Dying For Dixie

In the American South some will say that a “war” is still being fought from its origin back in the 1800s. This war is not over land, it is not over money. It is over race. The mere color of a man's skin. Sounds pretty ridiculous if you ask anyone outside of this area. Both sides of the fight are pitted so against each other that they won't even swim in the same swimming pools. It appears that the 1960s and the civil rights movement didn't reach these areas or maybe just didn't even have an effect. There was a case back in 1995 of a man, Michael Westerman, from Guthrie on the Tennessee and Kentucky border being shot and killed for him having the Confederate flag on the back of his truck. This man was not a believer in the preachings of such people as the KKK and Aryan Nation. He merely thought the red of the Confederate flag matched his red truck and made it look “sharp.” This man was killed over something as trivial and irrelevant as this. In Todd county, people were going hysterical over this tragedy. Things went way overboard.

State officials wanted to remove the Confederate “Rebel” flag mascot from the school. Most of the residents and parents refused and were pitted in a pointless argument over the fact. African-American parents were afraid to stand up for their children and themselves to remove the flag from the school and the state. One woman named Frances Chapman stated, “Slavery was not all that bad. A lot of people were quite happy to be living on large plantations. Blacks just need to get over slavery. You can't live in the past. Blacks don't really have anything against the flag. They just don't want us to have it. They want the best jobs, the biggest money. Now they want this. If we lose the mascot, it'll be just a matter of time before we lose everything. Don't us where they used to be.” Apparently she believes that since the African-American parents and families want to feel safe, that they are slowly taking away her freedom.

This “Southern Pride” these people of Todd County share, is simply just a false ideal of a life and belief. Todd County, or whatever the area was called during the era of the civil war, supported the Union. Not the Confederacy. So their “Pride” is simply a facade. Jefferson David, The leader of the confederacy himself said in his last speech and was engraved on a statue, “The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes and its aspirations; before you lies the future. :et me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, and to take your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished- a reunited country.” You can see that even the leader of the Confederacy wanted to become a united nation and not have struggles and hate for no real reason.