Confederate History Month

You may have heard about the governor of Virginia declaring April confederate history month (as well as the governors of many Southern States). See here.

There was a big news story, because after his original proclamation failed to mention slavery, governor McDonnell apologized, and amended the declaration to include slavery as the root cause of the civil war, and a moral horror.

I always grieve when I see these sorts of proclamations, or see the confederate flag on the back of cars, or hear of people proclaiming pride in the Confederacy. These things seem to ignore how morally bankrupt the entire economic system of the South was. Slavery and the racism that surrounded it remain the worst crimes of this nation, and the white privilege that was formed over those centuries remains a real part of our culture today, such that people who have no overt racism still receive tremendous benefits because they are white, and when we forget that history, we can be persuaded of ridiculous things like white men are the objects of discrimination in our society.

So, in this context, I wanted to point anyone who is interested toward a blogger who has taken Confederate History Month to heart. Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic magazine has been remembering the true stories around the civil war and the institution of slavery this month, and I invite you to travel with him.

Here is his blog page.
http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/
I'd particularly recommend this reflection on slavery,
One Drop
and this one on
Robert E. Lee (an interesting addition-the power of the myth of Robert Lee is pernicious-one of my pastor friends had a funeral this weekend, the deceased was named David Lee. In the funeral service, he called him Robert Lee. The family handled it very well).

And just to acknowledge where Coates is coming from-a strong liberal position-here is one of his rants.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/04/proud-of-being-ignorant/38569/