Man, am I in great company. Nov. 10th's Flashbacks "Blacks inConfederate Gray" prompted an immediate response from me to Patrick M. Renolds - which prompted a response to my response - which prompted another response from me which ....
Bennie, please share this brief but intense exchange with anyone who maybe interested. As far as I am concerned, this guy (whose Flashbacks I have admired for quite some time) has briliantly and completely identified himself as a bigoted "reb"; in the fewest words I can imagine in his brief response to me. I was mad and writing fast so I didn't take much time composing.
What a joy to know that so many other "warriors"; were on thesame page and had the same reaction.
Fred Hinson
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NOTE: Message within brackets forwarded by Asa Gordon.
[This Sunday, November 10, 2002, on the dawn of Veterans Day, the comicstrip FLASHBACKS by Patrick M. Reynolds was moved to the front page of the Washington Post's "COMICS"; section and featured "Blacks in Confederate Gray":
Please note links at:
http://members.aol.com/digjubilee/private/flashbk.htm
This is a call for all to direct responses to "Letters to the Editor";: letters@washpost.com
note: The comic strip "BOONDOCKS"; by the black comic artist Aaron McGruder
was removed from its position on the front
page.]
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Messages in chronological order.
----- Original Message -----
From: fig
To: redrosestudio@dejazzd.com
Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2002 7:14 PM
Subject: Blacks in Confederate Gray
Regarding November 10, 2002' s "Blacks in Confederate Gray:"
Neo confederates of every stripe are rallying to "the cause"; by claiming that the civil war was not about slavery. They strongly imply that the confederacy was not even about white supremacy and "whites' rights" in the guise of "states'rights".
By pointing out at every opportunity that blacks fought for the "southern
cause" ; fought to perpetuate and expand the enslave- ment of their own
race, they seek to suggest that the confederacy was a racially integrated
endeavor of mutually enthusiastic "southern patriots"; (black and white)
who banded together for the preservation of the ";southern way of life";
black subjugation under white repression.
Your November 10th ";Blacks in Confederate Gray"; lends aid and comfort
to the notion that the confederacy was and is not about racism and bigotry.
It minimizes the 140 proceeding years in which the most brutal and violent
apartheid was perpetrated upon those ";black confederates"; and their progeny
by the proud white confederate society who, by their own reasoning, should
have been grateful enough to those ";black confederates"; to at least allow
them the right to vote un-intimidated over the next 100 years .
If you are an objective historian, I hope future ";Flashbacks";will
feature accounts of how black southerners were lynched, burned, beaten,
displaced and coerced at every turn after the war by white southern society.
Feature the fact that confederate forces under Robert E. Lee chased down
and captured every Negro they could catch (slave and free) upon entering
the areas of Gettysburg for thepurposes of returning them to enslavement
in the south.
Show the direct link between the confederate ";cause"; and the necessity
for the violent civil rights struggles 100 years later.
Unless you are a confederate apologist who discounts the core of bigotry
and white supremacy intrinsic in ";thecause"; and minimizes the wholesale
atrocities which occurred during and long after their defeat against black
southerners, I hope you do not leave readers with the lie that the confederacy
was one big happy ";integrated"; bunch of black and white guys who banded
together to throw back the evil Yankee, the abolitionists and the burdensome
notion of ONE NATION UNDER GOD with liberty and justice for ALL (including
blacks).
The civil war today is for the appearance of legitimacy in the minds
of people who are not knowledgeable about America's ";peculiar institution";
and original sin of racism. Your November 10th, 2002 piece, without explanation,
gives credibility to the";White Citizens' Councils";, ";The Sovereignty
Committees";, the present day ";League Of The South"; and even the ";KKK";
who'sdefense of ";southern heritage"; is indistinguishable from confederate
doctrine and history.
Fred Hinson
Luray, Va.
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----- Original Message -----
From: Patrick M. Reynolds
To: fig
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 11:50 AM
Subject: Re: Blacks in Confederate Gray
Dear Mr. Hinson,
I think we all know and abhor the atrocities that man inflincted on his fellow man in the form of slavery. I'm sorry you take offense from it and I thank you for your ideas on future stories.
Maybe I'll do one on the origin of the term lynch which started with many, many white guys being hanged. However, before that, perhaps I could do a story on the many, many slaves who escaped to the Union Lines, only to escape back to the Confederate lines because of the lousy treratment they received from the Northerners.
You told me your opinion which I value, now I will tell you about my
rage. There is rampant slavery in east African countries
TODAY. Where is the rage from African-Americans and from the
restof American citizenry? I, for one am really ticked
off at the present-day slavery and the fact that nobody is putting any
pressureon Somalia, Sudan, and the others, as they did on apartheid in
South Africa.
Patrick
=======================================
----- Original Message -----
From: fig
To: Patrick M. Reynolds
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 11:57 PM
Subject: Re: Blacks in Confederate Gray
Mr. Reynolds,
I too am angered by the continued existence of slavery on the African continent. However, conservative and southern sympathizers point to that atrocity primarily in order to deflect and dilute the efforts toward recognizing the realities of American apartheid and its origins, chiefly embodied by the confederacy and its legacy, right here at home.
The efforts to illuminate and resist revisionists tactics to portray the confederacy as merely an equally moral and credible difference of opinion simply opposed to the freeing of the black slaves, the preservationof the union and the eventual equal rights for blacks as well as whites (something confederates resisted forover 100 years after their military defeat) right here in the United States is something I can expend my limited energy and resources on and have the best possible chance for effect. When that wa ris finally resolved as to who was right and who was wrong and how this has affected race relations in America ever since,then I may be able to turn more attention toward what's going on inAfrica.
";Look away";; ";there's somebody behaving worse than confederates did";, is not a clever enough diversion from exposing the ";rose colored glasses";, romanticized ideal of the confederacy that I find objectionable.
People of limited means have to choose their battles more frugally. I can't address all of the religious, racial, ethnic and political atrocities in the world and expect to have the same level of effect as I would have focusing on an area of bigotry I know best.
I invite YOU, with the obvious influence and clout you must have, to protest the atrocities occurring in Africa. I am not aware that one has to be ";black"; in order feel and express outrage at those crimes against humanity. I just realized something. I've never heard of American black slavery and apartheid referred to as ";crimes against humanity";.
Even with the best efforts of American black leadership, white glorification of ";confederate heritage"; and the many racist tentacles of its legacies still flourishes. Their fight is not in scattering limited resources all over the world but here.
Incidentally, it wasn't until March 23rd, 1865 that the confederacy officially authorized the organization of black combat units - to be offered their God given right to be free IF they fought in confederate ranks. No training or equipment was authorized for them. They were simply to be thrown into the lines to ";stand and die for Dixie."; No provisions where made for the freedom from bondage of their families and as we've seen in our own life times, no expectation of the most basic civil rights was ever intended as white control was to be strictly maintained.
The sons of confederate veterans must enjoy your support as you have mirrored one of their main arguments that black and white confederates were one big happy family. Comparison of the numbers of blacks fleeing for their lives to the north, before the war AND after, and with blacks and whites who supported the civil rights movement in our own time with the incidents of blacks who embraced slavery and later, supported the strict confederate apartheid which was often violently enforced for over100 years will show that confederate efforts to portray themselves assimply in righteous disagreement as to the equally credible position o fthe prerogatives of white supremacy to be a ";very thin white sheetscreen"; indeed.
Original confederate records confirm many of the points I have made. I can share some of them with you. However, I suspect that your embrace ofconfederate righteousness is not subject to be influenced by the reality of the true black experience at their hands. One cannot understand th e enormity and depth of the pain of that experience that lives in the souls of ";the sons of former slaves"; and still embrace the symbolsand rhetoric of the system which inflicted it; which is just as alive today in the souls of the ";sons of former slave owners.";
Fred Hinson
Attachment:
I just reread your e-mail. There is something else I wish to address.
The war for the hearts of current and future generations of Americans did not end at Appomatox. The resurgence of the glorification of the largest white supremacist, white separatist militia ever to threaten the United States - the confederate army - is well organized and well financed to pursue the original charter of the confederate veterans - the vindication of the";cause";. That is original charter language.
You may be familiar with it.
If you were to compare the thousands of blacks who risked the wrath of their white slave masters, the white patrollers, the brutal punishments,and the increased suffering of loved ones left behind at the hands of southern legalities and generally accepted southern social norms in order to escape, as well as the blacks, slave and free, who fled to union lines and stayed and fought against the confederacy - to those who stayed south by choice or came back to join in confederate efforts to continue their subjugation, the enormity of how overwhelmingly blacks rejected the confederacy would dwarf the relatively few blacks who embraced the charity and supremacy of the white masterclass that neo confederates like to hold up as examples of theabsence of confederate racism.
The Union was simply the far less of two evils of systematic bigotry compared to the certain institutionalized repression of the confederacy.
Fred
[I admire your professional gift for saying so much in so few words.
If we exchange further e-mails, I will endeavor to limit my
word count.]
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