{"id":164151,"date":"2015-07-06T00:46:12","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T00:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/whining-white-southerners\/"},"modified":"2015-07-06T00:46:12","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T00:46:12","slug":"whining-white-southerners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/whining-white-southerners\/","title":{"rendered":"Whining White Southerners"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"269.12694143167\">\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> Some brave white Southerners, including the son of segregationist Strom Thurmond, have spoken out against Confederate symbols like the\u00a0battle flag, but many whites still react with fury at\u00a0calls for retiring\u00a0those symbols and\u00a0other honors bestowed on Confederate leaders, writes Robert Parry.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-15407\"\/>By Robert Parry<\/p>\n<p>Whenever there\u2019s a suggestion that the Confederate battle flag should be retired to museums or that the name of Confederate President Jefferson Davis should be removed from major highways, there comes the predictable accusation that such moves amount to \u201crewriting our history\u201d \u2014 but nothing could be further from the truth. It\u2019s a case of recognizing the real history.<\/p>\n<p>What America needs \u2014 perhaps now more than ever \u2014 is a serious reexamination of its true history, not the pleasant palliatives offered in textbooks approved by Southern-dominated boards appointed by right-wing politicians. Under such benighted tutelage, popular U.S. history as taught in public schools has become primarily a brainwashing exercise, an ideological foundation for \u201cAmerican exceptionalism,\u201d the jumping-off point for today\u2019s endless wars.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15409\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"32\"><a href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Confederate-battle-Flag.jpg?55ac53\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15409\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?55ac53\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Confederate-battle-Flag-300x172.jpg\" alt=\"Confederate battle flag flying on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse.\" width=\"300\" height=\"172\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15409\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Confederate-battle-Flag-300x172.jpg\" alt=\"Confederate battle flag flying on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse.\" width=\"300\" height=\"172\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Confederate battle flag flying on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Plus, given America\u2019s continuing racial tensions, it\u2019s particularly important to throw away the rose-colored glasses used to view the issues of slavery and the <em>antebellum<\/em> South, happy scenes of elegantly dressed white people lounging on the veranda of a stately plantation house, sipping mint juleps while being cooled by\u00a0fans waved by\u00a0contented and placid Negroes, a white supremacist\u2019s happiest dream.<\/p>\n<p>A June 24 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/taking-down-the-confederate-flag-wont-fix-everything\/2015\/06\/24\/f1f837c2-1a97-11e5-93b7-5eddc056ad8a_story.html\"><u>column<\/u><\/a> by Harold Meyerson cited a recent book \u2013 <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/046500296X\/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=046500296X&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=thewaspos09-20&amp;linkId=QG4EBK7KSHI2F6W3\"><u>The Half Has Never Been Told<\/u><\/a> <\/em>\u00a0by Cornell University history professor Edward Baptist \u2013that explodes the enduring white Southern myth of the kindly and beneficent plantation. Baptist argues that even the word \u201cplantation\u201d should be tossed into the trash bin of historical euphemisms, replaced by the more accurate phrase \u201cslave labor camp,\u201d albeit one with a large,\u00a0pretty house in the center.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTorture\u201d is also a word that should apply, Baptist argues, with&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/07\/05\/whining-white-southerners\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: Some brave white Southerners, including the son of segregationist Strom Thurmond, have spoken out against Confederate symbols like the\u00a0battle flag, but many whites still react with fury at\u00a0calls for retiring\u00a0those symbols and\u00a0other honors bestowed on Confederate leaders, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry Whenever there\u2019s a suggestion that the Confederate battle flag should be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-164151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}