Death to the Southern Ideal

As America celebrates Black History Month we look at the triumphs and struggles black Americans have undergone to reach the social levels they have today. But this should also be a time for Americans to reflect on aspects of our culture which created such racial antagonisms in the first place. Thus, we must look at one of the most backward and antiquated parts of American culture: Southern romanticism. To be clear, the South has multiple cultures, it was the area of the nation that many black came from originally before the Great Migration, and even afterwards was home to the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and others. Thus, when I refer to "Southern romanticism", I refer to the elitist white culture spawned by the Confederate "lost cause" movement that depicts the Confederate South as liberty-loving peoples standing up to Federal tyranny, which is a laughable farce.

The white "Southern romanticism" has its roots in the foundation of America, with the Jeffersonian ideal of an agricultural society where individual hard work made citizens moral and prosperous. Because of their classical republican Jeffersonian roots, there was an inherent distrust of the Federal government meddling in affairs of Southern society. White people of the South took pride in their culture, with "Southern hospitality" still a term in the modern lexicon and pseudo-libertarian ideals of leaving the government out of the economy being ingrained.

But for all of the moralistic and cultural posturing, the South before and after the Civil War could not contain two aspects of its culture: racism and feudalism. The racism was an obvious effect of the institution of slavery, with whites of all social classes viewing blacks as inferior beings, and in some cases not even the same species. And while racism was not unique to the South (see the lynching of blacks during the New York draft riots of 1863), it was much more of an institutionalized norm than just simply cultural. As to Southern feudalism, this was apparent in the economic organization of the South as a wealthy few controlled the economy (with their plantations systems) and government of the time while many poor whites struggled to get by. A clear example of the feudalistic elitism of the South was the institution of the draft, for many poor whites were required to enlist while rich aristocrats were allowed to opt-out of service if they owned a certain number of slaves.

So when one hears phrases such as "the South will rise again!" and that it was a "state's rights issue", one should keep in mind that it was a reactionary culture committed to keeping power in the hands of a few at the expense of impoverished whites and blacks. The culture of the white South is a superficial entity created by brutal enslavement, racism, and elitism.

Thus, I say that it is time we stop romanticizing the racist and elitist Southern culture and replace it with the bravery of the discriminated blacks who worked hard for their freedom and for the freedom of all peoples.