. . . like it’s 1899!

You might not have seen it coming. Weapons of mass distraction have been cloaking laws of disorder for decades. Now here we are in 2023, with regressive racial policies as blatant as when “Redeemers” undermined the Civil Rights laws of the Reconstruction era. People of color who were sedated by the wine of the world are being shaken, awakened by white supremacists partying like it’s 1899.

Retro-redeemers are possessed by delusions of grandeur, of taking the country back, back to golden eras of mythological greatness, where all white-male-landowners are created equal. To reconstitute their dream, they demand we go back to sleep. Sleep through restricted access to higher education. Sleep while they threaten employers to hire fewer minorities. Sleep through restrictions on public protest. Sleep through voter suppression as it becomes less subtle. Sleep through deregulation that endangers our water supplies even more. Sleep through gentrification. Sleep through a renewed miseducation legislation campaign. Sleep through the educational guidance telling us how beneficial slavery was. Sleep as they dehumanize us by dehistoricizing us. Borrowing again from John Edgar Wideman, “Don’t sleep in your enemy’s dream.”

Trapped by the past

Laws that hijack history by obscuring the obvious are laws of disorder legislated by diseased imaginations. They seek to reorder society according to white supremacy and rebuild the myth of the happy and hapless Negro servant class. We must resist efforts to keep us entangled in the same trap James Baldwin described:

“They are, in effect, still trapped in a history they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”

Thankfully, there have been efforts at release. Sometimes from unexpected sources, such as the following words (backed by deeds) from former U.S. President George W. Bush:

“A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them. . . a country founded on the promise of liberty held millions in chains. . . the price of our union was America’s original sin.”

Retrench or repent?

As we’ve pointed out again and again, a significant portion of America prefers retrenchment to repentance of its original sin. In an effort to soothe their consciences, they sear them instead and don’t know the difference. Like the original confederates, their political and spiritual offspring are spinning chattel slavery as a blessing to Africans trafficked to America. To such a spirit, Jesus says, “Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt” (Matt. 23:32, NKJV).

Even if you close your Bible, the blood of the innocent still cries out as surely as Abel’s did in Genesis. Its echoes are heard in most every musical genre:

Society built on slavery, for me it was not so long ago
You may forget but I still know

Flood of tears rise, for stories untold
A debt to be paid, hey, don’t you know

– Ziggy Marley, Still the Storms Come

We need honesty about history

A harmonious path forward begins with honesty about history. One of the most cunningly devised sets of fables are the excuses given to explain how the Civil War wasn’t really about slavery.

Why did America attack itself? Was it really a war of Northern aggression? What did (and does) the Confederacy and its symbology stand for? Is it really heritage rather than hate? Why do so many states still officially celebrate Confederate holidays and complain that federal holidays like MLK Day and Juneteenth are divisive? What’s more divisive than forcing African Americans to attend schools, live on streets and in towns named after rebel generals?

As former New Orleans Mayor, Mitch Landrieu, said in 2017, “To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.”

Confederates vs. their apologists

Although an argument could be made that the North was confused about what they were fighting for, the South made their purpose very clear. Lincoln sought to save the Union by freeing all, some, or none of the slaves. The Confederacy’s resolve was to break from the Union for the expansion of slavery and enshrinement of white supremacy. That’s not presentism: it’s the past speaking for itself.

Let’s start by asking the signers of South Carolina’s Declaration of Causes for Secession.

What prompted you to be the first to secede and open fire against your former allies?

We feared “that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction” because Abraham Lincoln’s “opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.”

What about y’all down in Georgia?

We drafted our Declaration of Causes because “For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.”

Governor Andrew Moore, you and the people of Alabama aren’t really fighting against fellow Americans over the issue of slavery, are you?

“As the slave-holding States have a common interest in the institution of slavery. . . Alabama should consult. . . with the other slave-holding States. . . to protect their interests and honor in the impending crisis.”

What about you sir? Surely, you are too genteel to let the matter of slavery lead you into open warfare with the Union?

Since you didn’t seem to understand the other fellas, pay attention when we the people of Mississippi say, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-the greatest material interest of the world. . . a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”

Oh, there’s the Secession Commissioner of Louisiana, George Williamson. . .

Hello, Mr. Williamson. There’s some folks that have been saying this secession business isn’t actually about slavery. Could you tell me what the underlying issues are?

Not about slavery? You must not be from around here. “Louisiana & Texas. . . are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be. . . absolutely necessary to their existence, and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity.”

Here comes a Texan. They’re newer on the scene and I heard their governor opposes secession.

Hello sir. Could you tell me what makes Texas so different from the rest of the Southern states? Why aren’t you seceding?

Who told you that? Try to keep up. Sam Houston was good for his time, but his time is gone. We got ourselves a new governor and a new Declaration! Just listen to this: “We hold as undeniable truths that. . . the servitude of the African race. . . is justified by. . . the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations.”

That just about covers everyone. No, wait. There’s the Confederate Vice President, Alexander H. Stephens. . .

Mr. Stephens, um, Vice President Stephens. There’s been some people arguing that your new government isn’t about slavery or white supremacy. Some say the war is just an overblown argument about states’ rights. Could you help settle this matter?

Where were you when I gave my Cornerstone Speech? “Our new Government is founded upon. . . the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery. . . is his natural and moral condition.”

As we parted, Mr. Stephens ordered his assistant to give me a copy of the Confederate Constitution and he pushed it toward my chest. Unfolded, it read in part:

“The citizens of each State shall. . . have the right of transit and sojourn. . . with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.”

Could Confederates have been any clearer?