Keeping up with what’s out there …
- I’m sure this news story about picking up litter in Georgia will attract attention. H/T Ray Ortensie.
- Gettysburg College’s Civil War Institute is circulating a recent post on this blog to help frame the blogging session at this year’s event. Those of you who want to read another perspective should go here.
- Finally, a housekeeping note: As is true of just about any blog, occasionally I come across posters who feel that some misbegotten notion of free speech allows them to engage in freely abusive behavior or to offer retorts that are designed to instigate flame wars and exchanges of insults without any sufficiently redeeming intellectual value. Those addresses and IPs are marked as spam. I notice that some of those people relegated to that status keep on writing as if they think I’m still going to read their posts. At best, I see the address, then glance (and I mean glance, as in less than a second) at the text (as opposed to reading it) as I click the “delete permanently” option. This means that I’m choosing not to savor some posts, including several that appear to have taken a long time to assemble (those are the easiest to toss). Some folks have figured it out and gone away; others seem devoted to make me their special one-way pen pal. So sad, too bad. That said, for those readers of the blog who think that sometimes such exchanges produce more heat than light (as well as an entertainment value, judging from hit counts), rest assured that my policy curtails that possibility; indeed, the most hits here in a day came when Matt Gallman, a professional historian, recently offered his views on matters (sorry, Connie … you haven’t even made the top ten). The readers and commenters on this blog help make it what it is, and for that I thank them.
Crossroads 
And yet your tame white supremacist has a platform. Any chance of him getting permanent deleted?
I make my decisions on a case-by-case basis. In this instance Mr. Wallace has not attacked another poster and has offered an explanation of a term much in use in some places. Should I ban the posting of comments with which I disagree simply because I disagree with them?
I suspect that Mr. Wallace is not making any converts here; what interests me is how much he has in common with those Confederate “heritage” advocates who feel uncomfortable about his acceptance of the role of white supremacy in the Old South and the Confederacy. I suspect they share much more in common when it comes to present-day attitudes about race, as we’ve seen.
With all due respect, it seems like you’re both getting what you want.
And the same can be said of you … because you had the opportunity to express your objection. So everyone should be happy now.
Matt,
I’m not happy about Mr. Wallace either, but I see Professor Simpson’s point. Let him have his say as I think he tends to label himself in such a way as to be ineffective in winning converts to his point of view. And from what I can tell, Mr. Wallace is extremely careful here in how he posts his views because he knows he walks a very fine line here.
Neil
Brooks writes about Connie purely for his own amusement.
Similarly, I am here solely for my own amusement, and because I have a legitimate interest in these topics. I’m not here to proselytize. Why would I spend my time doing that on a Yankee website when my goal is to dissolve the Union?
My website has more readers than all of these Civil War blogs combined. Brooks is the only one of you (Rob, Andy, Kevin, Marc) who has an instinctive understanding of how to make a dry academic topic somewhat fun and interesting.
In order to have a successful blog, you need to be able to write passionately and persuasively about a subject, but you also need an element of controversy and comic relief to lighten the mood and stir up your readers.
That’s Connie’s function here – the cognitive dissonance between the reality of Southern heritage, and the Chastain/Roden fantasy of a Rainbow Confederacy nobly defended by thousands of “Black Confederates” is a good running joke that keeps readers coming back for more.
BTW, while I am giving out free blogging advice, this Potok blog entry at the SPLC about Michael Hill’s latest essay is perfect fodder for pot stirring and blog discussion:
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/06/14/league-of-the-south-chief-whites-are-naturally-superior/
Hill knows which way the wind is blowing. The days of H.K. Edgerton speeches and Virginia Flaggers dancing around outside the VMFA to prove their commitment to anti-racism are coming to an end.
Like modern Episcopalians, Connie and her ilk are so 1990s. The old graying Boomers like Chastain and Roden who have wistful memories of the Civil Rights Movement are dying off and losing influence.
I don’t get the impression Hill was ever one if those people to begin with.