Let's All Celebrate Treason Heritage Month

Sadly enough, April continues to be "Confederate Heritage Month" (or "Confederate History Month" in some jurisdictions) in seven Southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia. Each year, the lie is reinforced that the Civil War was all about "states rights" and Northern "aggression," not about brutally preserving slavery and white supremacy. David Neiwert has been documenting the lies behind the treason of the secessionists, looking at each Southern state's declaration of secession and speeches by prominent Confederate officials. They not only base their decisions to commit treason and take up arms against their country to maintain (and spread) slavery, but they undercut their own "states rights" argument by accusing Northern states of independently choosing to violate the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

The history and heritage that's being celebrated is a sinister and inhuman stain on our nation, one that continues in today's right-wing racial dog-whistle politics and Confederate battle flag waving. Attempting to cover up the ugliness and stench of the slavery period in our history by perfuming it with idyllic historical revisionism won't fly. Another post of Neiwert's documents the hideous heritage of the Confederacy: lynching (ed.: images at link are very disturbing). Between 1882 and 1942, there were some 3,420 lynchings of African-Americans, nearly all in the South, according to Tuskegee Institute records, and likely a low number. Untold numbers were lynched for simply being black and in the "wrong place at the wrong time."

So here's a proposal for celebrating Treason Heritage Month: find a Confederate flag, cut it into pieces, and chuck it in a fire. It's the least a patriotic American can do.