Well, it seems as if there’s something of a battle among advocates of Confederate heritage nowadays, as Hunter Wallace continues to badger Connie Chastain. The latest engagement apparently happened on a Facebook group affiliated with the League of the South. The thread has since been pulled. Wallace offers his take here; Chastain has a more concise perspective here.
Apparently what we have here is a failure to communicate.
I have to say that I don’t recognize the Connie Chastain that Hunter Wallace describes. In both cases, however, we see how these particular Confederate heritage defenders use the past to justify their present political, cultural, and social views.
March Madness, indeed. Expect the unexpected.
Crossroads 
At one point, Wallace characterizes Chastain’s views as follows:
Almost sounds as if he was talking about me. 🙂
I think it’s fair to say that Chastain flatly rejects the ugly racism espoused by Wallace. But nothing in her writings suggests that she has ever seen the South as “unjust” and “immoral” or that she “evilizes” southerners. It is interesting to see someone distort her views in the same way that she distorts the views of various bloggers with whom she disagrees, including yours truly.
Let’s see whether the Confederate heritage crowd … the crowd that says it, too, is opposed to racism … rises up to defend Ms. Chastain. Let’s see whether it decries the racism of Hunter Wallace and Occidental Dissent with the same fervor with which it goes after so-called damnYankee/abolitionist/scalawag bloggers. This to me is a real test of what that movement’s all about, and whether they are willing to stand up and reject racism, or whether they sit around meekly and let Chastain fight on alone. Let’s see the Virginia Flaggers protest Occidental Dissent. Let’s see a real fight for southern honor.
“I think it’s fair to say that Chastain flatly rejects the ugly racism espoused by Wallace. But nothing in her writings suggests that she has ever seen the South as “unjust” and “immoral” or that she “evilizes” southerners.”
Since racism was the foundation of the old South, to reject racism is to reject the old South. To be an pro-Southern-heritage anti-racist is like being a pro-USSR anti-communist, or an anti-semite for Israel. It makes no sense. Racism *is* the South’s heritage.
“Racism *is* the South’s heritage.”
That’s ridiculous. Seems you agree with Hunter Wallace.
Racism is an invented word anyway. Created by the communist Trotsky. It’s meant to cease all real discussion and instill accusations and silence. The terms should be bigot, ethnocentrism, nationalist, Patriot, or chauvinist or some combination. All the south needs are more politically correct folk fawning over blacks and other minorities for acceptance. They as a whole are never going to like whites nor accept the Confederacy nor will they as a group ever accept smaller government because the way things are it’s not in their best interest. If that’s ” racism ” so be it. See the gallup poll on the percentage of blacks who voted for Obama? I don’t believe anyone wants to see cruelty towards minorities or others…this is a political discussion. However, not allowing them to have their way politically, or allow their groups or groups friendly to their political persuasion to intimidate us isn’t cruelty or bigotry. It’s smart politics.
I missed the entire facebook exchange, and I think they took the thread down….sad day.
Well, Wallace has made clear his objections to Chastain … because she objects to racism. The Confederate heritage crowd says it, too, rejects racism, so let’s see them go after Wallace and defend Chastain. Surely if they are all about honor and pride and dignity and all that they’ll do exactly that Let’s see if they have the courage to fight for what they believe in when it comes to racism or whether they are cowards who cower in the face of it. It’s a real test of southern honor.
It really doesn’t take much courage to stand to marginalized figures like Hunter Wallace. It’s not like your going to risk losing your job if you oppose quasi-Nazi out-and-out racism. Your comment is really silly.
As you think the South’s heritage is racism, period, I don’t think you are in any position to say what makes for a silly comment.
If it doesn’t take much courage to stand up to Hunter Wallace, and these folks don’t stand up to him, then what you are saying is that defenders of Confederate heritage have no courage at all. So you’ve said that they have no courage and that they defend a racist heritage. Fine. Your words, not mine.
Seems to me Wallace gives a fairly good summary of the major issue in 2-3 paragrahs in the center of it. I compressed it with elipsis here:
“In the early twentieth century, Thomas Dixon, Ben Tillman, and Margaret Mitchell won the culture war. . . . We lost the War Between the States, but we didn’t lose the South. Defeated on the battlefield, the ex-Confederates preserved their culture and refused to be defeated where it really counts, which is to say, in their hearts and minds.”
I think he’s right about the accomplishments of Dixon, Tillman, and Mitchell. Now it is a “hearts and minds” battle for the memory of the South established by this crowd and their ilk.
Well, we will now see whether those defenders of Confederate heritage who claim it’s all about heritage, not hate, and that it’s not all about race and slavery rise up to attack someone who traffics in hate, fear, and racism while saying that he is the true proponent of Confederate heritage. Let’s see some of that southern honor now. Are these folks courageous or cowardly?
Mr. Wallace names Ben Tillman as someone who should be admired as a defender of “Southern Culture.” One of his supporters, refers to blacks as “subhuman evolutional throwbacks.” Another uses the epithet “kike.” These folks have revealed themselves, and should be ashamed.
One of my biggest issues with some of the self-described Confederate heritage groups, such as the bunch at SHPG, is their hypocrisy regarding racism in their own ranks. They claim that it’s heritage, not hate. They say they don’t tolerate racist rhetoric in their midst. Yet during the time I’ve read posts on that forum and others it’s become obvious to me that they really don’t give a damn. From the transients who just want to mouth off to some of the decidedly racist hard-core regulars over there, I’ve heard things ranging from: blacks-are-always-playing-the-race-card meme (when a discussion of slavery arises) to, “we didn’t hate the negroes then. That came later,” (in reference to antebellum culture). I’ve read their references to southern heritage belonging to southern whites only and I’ve seen our current federal government referred to as “Uncle O(Sam)bo.”
I’m left wondering whether the lack of negative responses to these types of pronouncements is based on lack of courage to confront the racism or whether the stated anti-racist policy is just a sham.
We shall see. Given their energetic responses elsewhere, it would say volumes about them if such Confederate heritage groups such as the Virginia Flaggers, who proudly point to their African American supporters, fail to protest such vile racism. Can’t wait to see the video about that confrontation. And the silence of the SHPG when it comes to racism in the Confederate heritage movement is telling. Maybe for them it is heritage and hate. What a bunch of hypocritical cowards.
Mike, it may be that some of those things are not considered racist by some people. I’ve encountered instances where any mention of black folks by Southern heritage types — regardless of what’s said, just the mention — is characterized as racist.
My perception is that racism has no objective meaning these days; it is defined by the person(s) using it, almost always as an accusation. That means it is a very fluid, elastic term and can be stretched and distorted by the accuser to cover any belief or expression the accuser wishes. Thus, criticism-of can be racism. Disapproval-of can be racism. Disagreement-with can be racism.
Have you ever noticed Southern heritage types criticizing, say, the NAACP for ANYthing but their war against the battleflag and other issues connected to Confederate heritage?
Several years ago, the NAACP made an issue of blacks in Hollywood getting paid less or getting less coveted roles than white folks. Nary a word about it in the Southern heritage community, although at the time, I thought,how can they misplace priorities so badly? The greatest threat to the black community is not racism or “deprived” Hollywood blacks, who are hero-worshiped and make enough money to finance some of the most decadent lifestyles in Tinseltown…
It is the fact that 72% of black children are born and grow up in households without fathers. Fatherlessness — black, white, Hispanic, other — is a major factor, maybe the greatest factor, related to some of the worst social pathologies our society faces.
http://fathersunite.org/statistics_on_fatherlessnes.html
Now, go to the national NAACP website and try to find where they even mention the issue. But how often have you seen Southern heritage advocates complain about the NAACP’s dropping the ball on this issue? Or anything else on the “Advocacy and Issues” drop-down menu? If the problem was racism, why stop with the NAACP’s fight against Confederate heritage?
Professor, (1) claims of blacks-are-always-playing-the-race-card meme (when a discussion of slavery arises), (2) “we didn’t hate the negroes then. That came later,” (in reference to antebellum culture), (3) references to southern heritage belonging to southern whites only and (4) our current federal government referred to as “Uncle O(Sam)bo are not examples of “vile racism” and certainly not hate. (If you want to see vile racism and hate, forget the SHPG and go directly to Occidental Dissent.)
The fourth comment may be in poor taste, but reflects not nearly the visceral hatred for Obama that, say, gays in San Francisco blatantly displayed for George W. Bush throughout his entire presidency. Hatred is okay as long as it’s not race-based?
The other three are opinions and/or perceptions, likely formed by exposure to (and in response to) mischaracterization, derision and ridicule of Southern heritage and its advocates that sometimes (maybe frequently) is based not on facts or objectivity, but the ridiculer’s opinion. In any case, I have greater tolerance for people who err in their honest defense of Confederate heritage than I have for people who put forth dishonest attacks on it. In my opinion, the latter comes closer to hate than the former.
“In any case, I have greater tolerance for people who err in their honest defense of Confederate heritage than I have for people who put forth dishonest attacks on it. In my opinion, the latter comes closer to hate than the former.”
Do you think Occidental Dissent errs in an honest defense of Confederate heritage?
I haven’t read much Confederate heritage defense at Occidental Dissent since I’ve read, as I recall, only about four blog entries over there, two of them about me. The first one I read went up about the time he first posted at SHPG, back when I was an officer there. I don’t remember which one it was, as I just skimmed it but I think it focused on black crime in some northern city; I don’t remember it mentioning Confederate heritage.
Another one was a book or movie review with nothing about Confederate heritage (but it did have Bruce Willis in it…which is likely what caught my eye). I don’t remember what sent me to his blog that time — probably a comment he posted elsewhere. So while I suspect his blog’s defense of Confederate heritage does err, but not honestly, I can’t base that suspicion on what’s in the blog itself since I haven’t read his blog posts about it.
Other than this handful of blog posts, I have also skimmed the titles of his blog entries, and read the first paragraph of perhaps half a dozen of them. This is where my perception of “vile racism” in is blog was formed. It bears little resemblance to what I know of the SHPG.
If the question applies more broadly to Mr. Wallace himself, and not just his blog, no, I don’t believe he errs honestly in his defense of Confederate heritage That impression comes from things he’s posted in various Facebook groups, his comments following a blog post here at Crossroads, a comment he left on my blog, and our fracas at the League FB group.
He may get something right about Confederates now and then — yes, they were racists, virtually all white people were back then, including abolitionist Julia Ward Howe — but one way he errs is in totally defining Confederates by their racial views. My perception is that he strips them of every other aspect of their humanity, so that racism is what they WERE, top to bottom, start to finish, not people who held racist beliefs among many, many other beliefs about a myriad of other subjects. I can’t call that honest error.
He may even believe a lot of what he espouses, but I suspect he is well aware that he has to grotesquely distort reality — about Confederate heritage and nearly anything else, like his views of the baby boom generation, and his views of individuals (such as myself –calling me a liberal is utterly risible) — in order to present “information” he hopes will be “powerful” enough to sway people to his viewpoints.
Thank you for making that distinction. However, on your Facebook Group, instead of rallying the troops to attack racism in defense of Confederate heritage, you reverted back to your usual condescending sarcasm. Yes, it’s your public. Thank goodness it isn’t mine.
The fact is that you have more supporters here than among your own followers and among your own associates at the Southern Heritage Preservation Group. Their silence when it comes to Hunter Wallace’s eagerness to connect a defense of Confederate heritage with an advocacy of racism is deafening, and is a testament to the fact that they aren’t interested in defending Confederate heritage against charges of racism or in displaying any courage whatsoever. What a bunch of cowards y’all got there. Maybe they are showing their true colors after all, and those colors run all the time.
Can’t wait to see those feisty Flaggers respond to what Occidental Dissent has to say about them.
Most of us don’t have a policing mentality, Professor.That’s far more characteristic of those with a politically correct mindset, such as yourself. We do not identify Hunter Wallace as one of us who needs our reproof or correction, regardless of how he may try to identify with us so he’ll have a larger audience for his views.
Some of us are more focused on people who attack us or our heritage (like you, Levin, et.al.) but if you will notice, most heritage folks don’t do either one. How many members of my group have posted comments here on your blog, or Levin’s? How many members of SHPG or Dixie Outfitters or the Flaggers have? A handful of the total number.
I do it from pure cussedness — because I come from contentious mountaineer stock and it really sticks in my craw to see my heritage attacked and lied about. But most heritage advocates are much more laid back and non-confrontational. It is enough for them to complain to, and commiserate with, each other.
I’ve actually never attempted to identify myself with you or your ilk. On the contrary, I have made it clear that I consider people like you to be failures, an embarrassment.
You people are the only generation in Southern history – liberals, anti-racists, multiculturalists – who failed in the task of preserving our culture.
No one else had this problem. The real question is why you identify yourself with our ancestors. After all, they were “racists” and “white supremacists” like us.
It is no mystery why someone like me identifies with the Confederacy or the Jim Crow South. The real mystery is why anti-racists march around with the Confederate national flag.
It is bizarre. Men like John C. Calhoun, William Lowndes Yancey, Robert Barnwell Rhett and Jefferson Davis would have been mystified by it.
Most of you don’t have a policing mentality? Sure. You monitor blogs and support protests against whatever slight you believe has been committed against Confederate heritage. You’re not the only one who knows where one’s visitors are located.
Attack you or attack “your” heritage? Listen, Connie, you don’t get to define southern heritage. You don’t even get to define Confederate heritage. I simply highlight the blind eye of some heritage advocates (like you) when it comes to history. That includes folks like you ignoring the facts of slavery and Reconstruction. That includes all those folks who want to tell me about all those black Confederates (like that regiment of black cooks … remember?). You’ve fabricated a version of “southern” (mostly Confederate) “heritage” to justify your personal and political philosophy, and one which cherry-picks and distorts the historical record in an effort to justify your present rants. You attack other organizations that have a far better understanding of Confederate history than you will ever have, including the Museum of the Confederacy. For you, history is an inconvenient truth. You’re so busy fashioning stereotypes and making false accusations that you’ve reduced yourself to a laughing stock … and now it seems you aren’t all that unlike Hunter Wallace after all.
But what you say here is more important: that racism is not a threat to Confederate heritage. So you spend all your time whining about people who “evilize” white southerners, but not against people who “evilize” African Americans … although you sure are quick to highlight the occasional African American who joins your movement. Guess you don’t care enough about them to defend them against the likes of Mr. Wallace. I guess Confederate heritage advocates aren’t really bothered by racism after all, if you are to be believed. Guess I think better of them on this issue than you do. Maybe I’m wrong. I just don’t think your friends have the courage to confront it, and you basically agree by saying that they aren’t confrontational. Maybe they don’t confront that which doesn’t really disturb them much in the first place … and, as you have suggested, maybe they agree with a great deal that Mr. Wallace says after all.
Most heritage advocates are not confrontational? They are when something angers them. Ask the Flaggers. But perhaps you’re right … that most Confederate heritage advocates simply seek the shoulders of fellow advocates to cry upon … and whine about imagined slights … and so on. So much for the chances of your dream to revive pride in Confederate heritage.
Dismissed.
Note: Connie fabricated a reply on her FB group that she says was submitted and rejected. No such comment appeared on my administrator page. So she’s a liar as well as a coward. Keep that in mind when she says she disagrees with Hunter Wallace’s racial views.
I was tempted to make intelligent reply to your repugnant defense of racism but I realize that’s pretty much like pissing into a headwind. So I will say. . .
When you can, with a straight face, state that someone who says that they didn’t hate blacks “then” but implies that they do now is not evincing hate; when you can deny that racism is a present and obvious issue in our society and among your comrades and attempt to turn it back on those against whom racial hatred is practiced; when you can play dumb and bring up crap about fatherless families to defend racism and do nothing but blame the NAACP for all of your ignorant, neo-Confederate woes; (It’s not only the NAACP that opposes the ridiculousness of you reprobates. But it’s always game to blame it on the niggers isn’t it? You lot have a great deal of practice at that. Talk about playing the race card.) when you can call a racist insult against the president of the United States of America merely an example of bad taste, then you and I have nothing to say to one another. I shouldn’t be surprised; you’re the person who stated that when she talked of southern heritage, she was talking white southerners.
And then you bring up gays and Bush? Are you even dealing with a full deck? You don’t know me and so I will tell you something; in my opinion hatred is never okay, but at least the “gays in San Francisco” (and all over I might add, although I know it’s convenient for bigots like you wrap your bigotry into neat, little, hateable packages, like San Francisco gays and NAACP and liberal Yankees, ad nauseam) had reason to loathe someone who was so obviously inimical to their civil rights. Unlike the bunch you defend, who resented Mr. Obama from the time of his election, based on the color of his skin and their own little pinheads exploding over the fact that a man of said color had actually gotten elected to the White House. I don’t recall any gay people referring to Mr. Bush as an ill-bred cracker, stupid honky or other odious racist epithet.
Unlike Messrs. Simpson, Levin and Baker I am done being nice to you and your kind. You disgust me. Your bitterness and willful obtuseness disgusts me. You folks love to drone on and on about your perceived “enemies.” You are your own worst enemies. And you are enemies of the south *and* this country.
Feel free to copy/paste this for your masturbatory fan club on FB and then answer it as is your wont in your pathetic grasping for attention and approval. I will no longer engage your ignorance and racism (yeah, you *are* a racist).
I’ll just say, what an astounding exercise in deliberate misunderstanding you’ve engaged in here — and leave it at that.
I think he has you correctly characterized.
Go Connie, go!
I’m obviously not very bright. Because in that 9-paragraph tract I missed the part which responds to Wallace’s attack. In hockey terms Connie “turtled”.
It was a response to Mike D.’s and Professor Simpson’s comment on this thread, not a response to Wallace’s attack.
Connie really doesn’t want to respond to Mr. Wallace any more. She’s skeered.
This isn’t the place. Unless you want a continuation of the knock-down, drag-out posted here?
Apparently the League of the South didn’t want to continue to host your argument with Mr. Wallace. Now you complain that “this isn’t the place,” but you denied Mr. Wallace membership on your own FB group.
Sounds to me like you’re skeered. You say you’ll debate him, but only in some unnamed place. Name that place.
I actually had no intention of debating Chastain. I attempted to join her Facebook group to briefly respond to the artist known as Rob Baker who was trolling me in the comments.
I had no intention of arguing with Chastain on the LoS page either. This is actually the second time that Chastain has initiated a debate with me there.
I’m familiar with her views: liberal, anti-racist, multiculturalist. There is a conflict between her values and the traditional Southern view on race and other matters.
I’ve always believed that people like Chastain are incapable of preserving Southern heritage; that they are analogous to the mainline Protestant churches, people who have already lost, who are in the process of decaying toward the liberalism of the dominant culture.
There is really nothing to be gained by joining their groups or arguing with them. They have already surrendered. It is best to just write them off and focus on persuadables.
Their fate has already been written: they will go their graves believing this nonsense, debasing themselves to be mainstream and respectable, and they will accomplish nothing in the end, but will leave people my age and younger to inherit the costs of their foolishness.
It is better to operate like they don’t exist. They are decaying toward liberalism. Their position is indefensible and will succumb over time.
Chastain’s inability to defend her position is further evidence of this. Something might be said here that falls afoul of liberal orthodoxy. It is too risky.
People like that will never succeed in preserving our heritage.
I’ll simply observe that Connie Chastain got skeered and ran away, claiming that I was now blocking her comments … comments which never appeared. So it’s funny that she whines about the need to restore southern pride, since when she’s called upon to do it, she gets skeered, runs away, and then lies about it.
That’s enough from her.
Believe me, I got that. Hence the use of the hockey term.
Connie turtles a lot. Sometimes she claims her comments have been barred here, but in truth she simply makes things up so she can play the victim over at her group. She can’t hold her own in argument.
There is no response to my attack.
The South was based on racialism and white supremacy. Dixie was a “White Man’s Country.”
That was the dominant mainstream view from around the 1660s to the 1960s. The Gallup polls show that Southern racial attitudes converged with Northern racial attitudes in the 1970s and 1980s.
My racial and cultural views are traditional. I don’t suffer from cognitive dissonance. Thus, I don’t have to make up disingenuous tales of “Black Confederates” and so forth as a coping mechanism.
I’m not an anti-racist or a liberal. I don’t agree with those people or their principles and make no secret of what I think of them. I don’t think liberals like Chastain are capable of defending an preserving our heritage ike Thomas Dixon and Margaret Mitchell did successfully.
Nothing I have seen from them suggests they are capable of turning things around. They are like the Anglican church in that way. They are in the process of collapsing into liberalism.
A liberal is someone who believes the state should be based on the abstract principles of “liberty” and “equality” and “tolerance.”
When I described you as a “liberal,” I was classifying you as someone whose political views are recognizably derived from the liberal tradition of political theory.
In the United States, there are right liberals (“conservatives”) who privilege liberty over equality and there are left liberals (“progressives”) who privilege equality over liberty.
I consider myself a conservative nationalist. A nationalist is someone who believes the state should be primarily based on kinship, culture, religion – something stronger than a liberal abstraction – and that the state should be identified with a particular group.
A conservative is someone who rejects the claims of liberalism – in particular, the abstract values of liberty, equality, and tolerance championed by the French Revolution – in favor of an organic social order based on tradition.
In our Facebook debate at the LoS, you couldn’t answer a simple question with a “yes or no” answer: do you support the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
I can answer that question easily:
No, I don’t support the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because as a nationalist I believe the state should be identified with my own people, that other peoples in our territory are by definition “second class citizens,” and that as I conservative I reject the liberal ideal of “equality,” especially “social equality” which is the most radical version of equality, the enactment of which was the whole purpose of federal civil rights laws.
You cannot forthrightly reject the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because your political views are objectively “left liberal.” Your opposition to “vile racism” is further evidence that your political views are neither nationalist or conservative.
It probably more accurate to say that your views are an example of muddleheadedness. They are incoherent, irrational, contradictory, etc. – a product of mental laziness, which make sense only to you.
A commentator above has already pointed out the absurdity of anti-racist liberals trying to defend the Confederacy.
It is on the same level as Jews for Nazi Germany, anti-communists for the Soviet Union, royalists for Robespierre, communists for laissez-faire capitalism, white supremacists for Barack Obama.
The Confederacy was based on racialism, white supremacy, and the domestic institution of African servitude. It was based on the proposition that all men are not created equal, but that some races and social classes are superior to others, and that a hierarchical society is natural, just, and agreeable to God.
The Black Republicans were the partisans of the doctrine of racial equality. That was considered a radical and dangerous idea in the South.
As I have already shown on OD, the vision of an abolitionized South based on social equality was so offensive to White Southerners that it was used by the Confederate commissioners to justify secession, and they had more success with that argument than any other.
Your racial and political views are not Southern in origin. If the Confederate dead could take the witness stand, they would tell you the same thing. They would tell you that your views are “Radical” and closer to those of Brooks Simpson, Thaddeus Stevens, and Charles Sumner than their own.
– HW
What a shame that you’ve chosen the Gallant Pelham’s name to tarnish….
I don’t know why Mr. Williams won’t post under his own name. Sounds like good old “fortpillow” … in more ways than one.
They say daylight is the best disinfectant. But I still feel a little soiled after reading this thread.
I suspect that the principals involved will decline the opportunity to engage each other directly, and if that’s the case, I’ll close comments.
I am still trying to figure out Mr Simpson’s angle. You don’t like ‘Confederate’ heritage and seem to find nothing there except ‘racism’ (which makes me wonder how did anyone ever write history until that word was invented) so what do you want from Connie Chastain in her argument with Hunter Wallace? You said that Mark Johnson was ‘silly’ for making the assertion that the South is nothing more than racism yet you keep getting at the same point.
It is almost like Mr Simpson has Connie Chastain to just beat around like a toy. Hunter Wallace tells you straight up what he thinks and makes no bones about it. Tell us Mr Simpson, what could Connie Chastain say to make you happy?
You aren’t a very careful reader of this blog, are you?
@ Mr Simpson, I am not.
Then you can’t characterize my views responsibly, since you confess that you don’t know them. No one who had actually read the blog could offer the observations you do.
Enough of such nonsense born of willful ignorance. Dismissed.
Okay. One question then: who gets to define ‘Southern’ or ‘Confederate’ anything? You don’t like Connie Chastain’s opinion. You don’t like Hunter Wallace’s either. Are you the arbiter?
No … and never said I was, unlike Connie Chastain, her followers, and her fellow travellers.
What we have instead is different views of what constitutes southern history and Confederate history. As Connie’s confessed that she’s into heritage, not history, her weakness when it comes to history is easily explained by her own admission. Note that she’s failed to challenge Hunter Wallace’s view of the Confederacy or what he has posted about the racial views of several leading white southerners. I believe she’s scared to do so. This is why she’s ineffective, as she’s admitted elsewhere. For her, even her keyboard courage is qualified.
Hunter reminds Connie that southern and Confederate history cannot be understood apart from racism and white supremacy. Most sensible people would agree with him, although they would not reduce southern and Confederate history to racism and white supremacy, because that’s equally distorting and wrong-headed. Where they would part company with him is over whether those beliefs are right.
Most white southerners would reject Hunter’s world view. It appears that some of Connie’s fans don’t, as you can see from this thread. Maybe that’s why they didn’t rush to her defense … after all, I don’t think Connie has nearly as much trouble with Hunter’s views as the way in which he expresses them, in a direct, blunt manner. She’s said that he distorted her views, but I noticed that she wasn’t willing to engage him here. Perhaps that’s why several people have proclaimed that Connie, Susan Hathaway, and their ilk are cowards. Those folks have done nothing to dissuade me of that characterization.
An increasing number of white southerners are not defined by Confederate heritage, and resent being lumped in with certain folks. Unlike Chastain, Hathaway, and the SHPG, they understand that the South, past and present, is much more than four years of conflict. Most of them would also reject Hunter Wallace’s views.
I’ve never said I get to decide what is southern or Confederate heritage. I stick to history. However, I challenge anyone who says that they get to define heritage for all according to their own needs and political perspectives, and that goes for Connie Chastain and Hunter Wallace. The difference between the two, as Wallace has noted, is that Chastain and her associates are muddleheaded. No one mistakes Wallace’s message.
To quote Mr. Wallace:
“Chastain has returned to her own hermetically sealed echo chamber on Facebook where she has surrounded herself with anti-Southern liberal trolls like Ray O’Hara, Neil Hamilton, Rob Baker, Corey Meyer, and Eric Jacobsen.”
Well, gosh, at least he could spell my last name correctly. Still, it’s nice to be recognized. Ha!!!
It is bizarre … but maybe it’s empowering. 🙂
Mr. Jacobson,
Imagine my surprise at being labeled ANYTHING on Mr. Wallace’s website. I feel like I have finally established my “web creds.” 🙂
I have to say that I found your being dragged into a webwar despite your best (and admirable) efforts to stay above certain frays to be at once both astonishing and amusing.
Professor Simpson,
I wanted very much to engage in a discussion about the Civil War and its causes and not fall into a pit of name-calling and insult. I felt that if I used a polite, respectful approach to ALL participants, I might be able to have a polite discussion.
In most cases, it worked, in others, it did not, but I simply would not permit myself to wrestle in the mud as it were with others. To be labeled by Mr. Wallace comes as no surprise to me and in a way, I am glad he has done so.
I sleep well at night knowing I have been judged by him and found wanting in his eyes.
Thank you for your comments above, they are appreciated.
To me it was an admirable effort.