I once had a good friend give me his theory about “Yankees.” Not the kind of disparaging Yankee jokes that I’ve heard for years (“What do you call a Yankee who moves to the South? A damn Yankee.”). Rather, he had a belief that unless someone has actually lived in a Southern state or was born there, he or she is simply incapable of understanding what it means to respect the history and heritage of the South. They just don’t get it.
One of the key components of political correctness is to revise history. After all, if history can fit one’s national or world view, it’s a lot easier to advance an agenda, right? For whatever reason, media elitists have consistently portrayed Southern politicians as buffoons and the South as a vast wasteland of barefoot, straw-chewing ignoramuses. It’s simply a form of bigotry that is not only ignored, but practically encouraged.
Consider what would happen if school districts refused to close their doors on Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Imagine the outrage. Yet like the story of the Civil War, Dr. King had plenty of flaws and faults and made mistakes along his journey. The fact that Southerners, like plenty of Northerners, owned slaves does nothing to diminish the pride that millions of people feel about their ancestors’ participation in the Civil War – on both sides. States like South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas honor Confederate soldiers because it’s the honorable thing to do.
Ever watch the movie, “Song of the South?” If you’re under the age of 30, you probably haven’t seen Uncle Remus singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” or admired the cutting-edge technology of mixing animation with live action the way this Disney classic did. Because “Song of the South”, a movie that depicts a character named Uncle Remus who was a slave, has been pretty much completely banned from video stores everywhere. Evidently, the politically-correct police determined that this is not a movie that should be viewed by an enlightened and “forward-thinking” America.
The South Carolina school districts that remained open on Confederate Memorial Day this week are just as guilty of dampening the spirit and pride of the South and threaten to homogenize students to such an extent that any semblance of southern heritage will become extinct.
It would be yet another great American tragedy if the song of the south – the story of the Confederacy -- is silenced forever.