imaginary family values presents
yesh omrim
a blog that reclines to the left
Confederate necromancy
14 April 2010
I hear that some politicians south of the Mason-Dixon line have proclaimed April to be “Confederate History Month”. The most eloquent commentary I have read on this subject comes from Ta-Nehisi Coates:
The Lost Cause is necromancy—it summons the dead and enslaves them to the need of their vainglorious, self-styled descendants. Its greatest crime is how it denies, even in death, the humanity of the very people it claims to venerate. This isn’t about “honoring” the past—it’s about an inability to cope with the present.
As a bonus, for the benefit of those who are too sophisticated to believe that the Civil War was primarily a war over slavery, Coates provides choice excerpts from various states’ declarations of secession. Read, as they say, the rest.