State of Alabama offices closed for Confederate Memorial Day

The BBQ Pit
101

[QUOTE=ubergoober]
It looks like there would have been at least a few Revolutionary War veterans who actually lived to see Appomattox. I’m going by Wikipedia’s list of last surviving war veterans.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the cite. Lemuel Cook (d. 1866) was the last confirmed/authenticated regular pensioner (others received special pensions because they could not prove their status). The last pension check for a Rev-War widow was in 1905 (much younger wife of a veteran). There are currently at least two Civil War widows receiving pensions, both of them very very old women who married men 4 times their age when they were young adults.

102

[QUOTE=Ogre]
I was in Boston, and was treated to a similar screed from a Bostonian. This was in a bar while I was there for a job interview. He also included “kikes,” “greasers,” and “wetbacks” in his discussion.

So, you were saying?
[/QUOTE]

He probably just figured you were from Alabama and wanted to make you feel more comfortable. You know, Bostonian hospitality and all.

103

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
I agree that southern history is large. But it always seems to keep coming back to the same five years. If southerners keep insisting on identifying the Confederacy as the most important event in their history, they’re going to be judged by that.
[/quote]
Well, shit. We do try to draw people’s attention to some of the positive aspects of Southern history, like the fact that our music has been pretty much an absolute good. Country, blues, jazz, bluegrass, soul, R&B, and rock and roll have completely changed world culture in the last hundred years. It’s been an enormously powerful force that has influenced virtually everyone on the face of the planet. But when we say things like that, everyone else pooh-poohs and hand-waves, and says, “Yeah, but you’re still backward racists!”

Get the fuck out of here. I can guarantee you that there’s not a single Southerner who ignores the cause they were fighting for. You simply don’t seem to have any appreciation for what actually happened. You seem to do what so many other people outside the South want to do, which is say, “It’s black and white (pun intended.) You were wrong, and we were right. Nyah nyah nyah. So get back in your place, rednecks.” Well fuck you, asshole. Read a book.

Superiority. Man, that’s fucked up. Southerners had a hideous INFERIORITY complex for decades after the four years of the Civil War, and Yankees have been only too happy to rub generations of Southerners’ nose in shit over those same four years. And suddenly, when some Southerners sit up and say, Hey, you know what? We HAVE made positive contributions, and we are NOT the ignorant, backwards hicks that we’ve been told we are," we get called “uppity” and “superior”.

You may not go out of your way, but you certainly seem to show up in every one of these threads to make sure we know that you’re essentially the Peter Griffin of the SDMB.

104

[QUOTE=Ogre]
…we get called “uppity”…
[/QUOTE]

Might want to rethink that word choice.

105

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Might want to rethink that word choice.
[/QUOTE]
No, I do not. Do you really imagine that I’m unaware of the implications of my word choice? I did it on purpose, and I stand by it.

106

[QUOTE=Ogre]
Do you really imagine that I’m unaware of the implications of my word choice?
[/QUOTE]

I can’t imagine what you hope to communicate with it, so no I didn’t think you did it on purpose.

If you’re trying to make some sort of subtle allusion to Southerners being treated the same way as black people I suspect that you’re either a) completely batshit insane or b) fond of really, really outrageous hyperbole.

107

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
I can’t imagine what you hope to communicate with it, so no I didn’t think you did it on purpose.

If you’re trying to make some sort of subtle allusion to Southerners being treated the same way as black people I suspect that you’re either a) completely batshit insane or b) fond of really, really outrageous hyperbole.
[/QUOTE]
“Uppity” is a commonly-seen Southernism that does not exclusively imply race.

And you do realize that, by “Southerner”, I’m referring to millions of black people as well, don’t you?

108

[QUOTE=Ogre]
“Uppity” is a commonly-seen Southernism that does not exclusively imply race.

And you do realize that, by “Southerner”, I’m referring to millions of black people as well, don’t you?
[/QUOTE]

The dictionary definition of “uppity” may not imply race. I think you’ll find, however, that the majority of people in and out of the South have only ever heard the term uppity immediately preceding “nigger” or perhaps “negro”.

You may or may not be referring to black people. Since this thread is more or less about how black people are treated by Southern white people, it’s kind of meaningless if you are, though.

109

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
The dictionary definition of “uppity” may not imply race. I think you’ll find, however, that the majority of people in and out of the South have only ever heard the term uppity immediately preceding “nigger” or perhaps “negro”.

You may or may not be referring to black people. Since this thread is more or less about how black people are treated by Southern white people, it’s kind of meaningless if you are, though.
[/QUOTE]
I’m perfectly familiar with the popular perception of the word. I’m also perfectly aware, thank you very much, of the the context in which it is used, and that it is NOT strictly used to imply race within the South. There. You may consider your ignorance fought. You’re welcome.

110

[QUOTE=Ogre]
I’m perfectly familiar with the popular perception of the word. I’m also perfectly aware, thank you very much, of the the context in which it is used, and that it is NOT strictly used to imply race within the South. There. You may consider your ignorance fought. You’re welcome.
[/QUOTE]

Right. So your entire rant was written for other Southerners, then?

111

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Right. So your entire rant was written for other Southerners, then?
[/QUOTE]
No, but now you’re aware that “uppity” does not strictly imply race, despite what you may have believed before. Once again, you’re welcome.

112

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
The dictionary definition of “uppity” may not imply race. I think you’ll find, however, that the majority of people in and out of the South have only ever heard the term uppity immediately preceding “nigger” or perhaps “negro”.

You may or may not be referring to black people. Since this thread is more or less about how black people are treated by Southern white people, it’s kind of meaningless if you are, though.
[/QUOTE]
I’m from the South, I live in the South, and I would feel absolutely comfortable using the word “uppity” without having folks assume I was referring to Blacks. Hell, some people I know even consider the context of word usage before they jump to conclusions. Whooda thunkit?

113

Incidentally, one thing that irks me is the cafeteria plan of Recreational Outrage on history. It’s always wrong to do anything that remotely seems to acknowledge the Confederacy, but acknowledging other negative history is hunky dory.

Example: Fervour specifically says s/he (sorry, that’s not a slam but I honestly don’t know F’s gender) loves Fort Toulouse. That’s a prime example.
I’ll be glad to give the long version of the history, but here’s the short version: Fort Toulouse is an early 18th century fort in Elmore County, AL, built by the French primarily as a trading post for the deer trade. It rotted and fell into the river centuries ago, but it was rebuilt in the 1970s and 1980s and it’s now a fantastic living-history program with reenactors and authentic buildings and authentic Indian houses, etc…

The thing is this— Fort Toulouse has another name as well, and it’s even included in the name of the park and the name of the web-site- it’s Fort Toulouse/Fort Jackson. The second part is “as in Andrew Jackson”, who rebuilt the fort in 1814 shortly after his victory at Horseshoe Bend (which is a major national park with beautiful nature trails 60 road-miles from Toulouse- a lot shorter by crow-fly).

So, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend Jackson and his army and- very important- his allies (Creeks and Cherokees) destroyed and ended forever the military strength of the Creek Nation. (Though usually lumped as part of the War of 1812, the Alabama theater was really far more a largely independent Creek Civil War.) It was a slaughter and it never would have happened had it not been for Jackson’s Indian allies taking the first initiative of crossing the river and burning the Creek village.
To quote Tacitus, “they made a wasteland and called it peace”.

So, on its heels, Jackson withdraws to the confluence of the Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers, the site of Fort Toulouse, and he rebuilds Fort Toulouse as Fort Jackson. There, the Creek leader Red Eagle(aka Lamachatti, aka Hopnicafutsahia, aka Truth Teller, aka William Weatherford) comes, gives an impassioned speech saying basically “I only wish that I could fight you again, but my people are starving and we can’t go on- I surrender, kill me if you want to- I would you- I don’t care” (in addition to the military disaster his wife had died in childbirth that week) “but feed my people”. Jackson, awed by Red Eagle’s bravery, says something to the effect of “Whoever would kill this man would steal the coins off a dead man’s eyes” and feeds his people, and in romanticized versions the story ends there.
But in reality it ends with the Treaty of Fort Jackson, compared to which the German’s in 1918 got a sweetheart of a deal. The Creek Nation was forced to cede 23 million acres- more than half its territory-map- to the United States. The real hell of it is this: those cessions included millions of acres that belonged to Jackson’s Creek Allies and left untouched millions of acres left to the very Indians he was fighting. It was a completely crushing blow in which the U.S. totally screwed the Indians and it led to the Trail of Tears and other forced removals and Creek/Seminole wars 20 years later. Fort Toulouse/Fort Jackson is, in other words, the site of one of the most bastardly acts of treachery and racism in the history of the nation.

Okay- how often have I heard people ranting and railing when there’s an 1814 reenactment going on at Fort Jackson (and it happens once a month)? How often have I heard auto da fas over the 1814 flag flying over that site? How often do people spew bile about the honoring of Andrew Jackson with state funds (for Fort Toulouse is kept open by public monies [and I hope they never close it]? How often do I hear outrage over federal money being spent to keep open Horseshoe Bend where in addition to the 1814 flag flying and uniforms on display they have reproduction cannons in the parking lot? Approximately, never. Nobody seems to care.

And I’m glad. I can acknowledge that what the whites did at Horseshoe Bend and Fort Jackson were nasty and racist and virulent, but I still want the sites kept open for their historical significance and as public parks. I can state that my own ancestors came to Alabama in the 1820s-1830s to settle on land that was forcibly vacated by the Creeks due to the terms of that humiliating treaty, but it doesn’t make me hang my head in shame; it was a completely different time and more importantly than that it’s absolutely unalterable, and I have neither pride nor shame that I carry their genes but I do have a lot of interest in the matter.

Anyway, this doesn’t meet ire when if anything it was worse than anything the Confederacy did. But let anything remotely seeming to honor (and by honor I’m really just talking acknowledge) the Confederacy, damn but it hits the fan. It’s stupid.

(And for all the “Lee and crew were all traitors!”- you may want to remember the nation of this time; if the charge of treason is valid, it wasn’t exactly Narnia under Aslan that they were “betraying” but a nation already up to its eyeballs in the blood of Indians and in slavery and in unjust wars against Mexico.)

114

Lots of insightful and informative posts in this thread. Given time and patience, maybe we can eradicate the ignorance of our Yankee friends.

115

I know that. And I’ll admit most southerners know it now. But you should admit it took a few centuries for that idea to take hold. Black people have been living in the south for about five hundred years and it’s only been in the last fifty or so that they finally became southerners. There are plenty of people still living who can remember when saying that a black person was equal to a white person would have gotten you laughed at - unless you were black yourself in which case the consequences might have been a lot more severe.

I’ll admit northerners didn’t always see blacks as equals either. And we kept some slaves as well. But we at least grew up on our own. Southerners didn’t stop enslaving black people until outsiders forced them to at gunpoint. And as soon as the outsiders left they went back to persecuting black people as much as they could get away with - and didn’t stop that until the outsiders came back and made them stop again.

116

I will quietly agree to disagree, then. It only has one possible context as far as I’m concerned.

Sampiro, that’s not relevant at all. Nobody is suggesting that we blow up Fort Sumter, or pretend it wasn’t held by the Confederacy. How exactly is celebrating a day in honor of something in any way analogous to preserving it for posterity?

117

Sampiro, I’ll freely acknowledge that the United States as a whole has many ugly parts in its history - and as you pointed out our history of wiping out the Indians is one of the ugliest. But we acknowledge that what we did was wrong and don’t celebrate it. We don’t declare public holidays to commemorate the Trail of Tears or the Sand Creek Massacre.

118

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
We don’t declare public holidays to commemorate the Trail of Tears or the Sand Creek Massacre.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe not holidays, but the Indian Hater’s face is on the $20 bill. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the moral equivalent of putting James Earl Ray on there. But all that aside, what you’re saying doesn’t really address what Sampiro et al are saying. As a Southerner, I do not begrudge a holiday honoring Yankee troops who died fighting for their union. I think what y’all don’t realize is that most Southerners were merely fighting for their land. Or maybe you do realize that and don’t care. Whatever. Anyway, I think it’s been well established and documented now that the North can’t claim any moral high ground on the basis of racism and bigotry. So why not leave people alone to honor their ancestors, just as you do yours and I do mine?

119

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Anyway, I think it’s been well established and documented now that the North can’t claim any moral high ground on the basis of racism and bigotry. So why not leave people alone to honor their ancestors, just as you do yours and I do mine?
[/QUOTE]

Yes, for in their quiet mourning the good people of Alabama cried out to be left alone by… declaring a public holiday.

120

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Yes, for in their quiet mourning the good people of Alabama cried out to be left alone by… declaring a public holiday.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, for the love of – Look, as I said earlier in this thread, the only reason state employees (and it IS just state employees – the schools were still open, businesses were still open, banks were operating, city offices were staffed, etc.) get this holiday is because in the past, the state didn’t have the money to give them raises, so they gave them additional days off with pay. Many state employees don’t WANT the day off – they’d rather have gotten raises – but if their offices are closed, they’re not going in anyway.

They may be Alabamians, but they’re not STUPID.