Rebels Without a Clue: Neo-Confederacy and the Ironies of White Supremacy
By Tim Wise

We Southerners are famous for wishful thinking: in fact, you could say it's
something of a regional pastime. This should come as no surprise given our
interminable heat in the summer which leaves nearly all wishing for rain to
cool things down, and yet nearly none satisfied with the results of their
entreaty.
It also fits our history as the nucleus of the nation's centuries-long
affair with white supremacy: one that heightened the desire for freedom on
the part of the oppressed, as well as the opposite wish on the part of the
oppressors-to cling to their advantages as long as possible. Hoping, often
against hope, has long been the name of our game. Thus, it was apt that I
should read the following in my local paper:
"South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges signed legislation yesterday to remove
the Confederate flag from the statehouse dome, saying it was time the state
ended years of racial divisions the banner has caused.'Today, the
descendants of slaves and the descendants of confederate soldiers join
together in the spirit of mutual respect,' the Democratic governor
said.'This debate is over.."
As hyperbole goes, this is first rate. And like other fervent desires
expressed by decent Southerners throughout the years, it's also remarkable
for its absurdity, and Governor Hodges knows it. The debate is far from
over, and how could it be otherwise, seeing as how the flag has merely been
removed from the capitol dome, only to be hoisted on a 30-foot flagpole at a
monument to dead Confederates on the grounds of that same capitol. That this
is roughly equivalent to the German Parliament flying a swastika above the
Bundestag only to remove it and continue its display at a monument to fallen
SS would be obvious to all white southerners--as it is to most blacks--had
we not long ago begun lying to ourselves about our history in such a way as
to render this kind of comparison incomprehensible. Black Holocaust? What
Black Holocaust?
I know some look upon the confederate flag debates engulfing our region as a
purely provincial affair, having no importance for the nation as a whole.
And yet, I would suggest that in many ways this struggle stands as a
metaphor for the larger national denial over the legacy of racial
oppression. Much as neo-confederates exclaim "racist symbol, what racist
symbol?" so too do their white non-Southern contemporaries shout "racism,
what racism?" whenever the broader subject comes up.
And to the extent there are chapters of the Anglo-supremacist League of the
South in California, New York, Pennsylvania, the Midwest and throughout the
Pacific Northwest, and to the extent there are effusive monuments to
Confederate war dead in places as decidedly non-Southern as Helena, Montana,
I think it fair to say the flag--and its implications--are not merely the
problem of me and mine.
Nor is this simply a historical debate. In fact, among honest historians
there is no debate: the Confederacy was first and foremost about the
ownership of other human beings, and the notion of white superiority.
Period. To wit, Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy
who explained: "Our government's foundation and cornerstone rests upon the
great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man," and who said
slavery was "the immediate cause of the rupture and our present revolution."
Or as Robert Smith, one of the framers of the Confederate Constitution
noted: "We have dissolved the late Union chiefly because of the Negro
quarrel."
Not because of Northern tariffs--almost all of which were eliminated by the
time of secession--and not because of a zest for "independence" (which they
sought to deny to over 40% of their population), nor "state's rights" (which
they were willing to trample in order to extend slavery into non-slaving
territories like Kansas and Texas), but "the Negro quarrel," which was,
after all, a property dispute among thieves, seeking to continue their usage
of stolen goods.
But, says the Southern partisan--and this is the part that makes the dispute
most interesting--"most whites didn't own slaves:" a true statement, and
yet, one that hardly strengthens the cause, historical or contemporary, for
which they fight. For the poverty of most white southerners at the time of
secession, and the fact that most didn't have a direct economic stake in
maintaining the slave system, makes these same folks' fealty to Jeff Davis
and Robert E. Lee all the more bizarre. After all, the Confederate leaders
were clear as to why they were fighting the war: to maintain their property
interests in human chattel. And why would piss-poor whites fight for the
right of others to own a type of property: especially when the property in
question could be forced to work for free, thereby undercutting, by
definition, the wages they as paid labor would have required as a condition
of their own employment?
Think about it.
And this is where the debate becomes decidedly national in its implications.
For the one thing the neo-confederate resurgence does is demonstrate the
degree to which whites have been tricked into accepting the relative
privileges of white supremacy, even as the consequences in absolute terms
have been disastrous for most of us. Just as it was poor, landless whites
who fought and died in the rich man's civil war--since slaveowners with
twenty slaves or more could avoid service--so too, has white supremacy
always been about elevating the relative over the absolute: making those of
European descent content to have more than "them," no matter how little they
may actually have.
And so Southern workers, more so than elsewhere resisted unionization, with
the Klan leading the charge against the labor movement at a time when it was
growing dramatically. And why? First, because unions would have tended to
level out wages for workers, black and white, and this would place blacks on
too equal a footing for the likes of the segregated south. And secondly,
because the unions were seen as "communist," and communists supported
"race-mixing," and all manner of "mongrelization." So we accepted shittier
wages, benefits, and work conditions, all to stay one step ahead of those
whose presence on the bottom was the only thing to give us a sense of worth:
the psychological wage of whiteness, as DuBois put it.
Many towns in the South even shut down their high schools--thereby keeping
whites undereducated--just to resist federal desegregation orders; and
Southern lawmakers fought most militantly to limit social service and income
support programs for poor folks (of all colors) because they feared that too
generous a welfare state would reduce the incentive of blacks to sell labor
to whites for cheap.
And we are still living with the legacy of our racial shortsightedness
today. Southern workers are half as likely as others to be covered by a
union contract, contributing to a multitude of problems: among them, the
fact that employees here are considerably less likely to have private health
insurance and our children are 20% less likely to have health insurance at
all; or that workers earn far less than those elsewhere, even after
adjusting for cost of living differentials, and that poverty rates are 15%
higher than the national average; or that working conditions are often less
safe, contributing to the fact that southern workers miss twice as many work
days annually due to disability as the national average. These persistent
realities have a historical predicate: the willingness on the part of most
white southerners to accept less, so long as there were some required to do
even worse than they.
Driving in town this morning I saw a half-dozen confederate-themed bumper
stickers: all on beat up cars or trucks, and not a one on a BMW or a Lexus,
despite the fact that it was the Lexus drivers of their day who needed and
wanted secession, and who whipped the poor into war frenzy on behalf of
"their way of life." My favorite reads: "If I had known this would happen,
I'd have picked my own cotton."
Of course, the government this young man defends with what I'm sure he
considers a quite hilarious display, is one that never would have allowed
him to pick the cotton, precisely because doing so would have made him too
aware of the difference between himself and the elite for whom he was
toiling: and that was a knowledge the planter class had to deny to white
workers at all costs. So he would have been hired to "oversee" the
cotton-pickers, given a taste of authority and power just sufficient enough
to make him blind to the fact that his boss was picking his pocket too.
Still is.
Yes, the flag may come down from the capitol in Columbia; but it continues
flying in the occupied territory of far too many Southern minds: and the
cost we pay for such indulgence is enormous. It is the heritage of suckers,
and the legacy of fools. Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland.

Tim Wise is a Nashville-based activist, writer, and educator. He can be
reached at tjwise@mindspring.com