to) Country and Southern Rock.
I would WAG that rural culture is generally inherently xenophobic. With a society where there are few people, little travel and little mixing of culture with others the society gets to know it’s own, and that produces a level of comfort, but outsiders are suspect.
The Star-Spangled Banner existed for the sole purpose of declaring “we’re so dedicated to the idea of people being property that we’re willing to go to war against our own country over it”?
The Star-Spangled Banner existed for the sole purpose of declaring “we’re so dedicated to the idea of people being property that we’re willing to go to war against our own country over it”?
More like “We’re so dedicated to settling in the new world with the express purpose of getting rich with a slave-based economy that we’ll separate from the Crown over it.” It’s a pillar of this Critical Race Theory I’ve been hearing so much about lately. Also, “If you’re black, you were born in jail, in the North as well as the South. Stop talking about the South. Long as you south of the Canadian border, you’re south.” --Malcolm X
Maybe you ought to spend more time looking into the real Critical Race Theory, then, rather than the fake one you’ve been hearing about.
It’s in the 1619 project.
It’s in the 1619 project.
I stand corrected.
I think this sums it up pretty well.