re: #134 Barefoot Grin

“…I imagine this is common wisdom as a result of the education in the South.”

It’s not. I taught American history for years, and I always laid out the causes of the Civil War, including slavery. The GA State BOE requires that that information is taught in all of its public high schools. Southerners who attended public schools and paid attention in American history class know slavery was the primary cause of the CW. Their denial isn’t due to not being exposed to that fact but to their refusal to acknowledge that some of their ancestors did indeed wage a war to keep blacks enslaved and thought it was important enough to rebel against their own government. The states’ rights’ lie as being the #1 cause of the CW is a dodge, a way to maintain the benefits that white supremacy affords citizens in Confederate states and elsewhere. It also absolves them of having to take ownership of the sordid attitudes, cruelty, racism, and anti-democratic sentiments of the and their ancestors. This issue of revering the Confederate flag and those monuments and being willing to die for them will continue on into the future because those who do it will never acknowledge the major reason for secession and the CW was southern states citizens’ and governments thinking that one race of people was superior to another.