Re: A public monument to an ugly history
 
From: wildbill4dixie@yahoo.com
To: peder.zane@newsobserver.com
 
Re: http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1398224.html
 
First, regarding the slogan, “heritage not hate”, please don’t misunderstand. The slogan was simply created as a way of sending a message that we do not hate others based on their race. It doesn’t mean that we don’t “hate” at all. Rest assured, we do hate loud mouth, arrogant know-it-alls like yourself.
 
Second, as regards holding a statewide referendum, I have money that says if one were held that we’d kick your butts by a 2-1 margin, as was the case in Mississippi a few years back, a state, by the way, whose black population is over 40%.You want a referendum? I say, “Bring It On!”
 
Third, the Confederate dead ARE indeed, “American Patriots”. There are nearly 500 of them buried in Arlington National Cemetery. And they have been deemed to be “American War Dead” by the very government that they fought against. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/csa.htm , http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/csa-mem.htm
 
So then, if the government which invaded and crushed the Southland sees fit to honor its former fallen foes, then what the hell is your problem?
 
Fourth, don’t presume to speak on behalf of black North Carolinians. The last thing they need is another whiney white boy who purports to campaign for their interests. Black southerners have, unfortunately, had too many dealings with whites who presume to act in their best interests, but who in fact end up doing anything but. Someone once said that the “urge to save humanity most often masks the urge to rule.” I don’t know if this is your story or not, but I do know that those who pi** and moan the loudest about “Tolerance” are usually the ones who are the most inept when it comes to practicing what they preach. That I suspect, IS your story!
 
Fifth – as regards the Reconstruction governments and your precious 14th amendment, I suspect that white Southerners had good reason to be irate especially since Northern states, while very interested in the voting rights of the newly freed slave, showed little or no interests in the voting rights of the few black citizens they had living among them:
 
“The Republican platform of 1868 vehemently cried out for guarantees of the right of suffrage of negroes in the South; it was really too bad that, surely through inadvertence, there followed immediately this pregnant proviso, ‘while the question of suffrage in all the loyal states belongs to the people of those states.’”…………….”And so, the cat was out of the bag. It was all very well to place the ballot in the hands of massed millions of colored men in the South; it was a different matter entirely to enfranchise the few thousands of free negroes scattered throughout the North and West.” (“The Coming of the Glory,” John S. Tilley, Page 146)
 
This amendment foisted upon North Carolina and other states, a government which was capable of the following:
 
“The carpet-bag, scalawag and Negroid State Governments made raids on educational funds. In North Carolina, $420,000 in railroad stock belonging to the Educational Fund for the Benefit of Poor Children were sold for $158,000, to be applied in part payment of extended per diems of legislators. These legislators gave at state expense, lavish entertainments, and kept a bar and a house of prostitution in the Capitol; they took trips to New York and gambled away state funds by thousands; war had left a school fund, taxation increased it; but for 2 years, no child, white or black, received benefits. There was money enough for the Governor to raise and equip 2 regiments, on of negroes, for the intimidation of whites, but none for education…”
 
“Dixie After the War,” M.L. Avary, Page 307
 
Maybe you’d like to build a statue to the legislature which built its own brothel at taxpayers’ expense?
 
Before you deign to sit in high holy judgment, I’d say that if you want to understand where the post Reconstruction regimes came from, then you have to understand the mess that preceded and precipitated them.
 
Bottom line – That statue is important to a large tax paying segment of North Carolina’s citizens. And yes, the majority of that group is white, and there is nothing wrong with being white or having interests which appeal to a predominantly white group. This group has rights just like any other group does. Your state’s black citizens have ample opportunity to erect statues and monuments to those they deem important. No one is going to stand in their way or say that they can’t do such things. The thing which would best promote racial harmony is, unfortunately, no longer legal – the tarring and feathering and running out of town on a rail of malcontents like yourself.
 
And finally, “Governor Purdue, tear down that monument?” Are you kidding me? Is that supposed to be like, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!” Who do you think you are? Ronald Reagan? Did you honestly think that your readers are incapable of recognizing plagiarism when they see it? It doesn’t say much for your paper that your editor failed to hit you over the head when you submitted that beauty! Newsflash pal – plagiarism won’t win you a Pulitzer Prize!
 
Bill Vallante
Commack NY
Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 3000 (Associate Member)
Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 1506 (Associate Member)
Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 1369 (Associate Member)