Independence Day Heroes: On Black Loyalists and Freedom Fighters Like Colonel Tye

I hope you are all enjoying your 4th of July weekend gluttony, cheap beer drinking, failed efforts at rutting, obligatory fireworks and patriotic proclamations. Independence Day is like all national holidays--a day to reinscribe sacred mythologies. One such mythology is that of Crispus Attucks, the first person to be killed by the British in what would become The War for American Independence.

Crispus Attucks is a great character in our national play. For Conservatives, low information real American types, the average lay person, Right-wing bloviators, and Constitutional fetishists, Attucks is proof positive that the country, and the framers, were not racist, and slavery a mere inconvenience in America's "exceptional" narrative. It would seem that in total, simple minds like simple stories.

For black Americans and their allies, Crispus Attucks is a martyr who can be channeled to demonstrate the quintessentially American nature of the black experience. Because whiteness remains interchangeable with "American," Attucks is a great counterweight. If the first American killed in the war to end British "tyranny" was black, what does that say about a narrative in which blacks folks are/were imagined as perpetual outsiders?

Moreover, what of inconvenient facts? For example, more blacks fought for the British than the Continentals. With the former promising manumission, and the later hypocrites on their failure to reconcile their own high minded virtues of liberty and democracy with the perpetual bondage of many thousands, the choice seemed a logical one. And lest there be any confusion, African American Loyalists and Continentals were both engaged in a grand freedom struggle for their people.

One of my favorite little known African American heroes who happened to fight for the British is the legendary Colonel Tye. A former slave, he put the fear of God in white Continentals throughout New Jersey and New York. Sadly, Colonel Tye will never get his own movie because Americans across the color line prefer their stories of black liberty and freedom to be portrayed in simplistic terms.

This Brother was no joke. Read on:

****

Colonel Tye, the most feared and respected guerrilla commander of the Revolution, was one of the many enslaved Africans who escaped and fought for the British.

Known in his youth as Titus, he was one of four young men owned by John Corlies of Shrewsbury, in the eastern part of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Shrewsbury Quakers, under increasing pressure from their Philadelphia-influenced counterparts to the west, finally began to end slavery among themselves in the 1760s. Corlies did not follow the local practice of educating his slaves or of freeing them on their 21st birthdays, and by 1775, he was one of the few remaining Quaker slaveholders in Monmouth County.

In November 1775, the day after Dunmore's Proclamation was issued, 22-year old Titus fled from his cruel, quick-tempered master, joining the flood of Monmouth County blacks who sought refuge with the British as soldiers, sailors and workers. Titus changed his name, gaining notoriety three years later as Captain Tye, the pride of Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.

While not formally commissioning black officers, the British army often bestowed titles out of respect, and Tye quickly earned their respect. In his first known military incursion, the June, 1778 Battle of Monmouth (in which not a single black from the county fought for the patriots), Tye captured a captain in the Monmouth militia.

In July, 1779, Tye's band launched a raid on Shrewsbury, and carried away clothing, furniture, horses, cattle, and two of the town's inhabitants. With his "motley crew" of blacks and white refugees known as "cow-boys," Tye continued to attack and plunder patriot homes, using his knowledge of Monmouth County's swamps, rivers and inlets to strike suddenly and disappear quickly. These raids, often aimed at former masters and their friends, were a combination of banditry, reprisal, and commission; Tye and his men were well-paid by the British, sometimes earning five gold guineas.

During the harsh winter of 1779, Tye was among an elite group of twenty-four black Loyalists, known as the Black Brigade, who joined with the Queen's Rangers, a British guerrilla unit, to protect New York City and to conduct raids for food and fuel.

By 1780, Colonel Tye had become an important military force. Within one week in June, he led three actions in Monmouth County. On June 9, Tye and his men murdered Joseph Murray, hated by the Loyalists for his summary execution of captured Tories under a local vigilante law. On June 12, while the British attacked Washington's dwindling troops, Tye and his band launched a daring attack on the home of Barnes Smock, capturing the militia leader and twelve of his men, destroying their cannon, depriving Washington of needed reinforcements, and striking fear into the hearts of local patriots.

In response, Governor Livingston, who had tried two years before to abolish slavery in New Jersey, invoked martial law -- a measure which proved totally ineffective -- even as large numbers of blacks, heartened by news of Tye's feats, fled to British-held New York.

In a series of raids throughout the summer, Tye continued to debilitate and demoralize the patriot forces. In a single day, he and his band captured eight militiamen (including the second in command), plundered their homes, and took them to imprisonment in New York, virtually undetected and without suffering a single casualty.

In September, 1780 Tye led a surprise attack on the home of Captain Josiah Huddy, whom Loyalists had tried to capture for years. Amazingly, Huddy and his friend Lucretia Emmons managed to hold off their attackers for two hours, until the Loyalists flushed them out by setting the house afire. During the battle, Tye was shot in the wrist, and days later, what was thought to be minor wound turned fatal when lockjaw set in.

After Tye's death, Colonel Stephen Blucke of the Black Pioneers replaced him as leader of the raiders, continuing their attacks well after the British defeat at Yorktown. Tye's reputation lived on, among his comrades as well as the Patriots, who argued that the war would have been won much sooner had Tye been enlisted on their side.

On "Kenyan" Birtherism: Herman Cain Goes Mandingo and Commits Black on Black Crime Against President Obama (Again)

Given Herman Cain's obsession with slavery, and how he, unlike Black folks who are not Tea Party GOPers is "off the plantation," this clip seemed oh so appropriate.

There is an interview with King High Vizier of the Black Garbage Pail Kids Black Conservatives Herman Cain in Sunday's New York Times Magazine which has already gotten some attention in the days prior to its release.

As is his recurring script, Herman Cain double blackens up and channels the worst Tea Party New Right Birther demagoguery in his Times' interview. And of course, Cain puts Dr. King in his mouth...again--just nasty given how Herman Cain has proudly admitted that he was a free rider during The Civil Rights movement because he had better things to do.

The real money shot in Cain's channeling of Birtherism is how he is the human chaff and cover for the worst of the GOP's race baiting. In the Age of Obama, he is the black front man for Lee Atwater's Southern Strategy where the latter's famous admission still rings true in the stale "Kenyan" and "show us the birth certificate" verbal Right wing ejaculations that:

''You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

''And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me -- because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'''

The relevant portion of the interview follows. I do wonder what was edited out, and if the reporter tried to save some of what remains of Herman Cain's dignity.

****

Ballad of the Long Shot

Before you announced your campaign, you said that the liberal establishment is scared that “a real black man might run against Barack Obama.” Are you suggesting Obama isn’t really black?

A real black man is not timid about making the right decisions, that’s what I meant. Look, I’m not getting into this whole thing about President Obama. It is documented that his mother was white and his father was from Africa. If he wants to call himself black, fine. If he wants to call himself African-American, fine. I’m not going down this color road.

But you’re saying he’s not really a black man.

Not in terms of a strong black man that I’m identifying with. I identify with a strong black man like Martin Luther King Jr., or my dad, Luther Cain Jr., who didn’t have a lot of formal education, but he had a Ph.D. in common sense.

It has been said that the Tea Party has embraced you partly to provide cover for some racism in its ranks — like, How could racists support a black guy?

There’s no validity to that whatsoever. People who are still making those accusations have no other way to intimidate the growing force of the Tea Party citizens’ movement.

At Tea Party rallies, you see signs referring to Obama as Kenyan. Are those racist?

Not if you’re from Kenya. But he was born here.

I don’t think calling him a Kenyan is racist. Secondly, I think those kinds of signs have stopped because the leaders of the Tea Party movement have instructed their folks that we don’t need to do that kind of stuff.

July 4th BBQ Reading: A Brief History of Racial Violence at Chicago's Beaches

Question: Why are the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria at the beach?

Zora and I were strolling about one of Chicago's beaches last weekend when she smartly observed that the black folks were sitting on one side of the beach, and the whites on the other. Those of mixed race and members of groups who exist between the black/white binary were quite predictably sprinkled among and between the two groups.

"A practical social scientific puzzle!" I exclaimed.

My intuition was that folks take signals about seating from others and it becomes a game of sorts. Thinking more sentimentally, I also suggested that maybe the black folks sit so that they can see the South and the West of the city. Thus, they are facing home. The whites sit facing north, towards Downtown and The Gold Coast, their "natural" space and 'hood.

We did not resolve the puzzle to our satisfaction. A few days later the obvious dawned on me, in a hyper-segregated city, one with a long history of racial violence at its beaches, perhaps the racially coded spaces were echoes of the near past? Jim Crow may be dead, but history isn't even yesterday. Moreover, our daily habits are functions of the past even if it exists only as cultural memory...or for some, a practical life survival skill.

In what promises to be a long hot summer full of flash mob ign't antics, rumors of race remain real. That phrase, "rumors of race" is so beautiful because it captures so very well, and so much, the history of America. From race riots, to lynchings, to rebellion, to resistance, they are all bundled under that umbrella phrase. Rumors of race does some double work in an era of colorblindness because race remains an unspoken to signifier in the media's coverage of flash mob violence, where "urban" is the politically correct stand in term for "young" or "ghetto" black criminals.

In sum, public space is political space. When black folks would break and refuse the white supremacist law and custom where they were to get off of the sidewalk to let whites pass, those were claims on dignity and rights. Likewise, when African American men and women would put on their finest clothes and parade from their neighborhoods and into unfriendly white ethnic neighborhoods--where violent gangs of whites awaited them--those were claims on citizenship and belonging. Or in one of my newest favorite moments, when soldiers of the United States Colored Troops would remain in uniform and march through the streets of the Old Confederacy daring former rebel secesh trash to stop them, those were claims on manhood and citizenship.

Looking to the long history of the relationship between race and access to public space, Chicago Magazine has a great essay on the city's experience with violence at its beach areas that is well worth reading in its entirety. Of particular note, be sure to pay close attention to how mass public violence against black people engaged in leisure activity is so common (and was in fact fun and a rite of passage and privilege for whites and Whiteness), and the responsibility for said assaults is placed on African Americans for daring to go where they were unwelcome.

****

A Brief History of Flash Mobs and Chicago Beach Violence

This is starting to look like the summer of the "flash mob." It started with the closure of North Avenue Beach due to several cases of heat exhaustion. But rumors, which could initially be found at the Second City Cop blog—update: here's the right link, that one's from 2010—and newspaper comment threads, spread that the closure was due to groups of young people and/or flash mobs, i.e. groups assembled by text message or social networks to cause havoc (or, in more innocent cases, levity).

The CPD denies that was behind the beach closure, but flash mobs continue to dominate the news: last weekend, it was five youths arrested for robberies in Streeterville and on the Mag Mile, and last night another robbery downtown, though it's unclear whether there was any flash to the mob or whether it was just standard-issue street violence.

It's not terribly surprising that this incipient panic would begin on the beach. Chicago has a long history of newsworthy beach violence, which actually used to be much worse. In the early 20th century, beach riots were a fairly regular occurrence; from a scan of the Tribune archives, it seems residents could count on one every summer or two during the 'teens and 1920s, perhaps because they were even more heavily used before the advent of air conditioning. Beyond the infamous 1919 race riots, which started on a beach at 29th Street and lasted for eight days, Chicago's free and clear lakefront was often the scene of territorial battles and random violence.

1898:

(Manhattan Beach was "a popular spot for middle-class boys and girls to meet in the early decades of the twentieth century." It would later become Rainbow Beach, and would be the site of another riot.)

1916:

(Allegedly Connell was not wearing a suit that distinguished him as swimming "under the jurisdiction of the Wilson beach company.")

1916:

(On the same day, there was a crush at the Clarendon beach when 300 people tried to force their way to the water; one man was slightly injured, "and about twenty men and women fainted in the locker rooms." Temperatures were hot that summer; one night in July an estimated eight to ten thousand people slept in Grant Park, according to the Tribune.)

1917:

("Those in the crowd accused the police of undue violence, of striking girls in bathing costumes, and of roughly handling little children.")

1919:

(The beginning of one of the most notorious race riots in American history; it lasted eight days, and 38 people were killed.)

1921:

(The "simple little remark" was an exchange: upon hearing two lifeguards say "something about Jews, which Mrs. Stein resented," she responded to the [white] lifeguards, "I hear a life guard once married a white girl." According to R.L. Bessmer, one of said lifeguards, he had said nothing about Jews, and "believed he had been called a Negro and he resented it. He is not a Negro, but his skin has been tanned such a dark color that he has become sensitive about his complexion.")

1929:

(The above is an editorial, which requests: "Under the circumstances it would seem that the Negroes could make a definite contribution to good race relationships by remaining away from the beaches where their presence is resented.")

1961:

("Police claimed they foiled a plot by gangs of youths from various neighborhoods on the city's south and west sides to attack the integration waders at the sound of a bugle." Social media, circa 1961.)

1962:

(The scarlet head-shaving: "Judge Obermiller said yesterday he ordered the boys' heads shaved to identify them as 'teen-agers who drink.'" Because in 1962, the way to identify miscreants was... a buzz cut.)

1985:

("Local residents, however, said the increased presence of groups of high-school-age youths in the area concerns them.")

---

Also worth noting: the ostensible cause of the July 1966 riots, or at least the catalyst, was the closing of fire hydrants that residents were opening to cool off. In the wake of the riots, the city installed pools near where the violence occurred:

I'm also reminded of Robert Caro's The Power Broker, his magisterial biography of urban planner Robert Moses, some of which is devoted to the racial conflicts that arose over access to New York's beaches and pools:

Whites routinely beat up blacks and Puerto Ricans in East Harlem when they tried to swim at Jefferson Pool; on occasion whites swam at Colonial Pool, although others felt unwelcome. Moses knew about these situations, referred to in his Harvard speech. Clearly he recognized racial and ethnic categories were in flux in the 1930s: the line was hardening between black and white, as the city became more racially diverse, complicated place. ["Race, Space, and Play: Robert Moses and the WPA Swimming Pools in New York City," Marta Gutman, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, December 2008]

Photograph: juggernautco (CC by 2.0)

Shameless Self-Promotion: Chauncey Devega on The Ed Schultz Radio Show This Thursday

I am scheduled to be on The Ed Schultz Radio Show this Thursday at 2:30pmish EST. As always, please listen in and offer up some constructive criticism--and praise if deserved. The topic is pretty open, but we (meaning me and kind patron benefactor Mr. Mike Papantonio of Ring of Fire Radio who is sitting in for Ed Schultz) will likely talk about Mr. Black Conservative Victimologist Herman Cain, my piece on the Democrats' misplaced fixation on the white working class vote, and whatever else happens to jump off.

Our last interview was a good one. Hopefully, my second appearance on The Ed Show will be worthwhile. Fingers crossed, this should be a fun 15 or so minutes.

Boo Hoo Conservative Victimology: Glenn Beck and Family Attacked by "Violent Liberals" in New York City's Bryant Park

Cue up the violin for a sad, sad and familiar song: Conservatives are victims once more in the Age of Obama.

In New York City's Bryant Park, with "patriotic" blanket in tow, Glenn Beck was set upon by "bloodthirsty," "hateful," liberals that wanted to "lynch him" because he is a Conservative.

[Insert finger into mouth to induce vomiting]

Question: How long until the Right wing media and blogosphere are going to call for Eric Holder and the F.B.I. to investigate this egregious violation of Glenn Beck's civil rights as a white conservative?

Second question: Is Glenn Beck a liar, liar with pants on fire regarding this whole attention getting episode?

Let's just file this one in the capital "I" irony file. Glenn Beck is a political thug and provocateur who calls for violence against his ideological foes. Now, he has reaped a minuscule bit of what he has sowed. Thus, the rules governing the conservation of energy apply once more, even in the world of political theater:

Energy can be converted from one form to another, though. Mechanical energy, such as the kinetic energy of motion, can be converted to heat energy, for example in the heating of a car's brakes when it slows down. Chemical energy in the gasoline of the car can be converted into both heat energy in the exhaust and heating the engine, and into mechanical energy to move the car. Potential energy, such as the gravitational potential energy stored in an object which is on a high shelf, can be converted into kinetic energy as the object falls down. Electrical energy can be converted to heat or mechanical energy or sound energy in a variety of useful ways around the house using common appliances.

It is often the conversion of one form of energy to another which is the most important application of this rule. Often predictions of the behavior of physical systems are very much more easily made when using the idea that the total amount of energy remains constant. And careful measurements of different kinds of energy before and after a transformation always show that the total always adds up to the same amount.

What say you all? Is this just a little bit of poetic justice? Or is Glenn Beck, crocodile tears on full display, a legitimately aggrieved person, and "victim" of a Liberal/Progressive "lynch mob?"

Man Bites Dog in the Age of Obama: Black Hoodlums to be Charged with Attempted Lynching of White Teenager

Time for some real talk.

Humanzee mouth-breathing urban troglodyte street pirate highwaymen brigands are apparently using Facebook and other social networking tools to organize coordinated assaults and robberies in cities across the United States. One of these rampaging hordes attacked a young white man and beat him to a point where he was left disfigured and unrecognizable by his own mother.

Why? These barbarians want their gold and loot--the Ipad and other assorted electronic goodies. Thus I must ask, what is the cost of a life?

These repeated incidents of street pirate flash mob assaults have reminded me of an irony and a danger. To the first point, I love etymology. The origin of words and phrases has always been a bit of a hobby as the social history of language tracks the evolution (or is that devolution in some cases?) of a culture.

The phrase "race riot" for example almost exclusively applied to rampaging white mobs who set upon black communities where they would satisfy their blood lust in the name of racial hegemony through rape, robbery, murder, and other wanton violence. "Lynching" referred to any attack by two or more people on a single person.

Of course now solidly linked to the torturous, ritualistic murder of blacks in the United States during Reconstruction and through to some one hundred plus years later, lynchings were also conducted against Jews, Catholics, and other not-quite White immigrants. In sum, lynching was a catchall phrase that later became linked to ritualistic violence against some marked Other.

Fueled by a hunger on the part of reactionary whites to feed the beast of reverse discrimination and white victimhood in the Age of Obama, the "urban" flash mob meme is the newest moral panic, a wilding and Central Park Rape case waiting to happen in the 21st century. Drudge Report and the other media organs of the Right-wing are loving every minute of this ign't, black hoodlum foolishness because it sates their fixation on the myth of the black rapist and their yellow journalistic dreams of "When Giant Negroes Attack." Thus, these mob attacks are the ultimate fulfillment of the black image in the White mind.

The racially tinged, coordinated gang attacks on innocents in cities as varied as Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Peoria, and elsewhere certainly speak to the death of shame, a lack of family structure, and a predatory urban youthocracy that has run amok. They also represent a puzzle for those race men and race women, sociologists, social workers, and others who while trying to explain these behaviors through appeals to structures and theory often give in to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Consider: When one of these trolls sets upon you, will you respond with a treatise on social disorganization and the decline of two parent homes?

When a group of these thugs tries to curb stomp you for an Ipad, will said scholar/professional offer up an explanation for how young people almost always attack in groups, and consequently a group think mentality creates bad behavior in otherwise "good kids?"

As these street pirate highwayman parade about and riot, will an appeal to structural inequalities in the labor market for black and brown young people provide comfort as they break the bones and put terror in the hearts of good, law abiding citizens of all colors?

We no longer live in an era where the hammer of white supremacy demanded as W.E.B. DuBois famously observed that it makes good sense for black folks to protect even their worst criminals given the greater evils of the white criminal "justice" system. No, we are creeping towards Bernie Geotz, one of those moments when a young tough runs into someone they should not have messed with.

When one of these street urchins are put down for their ill deeds, for death is often the wages of sin, we will inevitably witness an old ritual where grandma or auntie cries and wails that their son was a "good boy" and "didn't deserve to die," all the while knowing that he was none of those things.

In that moment the choice a simple one. Do good folks who know better stand up and engage in a little truth telling? Or do they get behind the excuse makers, and "social justice" types, who wallow in the Pollyannaish waters that are the soft bigotry of low expectations?

Theory matters. Not so much when there is a fist beating you about the head or a gun in your face.

Herman Cain's Race Card Follies

Herman Cain is poetry in motion and a life riot...again. I never thought I would see an upright walking human race card playing the race card as he complains about his detractors. Having witnessed the absurd, I can now say that I have lived a full life.

Herman Cain, Grand High Vizier of the black garbage pail kids black conservatives, gospel singer, and political coprophagist is upset that John Stewart mocked him. Apparently, when he gets called out for flubbing the Constitution, rank bigotry against Muslim Americans, or silly talk about a 3 page maximum limit on all Congressional bills, it is an act of racism. The critical self-reflection rule would seem not to apply, as Cain, in an act of self-delusion that is enabled by his white populist fan base, quite literally "has the complexion for the protection."

Now, I generally loathe the phrase "playing the race card." It is a flat and lazy term that disingenuous colorblind white Conservative racial reactionaries can use to deflect any substantive engagement with how race and racism remain operative in American political and social life.

Ironically, just as Conservatives wield the race card as a crude cudgel to beat liberals, blacks, and others over the head with charges that they slavishly and dishonestly play the victim, in the Age of Obama it is Herman Cain and the Right who are masters of race puppetry and identity politics.

In much the same way that Tea Party GOP Conservatives do with affirmative action and their obsession with "unqualified minorities and women" who are "stealing" opportunities from deserving white men, Herman Cain's race card gambit is a profound act of projection and hypocrisy. Why? The Right constantly and consistently puts unqualified black and brown faces in high places in a game of political tokenism.

Herman Cain, as a self-described "American Black Conservative"--God forbid someone call him an African-American--is race obsessed, all the while calling for a colorblind campaign. On the flip side, the race card is also used by the Right to transform pride by intelligent, link-fate aware, and historically grounded people of color into an act of prejudice.

To point: When black folks overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for example, many of the bloviators on the Right called this reasoned choice an act of anti-white racism and a priori evidence of automaton-like group think.Thus, a basic question: Who gets to dictate how the "race card " is played?

Here, Colin Powell's explanation of his Age of Obama moment springs to the forefront of my memory as a great counterpoint to Herman Cain's race card paraphilia. Both are black conservatives: the former is a black man who happens to be a Republican; the latter is a race mascot token for the Right.



Colin Powell seems to have a fully integrated personality where his racial self is not maladjusted and rooted in shame at being a black man, an African-American, in America. A victim of racial Stockholm syndrome and a proof of concept for Frantz Fanon's theories, Herman Cain appears disjointed in this regard, where his appeals to being an "American Black Conservative" are plaintive musings for acceptance by his white Tea Party followers, for Cain (unlike "those blacks") is one of "the good ones."

Are Cain and Powell more alike than different? Are both playing the race card, albeit in quite different ways? More specifically, when does pride and joy transcend into unseemly race pandering and race fixation?

Why the Democrats Need to Stop Hand-Wringing and Losing Sleep Over the White Working Class Vote

...There will be a lot of white working class voters showing up at the polls next November, and the degree to which they support (or abandon) President Obama could very well make or break his reelection.

In 2008, during his otherwise-solid election victory, Obama lost the white working class vote by 18 points. In 2010, however, things got much worse: Congressional Democrats’ experienced a catastrophic 30 point deficit among the same group. While the first number is a figure Obama could live with repeating, the second could very well prove fatal.

Indeed, if Republicans can replicate that 30 point deficit in 2012—a margin which seems increasingly possible given the recent bad news about the economy—Obama will have little to no room for error among his other constituencies.

The 2012 election is creeping closer. Like a ritual, a perennial in the political ecosphere, the hand-wringing has begun over how the Democrats and Barack Obama can win over the white working class vote.

For example, who can forget how John Dean brayed that the Bubba/Nascar/Walmart/Soccer Mom vote was critical for victory in 2004 or the infectious arguments put forth by authors such as Thomas Frank who painted a scary story of false consciousness in which white working class "values voters" support the Republicans against their own economic self-interest?

And as we saw in Ohio and Pennsylvania during the 2008 campaign, these worries are only amplified by the realities of race and how if a black man who happens to be President can win over the whitopian dreaming Middle America border states with all of their misplaced faith in "guns, God, and religion."

In sum, the question of how President Barack Obama and the Democrats can win the white working class vote in 2012 is a veritable Riddle of the Sphinx standing in the shadow of The Bogeyman. It is also a canard and a distraction, one which is based on incorrect assumptions about just who constitutes "the white working class" and the role of class in voting decisions and partisan behavior.

Thus, there is a basic problem: For all of the allure of "the false consciousness stealing of the white working class vote as the secret of the GOP's electoral gains" meme, the facts simply do not match up with all of the sensationalistic accounts. As recent works such as Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State; Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics; and (most compellingly) Unequal Democracy have demonstrated, a belief in the power of the white working class vote as the Achilles heel of the Democratic Party does not necessarily mean that it is true.

To that end, as I did in "They’re Poor, Scared, Less Educated, and Left Behind: New Polling Data from Gallup on Conservatives and Red State America," let's work through the basic premises and first principles of The New Republic's article "The White Working Class: The Group That Will Decide Obama's Fate" to get a more accurate sense of the political terrain.

Some questions:

1. Who is the white working class? While we may have images of construction workers and rough neck blue collar types interspersed with Roseanne Barr typecast in our collective consciousness, how do we actually define this group? Is "working class" primarily about income or is it about intangibles of taste and leisure...what Pierre Bourdieu famously described as "habitus?"

Moreover, is "working class" just as ambiguous a phrase as "middle class?" A series of words that refers to both everyone and no one? While The New Republic does a great job of painting a potentially dire picture for the Democrats among the white working classes (however defined), there is a complication that must be engaged.

2. In these conversations, who in fact comprises the "white working class" is vaguely and poorly explained. As a substitute for precision, there exists an assumption that this group consists of white Americans who have not earned a college degree. Despite a broadening in access to colleges and universities in the United States, this group constitutes a majority of Americans, with a broad range of incomes, resources, and social capital.

As Larry Bartels deftly argues, "working class whites" is a catch-all phrase that does not stand up to rigor as we try to predict their support (or not) for the Democratic Party. In fact, when one actually uses income as a definition for working class (looking at those families who make less than 35,000 dollars a year) the Democrats have an advantage in support among this group. Moreover, when defined this way white working class voters are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican.

3. Forget Joe the Plumber, what the Democrats should really be concerned about is the degree to which the GOP is actually peeling white voters away from the Democratic Party across all income levels. While there may be an image of a white working class guy or poor Christian Evangelical who is drunk on all of this Culture War talk looming in the heads of the Left-Progressive pundit classes (to the degree those appeals hold any real traction for voters), in fact it is among the middle and upper classes that the "values" narrative holds the most purchase.

4. Race wins again. There is a reason that the politics of white racial resentment, "real America" nativism, the mantle of a faux American "silent majority" exceptionalism, and the GOP's Lee Atwater dog whistle politics are the bread and butter of the Tea Party Republican Party: the Southern Strategy works. The gains of the Republican Party over the last few decades among white voters can largely be explained by how it was able to use a backlash against The Civil Rights Movement and The Black Freedom Struggle to flip the Jim Crow South solidly red and Republican.

The myth of the ill-informed, false consciousness possessed, Right-wing Reagan Democrat white working class vote is compelling for a variety of reasons. Primarily, it stands up to the power of personal anecdote--who doesn't know one of those "confused," "angry," "white working class" types who digests a steady diet of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, believes that the AstroTurf, Koch Brothers funded Tea Party is a grassroots movement, and who hates unions and the evil "big government" all the while receiving Social Security, getting a pension, or working as a state employee?

The myth of the white working class vote is also validating to liberals and progressives: "Those white working class voters are just confused; If they could only be liberated from the Right-wing echo chamber their votes would make sense as the choices of reasonable and rational individuals."

These narratives are also seductive...and easier to grapple with than hard questions such as this one: While the Right is plain out wrong on just about every public policy issue relating to the economy and job growth, how is it that they are able to consistently win elections and attract voters from the Democrats?

The puzzle of the white working class and their support for the Democratic Party in the Age of Obama is both fascinating and compelling because it nakedly plays on America's national obsession with race. The struggle against white supremacy and to become a more inclusive and truly democratic society has been one of the central tensions in American society.

Consequently, the echoes of history are strong here: whiteness was created and has worked precisely to smooth over class differences by encouraging white people to ally with one another on the basis of perceived skin color and racial group membership. While the psychic and material wages of Whiteness were grand, they were not always in the service of the Common Good and/or the long-term material interests of the white poor and working classes.

Votes matter. Of course the Democrats should be working to expand their base across all income levels of the voting public. But an obsession with the white working class is a distraction, a political unicorn and Moby Dick sized fool's errand that is energy misspent. In the time of the Great Recession, with an effective unemployment rate reaching at least 20 percent in many communities, the Democrats and Barack Obama need to be on the offensive.

The Republican Party is waging class warfare on behalf of the plutocrats and corporateocracy--and in the name of gangster capitalism--against the American middle, working classes, and the poor. The rape and destruction of the social safety net is the ultimate goal of the contemporary Ayn Rand infused Republican Party.

In the United States, when the top 1/100th of 1 percent of earners make an average of 31 million dollars a year, and the remaining 90 percent of Americans earn 31,000 dollars a year there is class warfare of the few against the many. When worker's wages have been stagnant for 40 years while corporate CEO's enjoy record salaries by outsourcing American jobs overseas there is class warfare of the few against the many.

The Democrats need to 1) forget their obsessive worries about the white working class vote; and 2) focus on the cruel realities of the new economy and how best to communicate their plans to correct it. Given the facts, those should be easy slogans to write and campaign commercials to program. In the time of The Great Recession, the Republican Party has blood on its hands from vivisecting the American Dream. The Democrats just need to show the body. This is a simple plan...and it is theirs to lose and bungle.

The New Public Sphere: Making Videos While Sitting in Your Car and Then Posting Them to YouTube

Yesterday was a bit dark with all of the eliminationism talk. So, let's have a laugh today.

Damn air conditioning! Keeping me fat all these years.

The 21st century is typified by gross narcissism. Facebook, Youtube, blogging, the simultaneously unreal irreality of reality TV, and a 4th estate in which opinion has been elevated to the level of fact and "news," are signs of a sick, faux democratic society. As one more sign of the sickness of the age, folks are cutting promos while sitting in their cars, offering automobile inspired wisdom to the Earth bound masses. Oh once more to the joys and inspiration of the open road. The exodusters would indeed be proud and understanding.

Well, if you can't beat them...at least join them, and get in a chuckle or three along the way.

This brother (who is supposedly a "cleric") from Dubai is a public intellectual of the first order. He is a true intellectual in the Foucaultian sense--not a narrow technician who produces knowledge on a very narrow terrain. No, his reach is broad. His production deep. From musings on sweat and obesity, to using hot chiles and the hot firey sensation they produce in one's excreta as a barometer for wellness and alkaline balance in the body, Brother Cleric from Dubai is one to follow and believe in. He is indeed the new hope.

As further proof of Brother Cleric from Dubai's greatness, he has shed his 9 ugly tummies of toxic waste. Behold and kneel before Brother Cleric!

[Did I just write that? Even I must bow to the absurd every now and then. What the heck.]

A Featured Reader Comment on the Power of Willful Denial (Continued): Of Genocide and the Barbaric and Ruthless Efficiency of the Corporation

Barbaric and ruthless efficiency.

Corporations have no ethics, or friends, or patriotic loyalties. Given that fact, it is tragically funny that so many still pray at the altar of the free market and view the invisible hand as a force that works for the common good.

The bottom line and the dollar is all that matters to the Corporation. From the economies of scale necessary to support the Transatlantic Slave Trade, to the "human traffic management program" of the death camps, ingenuity in the service of exploitation and death dealing seems to know no limits.

For all of our enlightened talk, and the musings of lessons learned in the aftermath of World War 2, I do wonder if civilization has progressed all that much, or if we are only a system shock away from descending into a primal abyss.

On that point, Daniel had a wonderfully reflective comment on today's earlier post that is worth bringing up to the top for more discussion:

What can one take from the Shoah? From Rwanda? From South Africa? From the U.S. and Native Americans? That humans are capable of the most unspeakable horrors, that individual virtue, as important as it is, is typically an inadequate buffer against groupthink and authority (think Milgram), that evil is truly banal (the agenda at Wannsee indicated a morning meeting to discuss the murder of the remaining Jews in Europe and then noted that breakfast was scheduled)? That liberal education is no proof against such evil (9 of the 14 attendees at Wannsee held doctorates)?

Very dense. We have questions of nature or nurture; the shield and inoculation of "education" against evil; and making sense of some of humanity's greatest crimes. I wonder, is humankind more good than it has any reason being, or are these lapses into mass killing the true face of the homo sapien?

Perhaps old Sigmund Freud was right in his Civilization and its Discontents, that we need society and rules to control our most base impulses because we are at the core irrational and monstrous:

On the Power of Willful Denial: Jewish Germans Who Were Not Initially Opposed to the Nazis

Something with which to start Monday (and the week) off.

I bristle at the overuse of the phrase, "they are like Nazis." Nazis are Nazis. Nothing less. Nothing more. Language is power. By implication, language of the above sort is not to be flippantly deployed.

I held that belief when folks were labeling Bush the Second as a Nazi. In the present, I double down in my objections when the New Right Tea Party GOP Conservatives and their bullies attempt to Mau Mau President Obama with like assertions.

In sum, I am carefully try to avoid any allusion to the Nazis because it is so much dynamite and teetering nitroglycerin on a two legged broken stool. Yet, I have watched this clip (and the documentary of which it is a part several times over the last few months) and remain chilled at its cautionary themes, themes which remain as warnings to us all. Thus, my wanting to share The Third Reich with all of you.

We are not islands onto ourselves. When strivers support pernicious policies that hurt their brothers and sisters of the lower classes I think of this clip. When Conservatives support torture or the breaking of the Constitution as a mere convenience to serve their ends I think of this clip. When those who are the Other, such as black conservatives, get in bed with Whiteness because "they are the special ones" immune from racism, marginalization, objectification, or the fist of Power, I think of the broad themes of this clip.

Maybe I am too much an adherent to those themes of linked fate and the collective good to be drunk on the false promises of radical Ayn Randian individualism? Hell, it could be my Blues Sensibility as a Black American which has taught me to run away, far away in fact, from such silly dystopian dreaming. Either way, the tale remains cautionary.

All of us could learn greatly from its lessons.

Yes Virginia, There Are Positive Father's Day Songs: I Present to You All, "Patches" by Clarence Carter and "Color Him Father" by the Winstons

Happy Father's Day to you all. On this day, where for many the impulse is to the contrary, it should be reiterated that not all us men folk are rolling stones.

In a panel I once attended, comic book writer extraordinaire Mr. Garth Ennis suggested that those who aspire to be creative for a living--writers, authors, singers, playrights, graphic artists, or what have you--go to the local bar, grab a pint, and just listen to the regulars.

Inevitably, you will learn about the human condition and pick up enough stories to sustain and make better your own work.

In my random travels I have tried to follow through on said advice. It has paid many dividends. I have talked to Nazi skinheads (over beer after telling them I would kill their great grand pappies...long story, apparently they liked my show of strength), Nobel Prize winners, failed musicians, cancer survivors, truck drivers, polygamists, and all manner of folks from many walks of life. I truly have dined with kings and queens, I've slept in alleyways and dined on pork 'n beans, and ultimately my work and life are greatly enriched by all those experiences.

One of those folks I have met during my lazy man's vision quest is Brother Daryl. He is a fixture at Bar Louis in Hyde Park. He is a man possessed of a great range of knowledge and talent. Like a playful cherub he rocks back and forth on his bar seat, to and fro to the rhythmic beat of music for hours at a time while he nurses an ambrosia infused iced tea fit for the gods.

He is genuine if not often misunderstood. He exudes peace. Daryl is also a walking encyclopedia of musical esoterica.

Daryl takes his music seriously. In fact, he almost came to blows over the question, "is there any positive music about fathers?" Apparently so, as he began to sing the song "Patches" at the top of his lungs in his uniquely off key, yet somehow melodic voice, to prove the existence of said odes. And don't get him started about who sings the best version of the iconic song, The Look of Love...I said Isaac Hayes, he yelled "Dusty Springfield." A fight almost ensued. I backed down very quickly.

These Father's Day picks are all courtesy of our resident mix master Mr. Daryl. I hope you enjoy them.

One more for the daddies of the world courtesy of The Winstons:



From Johnnie Taylor. A cautionary tale for the cum droppers who drop trow everywhere and have 5 kids to visit by 4 different baby mommas today:

Please be good to each other on this day. And do remember that families--and fathers--come in many shapes, sizes, forms, and arrangements.

Saturday Fun: How Would You Caption This Photograph of Corrupt Clarence Thomas and Honest Abe from The New York Times?

Ethically embattled corrupt mute black golem who sleeps during Supreme Court hearings Justice Clarence Thomas is at it again.

Apparently, he is not content to get kickbacks via his wife for making decisions favorable to her business interests. When not looking at the TV show 24 for guidance on how to write Supreme Court decisions, Uncle Justice Clarence Thomas is getting goodies for a museum that will highlight his relationship to the town of Pin Point, Georgia.

One of the gifts Justice Clarence Thomas has received from a Conservative booster includes a 15,000 dollar bust of President Abraham Lincoln. Together the two cut quite a profile in the above photo, do they not?

Let's play the caption game. Given the kindness and professional comportment of The NY Times, they couldn't take advantage of such a great juxtaposition.

But we can...here are some of my opening parlays:

1. What unintended consequences the emancipation of the slaves has wrought.

2. Clarence, embarrassed, caught once more pilfering chickens from massa's chicken shack.

3. In the foreground, a profile in courage; in the background; a profile in cowardice.

What captions would you offer?

Chauncey DeVega's World of Ghetto Nerds: Grognard Military News Roundup and Some Shameless Self-Promotion

I will be on Ring of Fire Radio tomorrow discussing the Republican presidential debate, Herman Cain, and other such matters. It should be good--the interview ran about 20 minutes at taping and we had a good rhythm going.

Here is the first of my military ghetto nerds Grognard roundups for those who are interested in such things. I grew up playing Gary Grigsby's strategy games, Microprose flight sims, and read too much G.I. Joe and military history. The interest as a layperson is still with me years later. These Internets only make it easier to learn things that years ago were confined to a very narrow set of specialist magazines and journals.

As always if you come upon something of interest send it along and I will offer a comment or add it to the list every so many weeks or so. Given the wide range of interests held by the readers of WARN, this could be fun. Let's have at it.

1. The Atlantic has some gems this week. This photo gallery of the do it yourself weapons of the Road Warrior Mad Max Libyan Rebels is a great example of both human ingenuity and foolish recklessness. If necessity is the mother of invention, these rebels are certainly proof of that folksy truism. The photo essay has some cool stuff for the gun crowd (make note of the bullpup design Belgium FN F2000). And how can you not love a guy who disassembles a land mine while smoking Marlboro cigarettes?

The past and future of camouflage is pithily surveyed here. Little did I know that one person, a genius of sorts, is responsible for most of the innovation in camo designs over the last decade or so. Active camouflage, the stuff of Predator is coming. Or is it already here?

2. This is your brain on combat: Neuroscience for Combat Leaders: A Brain-Based Approach to Leading on the Modern Battlefield. The above article also references Dave Grossman's indispensable book Learning to Kill. So it gets extra points from this ghetto nerd.

3. I'd buy that for a dollar! Active vehicle defenses are apparently a go for the U.S. military. The Israelis and the Russians have been playing with these systems which deflect incoming anti-tank rounds a few years. Question: Aren't these systems lethal to the dismounted infantry?

4. The Ipad goes to war. This makes sense given how many field manuals, translation software, and other necessities you could put on one device. And yes, the U.S. military has its own app store.

5. I have always had a good amount of worry about the effectiveness of UAV's as a catch all solution across the full spectrum of air combat needs. Call me traditional, but I am a man in the loop sort of guy. I remember luminary Robert Pape telling me some years back that UAV's were/are the future. This decision was made long ago. Thus, the sea change is inexorable.

Maybe I am paranoid about how easily some of their systems have been hacked, or that a foreign combatant could simply flip a switch and turn the Reapers, Global Hawks, and Predators off? For missions like SEAD, UAV's are quite literally a life saver. But for other duties, and in contested airspace, I remain uncertain as to the maturity of the technology. The Department of Defense would seem to share my anxieties.

6. Back to Libya. How hollowed out is NATO? After a few months of operations the European partners are running low on ammunition, cannot maintain their sortie levels, and are wavering in commitment. Never mind how sad the British navy looks--once the world's greatest force, now she is reduced to borrowing surveillance aircraft from the U.S. and consolidating flight operations with the French on their carrier.

Was NATO always such a hollow organization? Would they have been nothing but a speed pump for the Warsaw Pact? Or is this flaccidity the direct result of the post-Cold War "peace dividend?"

[Random story: my former building super was a crewman on the M60 series of tanks in the late 1970s and very early 80s and he was stationed near the Fulda Gap. I asked him if he thought the U.S. had a chance at the time. He smiled and said their expectation was to hold off the Reds for as long as possible and then beat feet out of there. My super smiled when I asked him about the nuclear land mines...]

7. Some random academic and online finds:

The first is an article that examines letters from African-American soldiers in World War 2 and how black enlistees and officers fought back against Jim Crow under arms; The second traces the rise of the "warfare state" and "how it rests upon two assumptions: that safety can be achieved only through power, that prosperity depends upon the constant pump-priming of the domestic economy through the expenditure of military billions. Both assumptions are false."

The real prize of the week is a serendipitous discovery that comes totally out of left field. Here is an issue of Collier's magazine from 1951 that worked through a hypothetical World War 3 scenario. "Preview of the War We do not Want" has it all: there are nuclear raids on the city of Chicago, saboteurs in Grand Central Station, suicide paratrooper raids over the U.S.S.R., and the occupation of Alaska. Oh yeah, some of the contributors to the issue included Edward R. Murrow with illustrations from the legendary World War 2 comic artist Bill Maudlin.

8. Did you know that China has no plans to wage cyberwar against the U.S.? Yeah, right. Try not to laugh at that one. In an admission of what we already know, the U.S. already has cyberweapons in the toolbox ready to be deployed if necessary. Stuxnet?

9. Don't mess with the Ghurkas. No, I mean never, ever...seriously.

10. Any thoughts on the free to play mmorg military game World of Tanks? Is the grind worth it?

The Workings of a Pathologically Narcissistic Mind? Sarah Palin Channeled God in an Email About Her Unborn Son Trig

It is okay to talk to God. When a person hears God's voice responding to them they are certifiably crazy. Question: if a person writes letters in which they pretend to be God are they similarly demented?

Sarah Palin's emails were gangbanged crowd-sourced by The New York Times, CNN, and other members of the 4th Estate. There were no great discoveries (Palin writes at an 8th grade level-- which is of course no surprise). But, there was a fun find that has been the object of some good back and forth online.

While we know that Palin is a lightening rod for controversy, a person who wallows in the slop bucket of white populist mediocrity that is the mouth breathing, knuckle dragging Tea Party GOP crowd, little did we know that she also channels the word of God.

In a letter to friends and family about her then unborn son Trig (a human political prop who she carried around like a football during the 2008 campaign as proof of her Right-wing, fecund womanhood), Palin writes in THE ultimate first person voice as she welcomes her bundle of joy into the world. Not content with this private exercise, Palin emailed her Godly proclamations and wisdom to friends and family.

Question: is this more proof of Sarah Palin's grand narcissism? Evidence of a person whose megalomania and self-importance know no limits? Or is Palin's God email to Trig the act of a loving and compassionate mother? Could it be both?

For your amusement and inspection:

****

Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 14:17:11
To:gov.sarah@yahoo.com
Cc:gov.palin@yahoo.com
Subject: Baby

To the Sisters, Brother, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and Friends of Trig Paxson Van Palin (or whatever you end up naming him!) :

I am blessing you with this surprise baby because I only want the best for you. I've heard your prayers that this baby will be happy and healthy, and I've answered them because I only want the best for you!

I heard your heart when you hinted that another boy would fit best in the Palin family, to round it out and complete that starting five line-up. Though another girl would be so nice, you didn't think you could ask for what you REALLY wanted, but I knew, so I gave you a boy because I only want the best for you!

Then, I put the idea in your hearts that his name should be "Trig", because it's so fitting, with two Norse meanings: "True" and "Brave Victory". You also have a Bristol Bay relative with that name, so I knew it would be best for you!

Then, I let Trig's mom have an exceptionally comfortable pregnancy so she could enjoy every minute of it, and I even seemed to rush it along so she could wait until near the end to surprise you with the news – that way Piper wouldn't have so long to wait and count down so many days – just like Christmastime when you have to wait, impatiently, for that special day to finally open your gift? (Or the way the Palins look forward to birthday celebrations that go on for three, four days... you all really like cake.) I know you, I knew you'd be better off with just a short time to wait!

Then, finally, I let Trig's mom and dad find out before he was born that this little boy will truly be a GIFT. They were told in early tests that Trig may provide more challenges, and more joy, than what they ever may have imagined or ever asked for. At first the news seemed unreal and sad and confusing. But I gave Trig's mom and dad lots of time to think about it because they needed lots of time to understand that everything will be OK, in fact, everything will be great, because I only want the best for you!

I've given Trig's mom and dad peace and joy as they wait to meet their new son. I gave them a happy anticipation because they asked me for that. I'll give all of you the same happy anticipation and strength to deal with Trig's challenges, but I won't impose on you...

I just need to know you want to receive my offer to be with all of you and help you everyday to make Trig's life a great one.

This new person in your life can help everyone put things in perspective and bind us together and get everyone focused on what really matters.

The baby will expand your world and let you see and feel things you haven't experienced yet. He'll show you what "true, brave victory" really means as those who love him will think less about self and focus less on what the world tells you is "normal" or "perfect". You will grow and be blessed with greater understanding that will be born along with Trig.

Trig will be his dad's little buddy and he'll wear Carhartts while he learns to tinker in the garage. He'll love to be read to, he'll want to play goalie, and he'll steal his mom's heart just like Track, Bristol, Willow and Piper did. And Trig will be the cuddly, innocent, mischievous, dependent little brother that his siblings have been waiting for...in fact Trig will – in some diagnostic ways – always be a mischievous, dependent little brother, because I created him a bit different than a lot of babies born into this world today.

Every child is created special, with awesome purpose and amazing potential. Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed up world you live in down there on earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome. Doctors call it "Down's Syndrome", and Downs kids have challenges, but can bring you much delight and more love than you can ever imagine! Just wait and see, let me prove this, because I only want the best for you!

Some of the rest of the world may not want him, but take comfort in that because the world will not compete for him. Take care of him and he will always be yours!

Trig's mom and dad don't want people to focus on the baby's extra chromosome. They're human, so they haven't known how to explain this to people who are so caring and are interested in this new little Alaskan. Sarah and Todd want people to share in the joy of this gift I'm giving to the Palin family, and the greater Alaska family. Many people won't understand... and I understand that. Some will think Trig should not be allowed to be born because they fear a Downs child won't be considered "perfect" in your world. (But tell me, what do you earthlings consider "perfect" or even "normal" anyway? Have you peeked down any grocery store isle, or school hallway, or into your office lunchroom lately? Or considered the odd celebrities you celebrate as "perfect" on t.v.? Have you noticed I make 'em all shapes and sizes? Believe me, there is no "perfect"!)

Many people will express sympathy, but you don't want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You will have to trust me on this.

I know it will take time to grasp this and come to accept that I only want the best for you, and I only give my best. Remember though: "My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts... for as the heavens are higher than the earth, my ways are higher than yours!"

I wrote that all down for you in the Good Book! Look it up! You claim that you believe me – now it's time to live out that belief!

Please look to me as this new challenge and chapter of life unfolds in front of you. I promise to equip you. I won't give you anything you can't handle. I am answering your prayers. Trig can't wait to meet you. I'm giving you ONLY THE BEST!

Love,
Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father

Why do Germans Choose to Reenact the American Civil War by Playing the Confederacy?

Why the above clip? Because Werner Hernog's Bear is back, one of our resident experts for all times, and I would do a monster movie infused tag team match with him as my partner ready for a "hot tag" any day of the week as we take on the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin at Wrestlemania.

The Atlantic Monthly had a particularly sharp and insightful piece on why Germans are fascinated with the Civil War--and when they choose to play, the reasons explaining their choice to reenact the CSA in America's brother on brother conflict. I play in those waters but cannot swim in them. The solution: call up our favorite historian of modern Germany to get his take. As always, he never disappoints.

I really like Werner's essay. I hope you too do. As always please chime in with your thoughts, reactions, and suggestions.

****

Chauncey recently showed me a couple of articles about Civil War reenactments in Germany and asked me for my thoughts, which as a scholar of German history I am happy to give. I had heard a great deal about Germans dressing up like the Sioux and living in teepees on the weekend, but never about the Civil War. As in the United States, German reenactors are more likely to dress up in Confederate gray (or butternut) rather than Union blue.

Before hazarding my own analysis as to why this is the case in Germany, there are some basic facts that need to be understood. Germans have a uniquely fraught relationship with their past; to be a good German means to remember the Holocaust and feel some sense of responsibility forcommemorating its victims.

This is not just a matter of lip service. The massive, recently built Holocaust memorial in Berlin takes up an immense amount of space in the center of the city, located between the Reichstag (the capitol, essentially) and Potsdamer Platz (Berlin’s version of Time Square.) Essentially, Germans have chosen to take some of the most central and well-traveled space in their capital city, and have devoted it to remembering Germany’s most shameful crime. It would be as if the center of the Washington Mall were taken up by monuments to the victims of slavery and the genocide of Native Americans. (I, for one, would like to see such monuments in such a place.) Even the history before 1933 is often tainted as a precursor to Nazism, especially the period under the Kaisers.

It would be difficult to have any historical reenactments of moments from the German past, because they would be so difficult and politically suspect. Hence the desire to reenact the past of a different country.

However, this hardly explains the attraction to the Confederacy, especially given the fact that many German immigrants to the United States, including prominent military and political leaders like Carl Schurz, fought on the side of the Union. Even among the small pockets of Germans in the south, such as in central Texas, German Americans denounced slavery and the Confederacy both.

One of my German immigrant ancestors fought for the Union despite living in Tennessee. (On the other hand, I should note that German Catholics, like their Irish brethren, served the Union army at lower rates than the general public. That had more to do with not wanting to serve a society hostile to them and retaining white privilege than it did with love of the Confederacy.) Much of this has to do with the fact that many Germans, including Schurz, fled to the United States after participating in the failed democratic revolutions of 1848.

They had reason to fear persecution if they stayed around, and brought their ideals of democracy and equality across the Atlantic.

I get the feeling that modern day Germans are attracted to the Confederacy for the same reasons that the South has had plenty of apologists north of the Mason-Dixon line over the years: the false romanticization of the “Old South” and the depoliticization of the Civil War. In the aftermath of Reconstruction, as historian David Blight has skillfully shown, the commemoration of the Civil War emphasized reunion and the similarities between the both sides, something predicated on excluding African Americans from the story, and literally excluding them from important celebrations, like the 50^th anniversary of Gettysburg (It was especially important for the racialized reunion to erase the memory of the black regiments which were absolutely crucial for Union victory) .

Fifty years after the Civil War’s end, its causes and effects had been depoliticized in the public mind. It was simply a “tragedy” without a real cause, a fight fought nobly “brother against brother.” That view has been remarkably resilient, and it colored all the Civil War books I read as a child. (It even creeps into Ken Burns’ famous documentary, especially when Shelby Foote is given free reign to put a romanticizing gloss on events.)

Once slavery’s centrality to the Civil War was removed from the story (and it still is in the minds of most reenactors today) a very southern rendition of the antebellum South began to insinuate itself in the North, and even around the world. This vision of the Old South presented a bucolic, orderly society full of genteel men and beautiful, virtuous women. Their human property did not resent their state, but were loyal and happy. It was a world of cotillions, hoop skirts, and mint juleps, carefree and pleasing. Of course, this is all complete bullshit. (I don’t have the time to get into all the reasons, but the fact that ten percent of the Union army at the end of the war was made up of black soldiers fighting to eradicate slavery, when black people were only one percent of the North’s population, just about says it all.)

In my mind, Gone with the Wind is even more nefarious a film than The Birth of a Nation. The ugliness of the naked racism displayed in the latter is obvious to modern audiences, but Gone with the Wind takes a horribly brutal society and drains away its violence while puffing up the hoop skirts. It presents a seductive idyll, especially for White people who secretly yearn for unquestioned mastery and racial hierarchy.

We tend to think of the romanticization of the Old South as a southern tradition, but it has long been embraced in the north. Although Margaret Mitchell wrote the initial novel, it was primarily northerners who acted in and worked on Gone with the Wind the film. It was a British actress, Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlet O’Hara. As the articles about German reenactors note, it was a popular book and film in Germany as well. Its vision of the Confederacy seems very much alive, and much of the attraction for German reenactors to dressing up in gray and butternut.

I see two deeper reasons for this: modernity and race. As far as the former is concerned, northerners and Europeans living amidst the upheavals and displacements of modern industrial life were and are eager to romanticize a pre-modern society like the Old South, and to eradicate its many problems and brutalities from their minds. That flight from modernity, which has a very strong and troubled cultural tradition in Germany, also explains the Native American reenactments as well. By taking the side of the Confederacy, German reenactors can thus fight the onslaught of modernity, as embodied in the Union army. Of course, seeing the Civil War in this way requires draining away slavery and African Americans from the story.

Race, of course, has a whole lot to do with the idealization of the Confederacy, in Germany as well. Most Americans are unaware of this, but one of the best selling books in Germany last year was written by a man named Thilo Sarrazin, who argued that the immigrants from Muslim countries living in Germany are genetically less intelligent than white Germans. (His more recent comments are even more inflammatory.) A growing portion of the German population is made up of recent immigrants and their descendants, with Turkey being the most prominent country of origin.

Despite recent positive changes, they have been excluded from mainstream German society, and have been the targets of violence. Germans have been very resistant to seeing Germany as a multi-ethnic state; even Chancellor Merkel declared multiculturalism to be a “failure.” I found that statement rather comical, since multiculturalism hasn’t really been attempted! In a country full of people lapping up Sarrazin’s racialized nationalism and blaming all of their problems on racial others, it’s hardly a surprise that many would be attracted to the Confederacy. After all, states like Mississippi and South Carolina included statements about the superiority of the white race in their declarations of secession.

This is not to say that all Germans who dress up like Confederates are hardcore racists. However, we should still be disturbed by such a phenomenon, since it shows how the past can be manipulated in order to support horrible ideas in the present. As a historian, I think we, in this 150^th anniversary of the Civil War, need to combat the depoliticized narrative of the conflict which is so easily bent to the most odious political purposes.

We need to stress the centrality of slavery, as well as the agency of the slaves themselves, who did a great deal to bring the institution to an end. We need to stop romanticizing the South, and view it for what it was: not a unique paradise but one of many slave-based staple-crop plantation societies in the New World (just like Brazil, Cuba, etc.) reliant on unspeakable cruelty to its African American bondsmen and bondswomen. We need to remember the Fort Pillow Massacre and other events that show men like Nathan Bedford Forrest not to be noble warriors on horseback, but racist war criminals.

In short, we need to show history in all its bloody reality, not a fashion show drenched in sweet tea. It simply a tragic misunderstanding, the Civil War was a war between two competing visions of America’s future, and the vision that more fully (but not yet completely) embodied the American promise of freedom thankfully won out. The romanticizers and apologists are out in full force, we must get out there and expose their myths.