Saturday, July 4, 2015

Reenacting, Race & Raising the Rebel Flag

I'm not going to rehash the horrific tragedy that occurred on June 17 at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston. Nor am I going to delve into armchair pyscho-babble and try to analyze the morally and intellectually bankrupt actions of the shooter. Frankly, I care as little about his motive and mental state as I do about his continued existence upon our mortal plane. And, PLEASE NOTE that I'm deliberately not stating his name. I'll refer to him hereafter as the shooter. Yes, there's a part of me that would love to call him Garbage or Piece of Shit or Prison Rape Meat. But that would indicate that I even consider him worthy of my contempt. Frankly, he's a bug to me. The kind you step on and wipe off your shoe before you step away and try to do some good in the world.

So if I'm not here to fulminate about the shooting or the shooter, then what exactly am I addressing in this post? Well, to start with I'm going to try to add some perspective to the massacre's aftermath, specifically in regards to the flying of the Rebel Flag. I'll also try to answer some of the questions I've received in my inbox since the shooter's identity and photo album went public.

First off, let me just say something about the media coverage of this crime. What does it say about us that we allow our worst representatives to dominate news cycles and affect public policy while truly decent hardworking visionaries never even get five of their proverbial fifteen minutes of fame? Frankly, I don't know. I just think we should all reflect on that for a moment. Okay, then, let's move onto topic two: the Northern Army of Virginia Battle Flag.

NO, what people call the Confederate Flag was never the official national flag of the Confederate States of America (CSA). It was, in fact, Robert E. Lee's battle flag for the Northern Army of Virginia. (For those of you interested in Confederate Flags, Wikipedia has a fairly decent entry.) YES, the iconic blue X, white stars and red field were incorporated into two of the Confederacy's national flags, the so-called "stainless" and "blood-stained" banners. But the all-too familiar flag emblazoned on the roof of the Dukes of Hazzard's '69 Dodge Charger was never the flag of the CSA. It did, however, become the recognized symbol of the rebel armed forces during the Civil War. From here on out, then, I'll refer to it as the Rebel Flag.

After the war, the Rebel Flag still hung around, but was mostly displayed at historical sites and events commemorating the Civil War. Then, in the late 1940s and 50s, the flag reemerged in a political context, becoming the emblem of resurgent southern regionalism and, subsequently, resistance to federal authority, i.e. "them fat cats in Washington DC.". And here's where everything gets complicated, convoluted and controversial.

To keep it brief and overly simplistic, the field of US politics experienced a pole shift in the decades between World War II and the Reagan era of the 80s. Southern Democrats (aka Dixie Crats) suddenly found themselves uneasily aligned on the right wing with northern fiscal and social conservatives. African Americans, long affiliated with the classically liberal Republican Party of Lincoln, drifted into camp with the more radical and progressive wing of the Democratic Party. From all the ensuing sociopolitical upheaval, the Rebel Flag arose from the ashes of Margaret Mitchell's wistful and whimsical Lost Cause like the mythical phoenix.

Suddenly, what came to be seen as "The Confederate Flag" popped up on flagpoles - private and public - all over the fruited plain. For every Johnny Reb flying the flag to proclaim a heritage and identity distinct from us Billy Yanks, others displayed the same flag to promote segregation, racism, antisemitism and insurrection against our federal government. As a result, the Confederate Flag Controversy has flared up numerous times over the last thirty to forty years with defenders rallying around the flag's historical significance and cultural heritage while the opposition cites that same history and heritage as the fundamental reason for the flag's removal.

Honestly, I've looked at this situation from every possible angle, and I've concluded that taking any kind of  middle ground regarding the Rebel Flag is bound to piss off people on both sides. Coincidentally, this is exactly the situation faced by Chris Telamon, the protagonist in my forthcoming novel, Stalking Mule, a lifelong liberal who suddenly finds himself embedded with the Confederate army in what becomes a very real Civil War reenactment. So, with this in mind and against all better judgment, I guess I'll be pissing off both sides for the remainder of this post.

While I won't go so far as to say my perspective on the rebel flag is wholly unique, I will suggest that my recent experiences do allow me to see the issue from a rather idiosyncratic vantage point. For those of you who don't know me well, I'm literally all over the place as far as politics and social issues are concerned. My liberal friends see me as way too conservative, and my conservative friends see me as way too liberal. Case in point, my recent experiences as a Confederate soldier drilling and marching under the rebel flag with The 27th Virginia.

When I first started researching Stalking Mule, I tried my best at due diligence, I talked to some reenactors and started attending some local Civil War reenactments to internalize the flavor and personality of the events and the devoted volunteers who make them work. I introduced myself to a number of very polite and helpful reenactors on both sides and pumped them for as much information as I could politely obtain. Everyone I met loved talking about their passion, but - to be honest - I just couldn't seem to make the kind of connection necessary for the type of in-depth research the subject demanded. 

Then, at the annual Fremont, Ohio reenactment a few years back, I met a Confederate soldier and walking encyclopedia of living history named Phil Reynolds. Phil not only schooled me on some popular misconceptions many of us have regarding fighting men in the Civil War, he also enthusiastically took me under his wing and really showed me what the reenacting hobby is all about. The first thing he taught me, reenacting is much more than a hobby. For the dedicated souls who transform these events into living history, reenacting isn't dress-up, or play-acting. Their level of mental, physical and monetary commitment is equivalent to that of a dedicated amateur marathon runner, mountain climber or a Habitat For Humanity volunteer. I truly realized this when I started drilling with Phil's unit and took part in my first battle at the Painesville reenactment last summer.

For those who regularly read my blog, I recounted my experiences in several previous posts. So I won't repeat myself now. What I didn't write about last summer, however, was the reaction sparked by my enlistment in the Confederate forces. Upon seeing photos of me "fighting" beneath the Rebel Flag, my email inbox immediately filled with some challenging and, at times, disturbing questions: "Did you choose to be a Confederate?" Or "Why were you a Confederate? Are you a racist?" Just the kind of questions, I might add, that Chris Telamon - descendant of a prominent local liberal family involved in the Underground Railroad - must repeatedly address in the pages of Stalking Mule. In fact, once I got a hundred pages into the novel's first draft, I realized that the volatile relationship between Civil War reenacting and race relations in 21st-century America had quickly become one of the novel's central theme.

As I work now to complete Stalking Mule and White Picket Jungle, events in our world continue to dovetail with plot points contrived years ago in my fictional universe. By sheer creative happenstance, Stalking Mule has its own horrific hate crime eerily analogous to the massacre in Charleston, a murderous spree complete with internet photos and loud national conversations debating the cultural heritage of the American Civil War and its symbology in our popular culture. And draped over both worlds - real and reenacted, material and make-believe - is the battle flag of Robert E. Lee's Northern Army of Virginia. Its presence not only posing questions about our present-day Johnny Rebs but also their ancestors.

By now, anyone who's read this far is no doubt dying to ask me the hard questions. Do I think the Rebel Flag is racist? What about Confederate reenactors who display this flag or their forebears one-hundred-fifty years ago who did the same? Is any identification with the Confederate States of America inherently racist? Or can someone proudly display the Rebel Flag without at least believing somewhat in the tenets of white supremacy? Fully aware that I will now alienate my friends on both sides of this issue, let me try to give you my opinions as succinctly as possible.


Over the last one-hundred-fifty years, the Rebel Flag has come to represent the Confederate States of America. Despite never being the Confederacy's national flag, it was and still is the symbol of the southern cause in the Civil War. So what was the southern cause then?

The cause of the Confederate government during the Civil War was to establish a separate nation where slavery would remain the law of that land until said government chose to abolish it. Sorry to all my fellow rebel reenactors (if I'm still welcome after this article). But secession was born with the election of Abraham Lincoln and fermented in the belief that the radical Republicans would abolish slavery and destroy the southern economy and way of life. To say secession was over "state's rights" is sophistry at best and disingenuous at worst. Yes, the secessionist states believed in states rights, most notably a state's right to uphold the tradition of slavery despite any moves the federal government might make to dismantle the peculiar institution. However, those same secessionist states refused to recognize a state's right to refuse cooperation in the Fugitive Slave Act, which was still federal law when General P.G.T. Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter in 1861. That being said, the cause of the Confederate government was not necessarily identical to the cause of the individual Confederate soldiers.

Soldiers are peculiar lot. Despite the best efforts of the governments that put them in the field, soldiers don't put their lives on the line for governments or policies or the posturing of politicians. Some soldiers may take up arms under some sense of patriotism, but when the bullets start flying and the stomach starts growling they fight for themselves, their comrades in arms, their families, their homes and their own singular sense of duty. This goes for soldiers in any war - our Civil War, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. In the case of the average Confederate soldier, the staggering majority of whom neither owned slaves nor had any vested interest in the perpetuation of slavery, he didn't fight, kill and daily risk his life to keep African Americans in bondage. Frankly, with Federal troops invading his home, killing his friends and branding him a traitor, he had much more immediate and life-threatening issues to worry about than maintaining the slaveocracy.

Sorry to all my liberal friends who just really want to hate the Confederate soldiers and therefore rebel reenactors by default (if you still call me friend after this article.) If, for a moment,  you'd all just set aside the intellectual interpretations of what happened between Fort Sumter and Appomattox Courthouse and read the actual journals, letters and contemporary battlefield accounts written by the soldiers (and their loved ones) you might be surprised like I was. You won't find much (if anything at all) about white supremacy or hatred of African Americans in these missives. What you will find is hatred of the Federals and Billy Yanks who, until the first Colored and Negro troops were officially commissioned in 1863, were as white as the rebs.

Yes, Confederate soldiers were fighting for a government that wanted to preserve slavery, but I haven't read an account of even one Confederate officer rallying his cold, starving, out-manned and out-gunned troops by invoking the Cause of Slavery. Knowing how the soldiers looked upon the Rich Man's War and poor man's fight, I can't imagine such a pep talk would have met with anything but derision or worse. Confederate officers inspired their troops by appealing to their love of family, friends and homeland, not their government or its policies. Even a cursory reading of contemporary soldiers' opinions of Jefferson Davis and CSA government quickly reveals that, like all soldiers, Johnny Reb didn't have much use for the desk jockeys at the capitol. So, even if the Rebel Flag meant White Supremacy to the Confederate Government, my reading and research just won't allow me to paint the Confederate soldier with the same broad red, white and blue brush. And neither, for that matter, does my real life experience with rebel reenactors.

Are Confederate reenactors racists? I'm sure some are. Hell, racists can be found anywhere and in every walk of life. I will say this, though. I've had the privilege of drilling, bivouacking and fighting alongside rebel reenactors for over two years now, and I've yet to hear any of them say anything that strikes me as overtly or patently racist. Please note, I said me. I'm sure if some of my more liberal friends had been sitting around the same campfire, their feathers might have been suitably ruffled. Also be assured, if the Charleston shooter had decided to bring his brain-dead, racist crap into a camp of rebel reenactors, he would have found his white ass riding out of camp on a rail.

So what do I hear around these rebel campfires, then? Well, today's rebels are predominantly conservatives or libertarians. They long for tighter families, tighter communities and a renewed sense of national pride. Many are church going Christians. By and large, they reminisce wistfully over bygone eras while expressing a deep mistrust of big government and politicians of both major parties. Above all, they steadfastly defend of the common Confederate soldier as a patriot defending his home soil against Yankee aggression. If all this strikes anyone as encoded racism, then we obviously have different definitions of the word, and nothing anyone says will convince you otherwise. But honestly, I've heard much more offensive thoughts while bellied up to a bar with a stranger or standing in line at the DMV.

Do I agree with every sentiment and idea I hear around these rebel campfires? Of course not, and depending on my mood and comfort level I may even jump into a good-natured debate. As a writer, though, I tend to listen more than speak. I'm there to soak up language, cadence and perspective. My goal is to capture the reality of these individuals and let them speak in their own voices, not hear the sound of mine. So what kinds of things do I disagree with then?

For one, I find their almost uniform disparagement of all Union generals and troops as unabashedly partisan and sometimes humorous. I'm also wary of the Lost Cause revisionism that condemns Lincoln as a war criminal, downplays slavery as the cause of secession while over-emphasizing the role of slaves and freed blacks in the Confederate Army. And just for the record, African American men did indeed serve as teamsters and, in a few isolated cases, infantrymen with the rebel armies. However, these "black rebs" were a statistically insignificant exception, and their circumstances can hardly be used as evidence that slaves and freed blacks were treated with anything close to equality in the CSA armed forces. They weren't. Neither, for that matter, were African Americans treated well by the overwhelming majority of Union commanders or troops. (Just read about Sherman's views on race sometime. Eye opening to say the least.)

So where exactly does this put me on the issue of the Rebel Flag. (I bet you all thought I wasn't going to answer that, right?) Okay, here goes nothing.

I believe the Rebel Flag belongs at Civil War monuments and grave sites commemorating fallen American soldiers who fought for their friends, families, homes and sense of honor. I believe the Rebel Flag also belongs at reenactments, and if I ever have the honor of marching under it again, I will do so with pride and respect towards the brave real men who wore the uniform before me and sacrificed their lives for their families, friends and homes. I also believe if a private citizen wishes to display the Rebel Flag or carry Rebel Flag related merchandise, so be it. They should be prepared for backlash, however, and then react with civility and respect for the opinions of others. Conversely, I also believe that opponents and haters of the Rebel Flag have every right to be heard and educate the public as to their views provided they keep their fight legal, civil and aimed at the historical injustice of African American slavery, not the presumed racism of past or present Johnny Rebs.

That being said, I do not believe the Rebel Flag belongs on a federal, state or municipal flagpole with our American flag. Nor do I believe the Rebel Flag should ever be displayed in any way equal to or commensurate with our American flag. I hold these exact same beliefs for any flag that represents a specific group or subculture in our country whether I agree with their core values or not. We are one nation with one national flag that flies alone over all other flags just as our one nation stands above all the separate, distinct and ofttimes opposing groups that comprise its existence. It's called E Pluribus Unum, and I for one think it's the best thing going.

3 comments:

  1. Huh. When I learned you were doing reenactments as a Confederate soldier, it never occurred to me to question your motives. I just assumed it was for research purposes. I'm surprised people took you to task for this. You're a writer. Writers need to get inside the heads of their characters, even (or especially) if their worldview is unpopular or distasteful.

    Good points about the distinction between soldiers and the government they fight for. The line is often blurred on both sides, of course. All too often, calls to "Support the Troops" are merely code for "don't criticize the actions of the military" and, by extension, the poltical authorities who set those actions in motion. I'm sure very few soldiers on the Northern side--including my own ancestors--were risking their lives to free Black people from slavery. They were fighting because there was an enemy and that enemy needed to have its butt kicked. The North was hardly a haven from racism, as many Southern Blacks learned the hard way.

    While the defenders of the institution of slavery are rightfully derided for having benefitted from a system that brutalized a large segment of the population, in some ways they had the right idea. A life of refinement and gentility is, of course, preferable to a lifetime of drudgery and desperation, and exploiting non-white people was the only option available at the time for elevating themselves to that aristocratic level. They didn't have robots, couldn't even conceive of such a thing. So their philosophy was corrupted by the inhumanity required to put it into practice. Now, however, many people dream of a future where everyone lives like antebellum ladies and gentlemen while robots do all the dirty work. In that light, the arguments made by the "plantation elite" in defense of their lifestyle may need to be reexamined one day outside the context of racism.

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  2. Didn't Asimov tackle "robots rights" in several works?

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  3. Robots are machines. They don't have rights, any more than your car does.

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