Confederate Memorial Day

May 23, 2009

For state employees lucky enough to live in South Carolina, Monday May 25 will be the second Memorial Day holiday this month. Confederate Memorial Day was already observed on May 11.

I know what you’re thinking...”that’s racist!” But you’d be wrong. I too used to be uniformed, but you see, as many southerners (who also happen to be white) will tell you, it’s “heritage, not hate.”

Although some southerners may latch on to Confederate Memorial Day because it reminds them of their “heritage,” the issue of this holiday is more complex than the argument against a thinly veiled form of institutionalized racism because many of the men who fought and died for the south had absolutely no desire to do so. Southern landowners and politicians (who were almost always landowners) were the ones who stood to benefit, and poor whites really had no reason to be fighting, except for the fact that they would be killed or imprisoned for deserting. If there is any reason to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, it is to remember the poor bastards who died in a war that they did not want to be involved with in the first place.

 

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