Dixie Heritage Newsletter – Fri, Oct 13, 2017
Why do New Yorkers fly the Confederate Flag?
OK, I’ll admit it, I watch Designated Survivor. I binge watched season one during the summer and now I have been watching season two episodes as they air. So far, I have been disappointed with season 2.
Anywhoo, as those of you who watch the show already know, The debate over monuments honoring our Confederate ancestors has made the leap from the real world to primetime television, and as usual, President Tom Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland) solved the “crisis.”
In this week’s episode (airing Wednesday night at 10/9c on ABC), Kirkman had to find a way to make two sides happy when it comes to the proposed removal of a Confederate statue. That’s no easy task considering the volatile temperament of the left. But this is master diplomat Kirkman we’re talking about here, and he’s appeased one of the great Civil Rights leaders of the time (well, in the show that is), the “Reverend Dale.” What was the compromise? Apparently the solution was as simple as moving the statue to a lesser trafficked area!
AND MISSISSIPPI MAY SOON DO IT FOR REAL
Lafayette CountyD may relocate the statue at their Courthouse, which has sat outside the Courthouse since 1907, with certain restrictions.
In a letter dated Oct. 2, the Mississippi Attorney General’s office told the Lafayette County Board of Superivors they could move the statue if they ever decided to but that: “A monument may be moved within the county jurisdictional limits to some other more suitable location on county property,” the letter stated. “A monument may not be removed from the county or from public property,” it continued.
Matt Reardon, who was arrested earlier this year while standing in support of the statue, said he hopes the County doesn’t take the State up on its offer to move the statue, even if it stays in Lafayette County. “There’s a chance in relocating it that they damage the statue. Why move something that’s been there for 110 years?” said Reardon.
An email was sent to the president of the Board of Supervisors to learn if the board was planning on moving the statue or if it was even up for serious discussion. There was no reply.
AND THE REAL SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
Not the person who plays one on Designated Survivor, but President Trump’s Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, says that the Trump Administration will not remove Confederate monuments from federal lands.
“Where do you start and where do you stop?” Zinke asked a Breitbart reporter in an interview published Sunday. “It’s a slippery slope. If you’re a native Indian, I can tell you, you’re not very happy about the history of General Sherman or perhaps President Grant.” “When you try to erase history, what happens is you also erase how it happened and why it happened and the ability to learn from it.”
IN A REAL LIFE “COMPROMISE”
We reported a few weeks ago that a San Antonio, Texas school district voted to rename Robert E. Lee High School. Very few of the students or parents wanted the name change. The District ordering the school to change the name over the strong desire of parents, students, and even teachers, to keep it.
So last Monday the Robert E Lee High School voted to rename itself the Legacy of Educational Excellence High School – LEE High school
For now, the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee still stands in the school, and the caricature of the Confederacy’s most prominent leader has yet to be displaced as the mascot. The overwhelming majority of the school’s students have told news agencies that they are proud of the name Lee and plan to maintain the traditions of their school.
But we know that this is far from over so we’ll continue to keep an eye on this one.
TO FOLLOW UP ON ANOTHER STORY
Two U.S. Marines pleaded guilty to trespassing during the Confederate Memorial Day rally May 20 at the Old Courthouse, ending their Alamance County, North Carolina entanglement.
Joseph W. Manning, 32, pleaded guilty to first-degree trespassing, and Michael Joseph Chesny, 35, accepted a so-called Alford plea in which he pleaded guilty without admitting he committed a crime. The pleas were entered Tuesday in Alamance County District Court.
Judge Katie Overby sentenced the men to time served – eight hours in jail before being released on bond – as well as court and legal fees. They did not have a plea offer from the District Attorney’s Office.
They were arrested May 20 during a rally in Graham’s Court Square. Police say they climbed on top of 101 N. Main St., a building adjacent to the historic courthouse, prior to Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County’s Confederate Memorial Day rally, without permission of the owner, Jason Cox, and let down a banner that read, “He who controls the past controls the future,” a quote from George Orwell’s novel “1984,” and that also featured an “Identitarian” symbol and the letters “YWNRU” on the side.
Manning is a staff sergeant stationed at the Marine Corps Combat Engineer School at Camp Lejeune and an instructor in the program. Last month the Times-News learned he was “being processed for administrative separation from the Marine Corps, based on allegations brought against him as a result of his arrest May 20, 2017,” wrote Capt. Joshua Pena, public information officer with the Training and Education Command.
Chesny is under a different command and, while the Marine Times reported he was under “administrative punishment,” his lawyer, Monica McKinney, told Overby that actually Chesny has been promoted to Staff Sergeant since his arrest. The Communications Strategy and Operations Office at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point did not return a call from the Times-News on Tuesday seeking confirmation.
Both Marines are decorated combat veterans.
Chesny is stationed at Cherry Point Air Station, where he serves as an explosives ordnance technician. He enlisted in November 2007 and became a sergeant in May 2013.
Manning joined the USMC in 2002, and has been a staff sergeant since 2014, earning a number of awards – including a Purple Heart – as well as good conduct, Afghanistan campaign and Iraq campaign medals. Chesny has received three Marine Corps good conduct medals, as well as multiple medals related to his deployment in Afghanistan.
The corps has officially condemned Manning’s and Chesny’s actions in support of Confederate heritage.
Since the staged counter-protest last month in Charlottesville, USMC Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, has taken a public stand against “racial hatred and extremism,” and appears to be making an “example” out of two otherwise excellent Marines.
DAD MAKES THE RIGHT CALL
In South Carolina, The State reports that 38 year-old Rhett Ingram removed his children from Heathwood Hall, one of Columbia’s most exclusive private schools, after the school enacted a policy that essentially banned Confederate Flags from being displaying on vehicles.
WILL ILLINOIS ABOLISH ALL CONFEDERATE SYMBOLS?
A measure has been introduced in Illinois Legislature by La Shawn Ford, a House Democrat from Chicago, who is the sponsor of what is called the “Abolition of Confederate Symbols Act.”
He has justified his legislation by saying that, “The confederacy is something that we had during the time when the country was divided and we arrived with one flag – one that represents everyone.”
The measure has yet to come up for debate.
ALABAMA MONUMENT VANDALIZED
A 111-year old Confederate Monument in Tuskegee’s town square was vandalized this week.
Someone spray painted over the wording on the statue.
Mayor Lawrence Haygood, Jr., says he can understand a citizen’s opinion about the statue’s location, but he doesn’t agree with the vandalism.
Haywood says the City considered removing the statue about two years ago, but there was a conflict concerning who owned the land.
An online petition is asking for the statue to be relocated. The petition asks the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who erected the statue, to voluntarily remove it and place it in a museum. It has received close to 1,000 signatures.
CONFEDERATE CORNERS TO BE RENAMED?
Although there are no signs, and not everyone knows it, the intersection of Highway 68 and Hitchcock Road in Salinas, California is named “Confederate Corners.”
The City government may soon change that.
POLL SHOWS CITY WANTS ITS MONUMENTS
According to a very scientific poll conducted by the University of North Florida, polling practically all of the registered voters in Duvall County, over half of all registered voters in Duval County oppose removing Confederate statutes from public spaces, while a majority of Democratic and black voters favor their removal.
Duvall County is essentially the entirety of the City of Jacksonville. In square miles, Jacksonville is the State’s, and the nations, largest city.
The political divide is steep, with the research finding 83 percent of Republican voters oppose removing the statues, while 56 percent of registered Democrats said they want the statues moved.
One thing that stood out was that ONLY 62 percent of black voters wanting the monuments gone. That means that a full 38 percent of registered black voters want the statues to stay.
PROPOSAL TO HONOR BLACK CONFEDERATES
Blacks in South Carolina who served in the Confederate military would be recognized with a Statehouse monument under a proposal by two Republican legislators.
State Reps. Bill Chumley and Mike Burns said Monday they “want to recognize African-Americans whose courage has been purposely discounted in history books.” They point out that hundreds of black South Carolinians applied for state-provided Confederate pensions.
“It’s a good time to honor people forgotten in this,” Chumley said. “We have a real good chance to unify people.”
Scalawag House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said his colleagues’ proposal needs to also recognize black Union veterans as well as slaves who led revolts. Rutherford, a Democrat, is black.
Of course, the media is going crazy all anew with their insistence that black Confederates never existed. Funny, because the October 9th Washington Post ran the following:
Nelson Winbush relishes talking about his grandfather’s time as a Confederate soldier, fighting at the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, slave trader and imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
The 88-year-old retired Florida educator proudly wears hats, shirts and a belt buckle emblazoned with Confederate flags. And he’s the star of a video featuring members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, in which he talks about the flag’s history, calling it a symbol of Christianity, not slavery.
Winbush is also black, and so was his grandfather.
“When I joined, it wasn’t any kind of rebellion,” Winbush said of his membership with the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He voted to install a Confederate monument in a veterans park near his home, where a tribute to Union soldiers already stood. “I wanted to set the record straight. A lot of people thought blacks fled, but blacks fought in every state.”
Winbush said he learned of his grandfather’s devotion to the Confederacy during horse and buggy rides that he took with the veteran when he was a child.
As his grandfather Louis Napoleon Nelson told it, he followed his master and sons into the war, first working as a cook but later serving as a rifleman and chaplain to both black and white soldiers.
Winbush said his grandfather believed he was defending his home state of Tennessee from “Yankee” invaders, not fighting to preserve slavery. His final wish, Winbush said, was that he be buried in his Confederate uniform.
This pride has been embraced by Winbush, who joined the Sons of Confederate Veterans nearly three decades ago. In one of the videos he has appeared in for the group, he speaks of black soldiers serving alongside white soldiers as equals in the Confederate Army. At one point, he holds up an application his grandfather filed with the federal government in 1920 for a federal pension. The document shows the application was accepted.
“Did black Confederates fight?” he says in the video. “I rest my case with this.”
Nelson Winbush holds his grandfather’s Confederate soldier uniform.
David Blight, a professor of American history at Yale University, said there were black Confederate soldiers, but most historians do not believe there is evidence that they served voluntarily and that they were treated as equals during the war. The Constitution of the Confederate States of America explicitly states that slavery was a central cause for the South’s decision to fight to secede.
Blight said the version of events that recalls black soldiers as co-signers to the Confederate Army’s mission emerged after the war, growing out of the Lost Cause tradition.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Blight said, the Sons of Confederate Veterans began to promote this as historical fact, saying that many Southern blacks had supported the war. “It’s a popular mythology – the trusted, contented slave, Blight said. “And if you want the Confederacy to be somehow palatable in the post-civil rights era, it helps if people believe there were a whole lot of black people who supported it.”
Michael Landree, executive director of the national Sons of Confederate Veterans, said history supports Blight’s version only because “the victor always writes the history.” That’s why his group is opening a $5 million, 18,500-square-foot museum to the Confederacy next year in Tennessee.
“It will include exhibits and stories from soldiers of all different faiths and backgrounds,” Landree said. “It will include black veterans, Native Americans, Jews and Catholics. The diversity of the Confederacy was tremendous.”
The Sons of Confederate Veterans has repeatedly turned to Winbush to help further, as Landree described it, the “Southern version of the war” and has enlisted him to help promote the group’s logo, which includes a Confederate battle flag.
When Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) began his successful effort in 2015 to ban and recall Sons of Confederate Veterans license plates with the Confederate flag logo in his state, the group flew Winbush in to speak at a state legislative hearing. NAACP officials argued that the flag was a racist symbol. Winbush argued the opposite.
“This is probably the most misunderstood flag in the whole world,” he testified, saying the blue stripes and red field represent Christianity and purity. “People are ignorant of what it represents and why it was designed.”
The hearing showed what an enigma the former educator had become. Far from estranged from the NAACP and other black groups, Winbush served as grand marshal in a Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. parade near his home in Kissimmee, Fla., five months before he testified at the license plate hearing.
Remember that the article was pasted exactly as it appeared in the Washington Post.
So The Post admits that there were black Confederate soldiers. And while doing so they throw out all the tired one-liners about slavery, racism, the KKK, etc. While referring to Nelson Winbush as an “educator” (which could mean he was a school janitor or a basketball coach) they fail to point out that DOCTOR Winbush is the retired superintendent of schools for one of Florida’s largest public school systems. He is also a former leader of the NAACP.
A reader in Virginia submits:
To Virginia Tech President Sands:
Regarding an article in The Roanoke Times on Sept. 3 entitled “Va. Tech to review names of buildings”: This is a veiled attempt to remove any reference to Confederate veterans.
I’m a 1968 graduate of Virginia Tech whose thoughts could significantly shorten the length of your presidency.
You are going down a very slippery slope in your attempt to remove all references to the Confederacy at Tech.
Your committee chair, the vice provost of inclusion and diversity (I have not been able to find the words inclusion and diversity in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights or the Bible) is biased.
Menah Pratt-Clarke stated that his priority is to insure that “No minority students would be offended or have their feelings hurt by references to Confederate veterans.” I have some common sense news for you. No one is promised a life free from being offended or having their feelings hurt!
My Confederate ancestor was a brave and honorable man. He fought to defend the state of Virginia – his home.
Let me be very specific: I have given thousands of dollars to Virginia Tech and the Tech athletic departments. I sent my son to Tech and I have established a scholarship for my two grandsons to attend VPI.
If one plaque or building name is changed or removed or an insulting message added, I and many other Virginia Tech alumni will never send you another dollar!
You and your ilk would be wise to listen to me and many other Tech alumni who are very proud of our Confederate heritage.
CARTER T. GILL
NON “HERITAGE” NEWS EFFECTING THE SOUTHLAND
In the US House of Representatives, the Homeland Security Committee approved a border security bill that includes $10 billion for a border wall.
The Border Security for America Act, proposed by committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), was passed on a party-line 18-12 vote.
The bill includes the $10 billion in border wall funding, $5 billion to improve ports of entry and adds 5,000 agents to both the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection.
The legislation would also authorize the federal government to reimburse states up to $35 million for use of National Guard assets to reinforce border security.
The legislation will head to the House floor amid debate over whether border security provisions should be attached to potential legislation to protect recipients of the rescinded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Democrats criticized the bill as a political stunt to appease President Trump and as an attempt to “fulfill a misguided campaign promise.”
McCaul praised the President’s focus on border security and urged the committee to seize the opportunity to legislate on the issue. “We finally have a partner in the White House who has prioritized this issue, and it’s time for Congress to do its job,” he said.
While the bill is expected to pass the House, it’s unlikely to clear the Senate, where it needs a 60-vote majority.
LAWLESS MEN HIRING THE LAWMEN
A finalist for Police Chief of Colorado’s fourth largest city was eliminated from consideration after City officials learned of two news stories where the candidate was quoted as supporting Arizona’s immigration control law.
Steve Henry, a former chief deputy for the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office in central Arizona, was one of six finalists chosen from a list of 65 people who applied for the Fort Collins Police Chief position.
Judicial Watch, in its Sept. 21 Corruption Chronicles feature, noted that Henry “is a U.S. Army veteran who obtained his undergraduate degree at Arizona State University and graduate degree at Northern Arizona University. He also holds a degree from the Harvard JFK School of Government and attended the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy. He has 23 years of continuous and stellar law enforcement service.”
Henry was informed by Ralph Anderson and Associates (a California-based company that provides cities, counties and state agencies with executive search and consulting services), that he was eliminated as a candidate because the news articles made Darin Atteberry, the Fort Collins city manager, “leery” about hiring him.
“With the city refusing to explain what happened, the chain of events indicates that a highly qualified candidate got eliminated from the final six police chief applicants due to his support for the rule of law,” Judicial Watch said. “There was no crime, misconduct or character flaw on his part, just support in his capacity at Pinal County for Arizona’s commitment to assist federal law enforcement in an effort to secure borders and implement federal trespassing statutes. As for the Fort Collins public officials, it never looks good when they dodge the hard questions involving questionable decisions.”
Judicial Watch has filed a public records request “to obtain details about the troublesome case in which the support for the rule of law served as a disqualifier for a candidate hired to enforce the rule of law.”
Fort Collins local government “supports offering illegal immigrants sanctuary,” Judicial Watch said. “Fort Collins Mayor Wade Troxell said in a local newspaper report that the city is an open, inclusive and friendly community and that ‘all people matter.’ Members of the city council have consistently said they support diversity and want the city to be a welcoming place for all people.”
TWO SOLDIERS KILLED
Two soldiers were killed and six others were injured at Fort Jackson on Oct 6. While Fort Jackson officials have not released many details, they have said the incident involved a military vehicle and a troop formation, WIS reported. It is unclear if the act was intentional with officials saying they’re investigating. Two of the six injured soldiers were in critical condition as of WIS’ last reporting.
Israel will reject Palestinian peace offer
Amid reported efforts towards a reconciliation deal between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last Tuesday that a recognition of Israel as a Jewish state remains a precondition for any peace process.
“We will not accept any fake reconciliations in which the Palestinians agree to reconcile at the expense of our existence,” Netanyahu said during a Likud faction meeting in the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.
“If someone truly wants reconciliation, our conditions are very simple; recognize Israel, dismantle Hamas’ military wing, cut ties with Iran,” Netanyahu added.
Prior to the meeting, Netanyahu toured the West Bank settlement and promised to increase construction. “We will build thousands of housing units here,” he said. “We will expand the industrial zone and do all that is necessary to enable growth and development.”
LIBERALS HAVE NEW STRATEGY IN NORTH CAROLINA
The following is from a mole within a left-wing activist law firm:
The Cultural History Artifact Management and Patriotism Act of 2015 also amended another statute, which had previously stated:
No memorial or work of art shall hereafter become the property of the State by purchase, gift or otherwise, unless such memorial or work of art, or a design of the same, together with the proposed location of the same, shall first have been submitted to and approved by the North Carolina Historical Commission …(§100-2)
In the case of Silent Sam, the striking blow to its chance of remaining on UNC’s campus may have been dealt when the 2015 Act omitted the words “shall hereafter” from the above statute. By doing so, the new language suggests that all monuments must be approved by the Historical Commission, regardless of when they became state property.
We know that such approval did not take place for Silent Sam because there was no law requiring it in 1913 when the statue was erected. Silent Sam is listed in the Third Biennial Report of the North Carolina Historical Commission (December 1, 1908 to November 30, 1910), which reported “the United Daughters of the Confederacy will place a monument at Chapel Hill” (page 46), but there is no reference to an approval process consistent with that required in the Act of 2015. If the above interpretation is correct, there is a possibility that Silent Sam, as well as dozens of other Confederate monuments of the same era, have been unlawfully resting on their pedestals since 2015.
For those working toward the removal of Confederate monuments from public property, perhaps a new strategy would be to demand proof that the Historical Commission approved the actual statues, as well as their placement on state property. If such evidence is lacking, the monuments are illegal and should be removed immediately. In this way, perhaps it is possible to defeat the intent of the Historic Artifact Management and Patriotism Act, which was to protect public Confederate monuments indefinitely…
States and Cities Saying “No” to the Feds
By Kirkpatrick Sale
Kirkpatrick Sale is an independent scholar and founder of the Middlebury Institute. He is the author of dozens of books and scholarly publications
What was amazing about watching two dozen states and several hundred cities defy Donald Trump’s decision to take the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement was that so little was made of it. It represented open defiance of the national government and a commitment to follow the principles of a treaty that our elected leader has specifically rebuked. I don’t know what you’d call it, but it looks a lot like nullification, the principle that any American state can refuse to obey certain chosen government laws and policies.
Nullification. That’s quite a strong position. Some might even call it treason.
Following the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, several liberal governors went on to create a U.S. Climate Alliance that vowed to continue on with that treaty’s provisions and has so far got the backing of 13 states (Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia) plus Puerto Rico. It was followed by a different set of states that declared they would follow – “meet or surpass” – the treaty’s climate goals by 2030, including Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, Delaware and North Carolina.
That’s 23 states of the union, almost half, with more than half of the U.S. population and more than half the U.S. GDP. You’d think maybe the press and incessant cable news shows might have made a big deal of that, something more than a passing headline.
And that’s not all. There’s something called a Mayors National Climate Agenda, formed in 2014 to try to get support for the U.S. signing the Paris accord, and now after the Trump withdrawal with some 279 cities – including all of those with the largest populations – saying that they would ignore the president’s decision. This was followed by a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors whose president declared that “the cities themselves are going to create a new national policy by the accumulation of our individual efforts.”
Days later, New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg announced that he was spearheading a new operation to support “innovative policies” in some 40 American cities to outflank and overrule the federal government not only on climate policies but to create policies on the local level that differ from Washington on gun laws, public health and immigration, at least as its initial phase. He is funding it with no less than $200 million from his own fortune and asking sympathetic philanthropists for similar funds. And he has promised to make up from his own funds the $15 million that the U.S. was to pay into the UN following the Paris agreement.
To me all of this looks like more than nullification – this has the smell of what can only be called secession. Not de jure secession, to be sure, not formal and legalized, but secession just the same across a whole range of issues where cities and states are deciding which laws to obey and which to be defied. I’d call it de facto secession.
Is that too strong a word? Let’s look at the sanctuary movement, which stands clearly in opposition to U.S. laws and practices and specifically to the Trump administration’s demand that cities cooperate with Immigration and Customs officials or face a cut-off of all federal funds. At the moment there are an estimated 476 counties and cities that have declared that they won’t follow the 1996 law that requires cities to cooperate with ICE – and 50 of them were added to the list after Trump’s January executive order threatened to defund them – plus what the Center for Immigration Studies lists as six states (California, Oregon, North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado and New York) that declare themselves to be sanctuary states.
That’s nullification again, and on a massive scale.
Then let’s add on states that have nullified federal marijuana laws. To date, 18 states have passed laws making medical marijuana legal and five more have permitted recreational use of marijuana. The feds have so far not taken any action against them, since they clearly fear a significant backlash, but as far as the law is concerned these states are criminally liable.
And what if a state is nullifying all these laws, establishing itself as above federal law and federal jurisdiction? Doesn’t that add up to secession?
Take California, which is prominent in each of these areas of defiance and nullification – accepting the Paris Agreement, promoting sanctuary at state and local levels, passing gun laws that go beyond Supreme Court guidelines and right now considering a single-payer health system – socialized medicine – to replace Obamacare. It has recently banned all official state travel to Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota and other states that have policies, particularly abortion policies, that it disagrees with. At this level, with the state in such a range of defiance, it is no wonder that Governor Jerry Brown, coming back after a state visit to China last month, said, “We are a separate nation.”
As a confirmed decentralist and anti-authoritarian, I applaud this whole movement toward what might be called states’ (and cities’) rights, and I would like to see such a movement spread, achieving by de facto secession the right to self-determination and self-government that alone promotes liberty.
And for those of you in the Lowcountry who may at first denigrate this movement, you might consider what would be the appropriate action if the offshore drilling companies actually decide to start their destructive exploration projects off the sea island coast. I can think of nothing better than the local sheriffs and deputies showing up to carry out the wishes and ordinances of the local cities and towns and refuse the oil giants permission. Charleston, Columbia and Beaufort have already pledged to ignore Trump’s withdrawal from Paris, so even more appropriate to fight his environmental assault on our coasts.
Why do New Yorkers fly the Confederate Flag?
WNYC and other public radio stations across the Empire State sought to answer that question.
Radio personalities asked their audience for help in locating flags around New York, and received more than 200 reports – from the East Village in Manhattan to Plattsburgh near the Canadian border. While this is by no means exhaustive, it helped confirm the idea that the Confederate Flag is not an exclusively-Southern symbol, but one that is embraced all over America.
The first case highlighted by WNYC was reported by Zach Hirsch, a reporter with North Country Public Radio. He didn’t have to go far to find a Confederate Flag owner: his neighbor in Plattsburgh displayed one for a period earlier this year.
The neighbor, Ricky Barber, 30, moved to New York from Georgia, and said the Flag is a sign of his Southern pride.
“We are not a racist couple, and we own the flag,” said Barber’s fiancée, 28-year-old Becca Lee. “I don’t judge people, I don’t care what color skin they are, if they need defending I’m going to defend them. That’s what a Southern belle does.”
In the second of three stories, Tim, who didn’t want to give his last name, is a farmer who lives in Broome County, near Binghamton. He was interviewed by Monica Sandreczki, Managing Editor at WSKG.
Tim raises goats and chickens. One of his dogs is named Dixie, the other after P.G.T. Beauregard. He is a “Civil War nostalgist,” but as someone who was raised in New York he thinks opportunity has dried up, and that the best way to revitalize the upstate economy is to secede from downstate. He said he flies the Confederate Flag for that reason.
“It’s kind of a sign of, we seceded once and maybe in New York state we should secede again,” he explained. “I think that New York state needs to break away from New York City. New York City has separate needs from here, it’s a separate world, and upstate New York cold be a very great place to live. Right now in the situation it is, we’re talking about moving down South to a better tax state. And the North isn’t for us anymore. And we kind of long to be down South.”
The third story centered around the mother, Judy, who asked that the station only use her first name, had a Flag flying in her son’s bedroom.
Judy’s adult son, Tristan, lives at home with her. She said he has had a Confederate Flag for years, so long that she had never thought much about it. “He feels an affinity to the south, and to southern music,” she reasoned.
“He latches on to things that help him to feel rooted in some way,” explained his older sister, Julia, a mental health worker.
Both Judy and Julia’s answers were clearly protective of Tristan who it was implied was mentally unstable.
“I’m getting the feeling he doesn’t have any hate,” said Judy. “Tristan has a wide variety of ethnic friends. He’s got black, Mexican, Honduras, you name it.”
Tristan, it would seem, was the closest that the user-liberal radio reporters could come to villainizing a Confederate Flag owner.
Until Next Week,
Deo Vindice!
Chaplain Ed
Dixie Heritage
P.O. Box 618
Lowell, FL 32663
