Episode 128 — Robert E. Lee Park

[admin 330]

Andrew Ti and Brent Sullivan let a caller know if it’s okay for him to take his dog to a park called Robert E. Lee Park. As always, leave us a message about anything you think is racist at (323) 389-RACE.

[president cage 13]

There is a Robert E. Lee park right outside of Baltimore.

[wakefresh 689]

So here's the thing, there are a lot of parks, streets, and monuments built to honor Confederate soldiers and generals throughout major cities in the south. Many of them took place around the early 1900s-1920s which coincided with the mainstreaming of the KKK. These public works pieces were an aggressive move by white people to let black people "know their place".

 

Also, to go to the point of Southern "heritage": that is complete bullshit. When people talk about the Confederacy and Southern Pride they are talking about a world where men wore nice seersucker suites, ladies wore hoop dresses, and blacks worked for them. Southern pride is nothing more than white leisure and black labor. These people, while enjoying their "heritage", usually get up in arms when black people want to talk about our history and put up a marker and statue describing our experience in the South. Then it is cries of "stop living the past", "get over it", blah, blah, blah.

[robinsbruce 4985]

 

Also, to go to the point of Southern "heritage": that is complete bullshit. When people talk about the Confederacy and Southern Pride they are talking about a world where men wore nice seersucker suites, ladies wore hoop dresses, and blacks worked for them. Southern pride is nothing more than white leisure and black labor. These people, while enjoying their "heritage", usually get up in arms when black people want to talk about our history and put up a marker and statue describing our experience in the South. Then it is cries of "stop living the past", "get over it", blah, blah, blah.

 

You're right to say the "heritage" argument is mostly used as thinly-veiled racism. I agree with that. The confederacy was garbage and the only people who still hold on to that in the south are 100% of the time racist.

 

I would like to respectfully disagree with a certain portion of this as a working class person from central Alabama. "Southern Pride" isn't just a thing for white people, plenty of the african american kids I grew up with and went to school with find pride in the fact that their families made it through the post-bellum south and civil rights movement and are still where their great grandfathers lived. It's a testament to the emotional strength of their families despite what they went through.

 

I have a little "southern pride" myself, and Ill try to explain. My family is all half Irish and half Scottish. They settled in TN and north AL when it was still part of the Mississippi territory. They were poor and working class and were treated poorly by land owning gentry, although obviously no where near as poorly as african americans. My family never owned any land or slaves, and they worked with immigrants and african americans because they were loggers, coal miners, etc. as well. They valued hard workers and family men of any decent, and that tolerance was passed down, which is a positive thing for everyone. I'm also very proud to be from the same state as MLK and one of the original homes of the civil rights movement. It's sad that we ever needed a movement to get people their civil rights, but everyone in AL should take pride in the fact that MLK came from out of that.

 

"southern pride" means something else than to me because of where and how I was raised. To me, it has always been about hard-nosed, working-class people of any race or creed. It's a "fuck you, Ima do me" attitude that I see in a lot of different people.

 

I hope this isn't too convoluted. I just wanted to say that people of all varieties can have southern pride, it just depends on what that pride is about. If they are saying "proud to be a rebel" they are a fucking douche.

[wakefresh 689]

 

You're right to say the "heritage" argument is mostly used as thinly-veiled racism. I agree with that. The confederacy was garbage and the only people who still hold on to that in the south are 100% of the time racist.

 

I would like to respectfully disagree with a certain portion of this as a working class person from central Alabama. "Southern Pride" isn't just a thing for white people, plenty of the african american kids I grew up with and went to school with find pride in the fact that their families made it through the post-bellum south and civil rights movement and are still where their great grandfathers lived. It's a testament to the emotional strength of their families despite what they went through.

 

I have a little "southern pride" myself, and Ill try to explain. My family is all half Irish and half Scottish. They settled in TN and north AL when it was still part of the Mississippi territory. They were poor and working class and were treated poorly by land owning gentry, although obviously no where near as poorly as african americans. My family never owned any land or slaves, and they worked with immigrants and african americans because they were loggers, coal miners, etc. as well. They valued hard workers and family men of any decent, and that tolerance was passed down, which is a positive thing for everyone. I'm also very proud to be from the same state as MLK and one of the original homes of the civil rights movement. It's sad that we ever needed a movement to get people their civil rights, but everyone in AL should take pride in the fact that MLK came from out of that.

 

"southern pride" means something else than to me because of where and how I was raised. To me, it has always been about hard-nosed, working-class people of any race or creed. It's a "fuck you, Ima do me" attitude that I see in a lot of different people.

 

I hope this isn't too convoluted. I just wanted to say that people of all varieties can have southern pride, it just depends on what that pride is about. If they are saying "proud to be a rebel" they are a fucking douche.

 

Your argument is that "Southern Pride" means something different for you and your family, but I would argue that it doesn't matter what you or your family thinks when the common connotation for "Southern Pride" is wrapped up in the legacy and rebelliousness of the Confederates. It's like trying to separate the swatiska from its Nazi past. Yeah, it was a religious symbol in East, but in the West it means you are anti-semitic and if a Jewish person is walking down Sunset Strip and sees someone wearing it, it is not unreasonable for that Jewish person to take it as a threat. Its not their responsibly to try to divine your reasons for wearing it. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but your definition of Southern Pride is so off of the common mark, so you know people are going to assume the opposite right off the bat.

[robinsbruce 4985]

 

Your argument is that "Southern Pride" means something different for you and your family, but I would argue that it doesn't matter what you or your family thinks when the common connotation for "Southern Pride" is wrapped up in the legacy and rebelliousness of the Confederates. It's like trying to separate the swatiska from its Nazi past. Yeah, it was a religious symbol in East, but in the West it means you are anti-semitic and if a Jewish person is walking down Sunset Strip and sees someone wearing it, it is not unreasonable for that Jewish person to take it as a threat. Its not their responsibly to try to divine your reasons for wearing it. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but your definition of Southern Pride is so off of the common mark, so you know people are going to assume the opposite right off the bat.

 

that's fair. May I ask what you would say to the african american and mexican people that have southern pride? They certainly arent trying to invoke romantic feelings about the confederacy or bigotry. I just think that you can be proud to be from anywhere, even somewhere that has a negative history of social abuse.

[wakefresh 689]

 

that's fair. May I ask what you would say to the african american and mexican people that have southern pride? They certainly arent trying to invoke romantic feelings about the confederacy or bigotry. I just think that you can be proud to be from anywhere, even somewhere that has a negative history of social abuse.

 

 

They already recognize that their viewpoints on the subject are outside of the common connotations. The "Southern Pride" narrative is driven and defined by southern white males, not southern latinos or soutnern blacks.

[action52 554]

There is a difference between being proud of your heritage as a southerner, and being a part of the whole "southern pride" bandwagon. Just like there is a difference between being proud of your American heritage in some ways, and being a jingoistic "America love it or leave it these colors don't run!" type of patriot.

 

There are plenty of great things about the south, and southerners have every right to point out that the vast majority of people from their states are not racist. As long as you have a balanced enough view that you're not buying into the romanticized view of the south, and admit that there has been a lot of fucked up, racist shit in its past that you need to work extra hard to distance yourself from.

[SolGoldman 10]

The confederate flag is racist and anti-american.