"If he has never done so, Barbour should hold in his hands some of the leg irons, manacles and other restraints that were used to subdue the Africans. He should visit some of the plantations where slave cabins still stand -- there are plenty in his state -- to get a sense of how the Africans lived. He should spend a long, hot day picking cotton. He should read the accounts of plantation life written by former slaves, and then he should explain why there is any reason to 'honor' soldiers who fought to perpetuate a system that could never have functioned without constant, deliberate, unflinching cruelty." -- Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson, referring to Mississippi Rethug/New Confederate Gov. Haley "Gen. Cornpone" Barbour's "so what?" response to his Virginia colleague's proclamation of "Confederate History Month." The racism of these southern white right wing politicians has been inherited from generation to generation, and they're completely comfortable acknowledging it, albeit through coded references to "Southern tradition" and "war of independence."
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