One of my favorite satirists, FSU Prof. Diane Roberts, writers in Florida Phoenix:
COMMENTARY
Welcome to the Old South, a myth that refuses to die
In FL, we prefer not to discuss ‘slavery’ unless we are enlightening the ignorant about how it was Not That Bad
A Confederate memorial stands on the lawn in front of the Florida Historic Capitol building on April 27, 2022. Credit: Danielle J. Brown
Our Beloved Southland is once again under attack by ignorant, nasty Yankees who do not understand Our Way of Life.
Unschooled in Decency and Decorum they will even attack a lady.
During a recent New Hampshire town hall, some fellow (probably a Union spy) accosted Gov. Miss Nikki Haley with an impertinent question about what caused the War Between the States.
Gov. Miss Nikki informed him it was all about freedom and how “the government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people.”
Especially the right and freedom of people to own other people and ignore federal law which is, you will surely agree, the American Way.
The rude man insisted Gov. Miss Nikki address “slavery.”
So terribly rude.
Here below Mr. Mason’s and Mr. Dixon’s line, we prefer not to discuss “slavery” unless we are enlightening the ignorant about how it was Not That Bad.
Gov. Miss Nikki knows her history, no matter what those Outside Agitators might say. South Carolina proclaimed itself sovereign in 1860: “a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.”
South Carolina voters declared that under Abraham Lincoln, “the slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection.”
It is true that only certain land-owning white men could vote back then, but surely all the ladies and those Faithful Servants down on the plantation would have agreed with the gentlemen who removed South Carolina from the Union.
Freedom! At least, freedom for the right people. What’s more American than that?
Nonsense
Really, there’s So Much Nonsense talked about slavery.
In Florida (third state to secede!) children rightly learn “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
You have only to read Miss Margaret Mitchell’s brilliant and perfectly accurate novel to see the Truth of this. Mammy, for example, gained such great upper body strength pulling corset strings that, post-The Late Unpleasantness, she earned a little pocket money making sure Miss Scarlett could still achieve the 17-inch waist so prized by Our Southern Ladies.
And what about athletic prowess? Many of those who had African ancestry became sprinters escaping slave patrols, as well as excellent long-distance runners fleeing (for some reason) their plantation homes and the kindly white folks who gave them Everything.
This explains why you see so many of their descendants in the Olympics.
Those influenced by Yankee Education sometimes claim that Africans already had valuable skills when they got on the boat for their free trip to America: metal-working, carpentry, and rice cultivation.
Fiddle-dee-dee: How difficult can it be to grow rice? You just throw it in some water. right?
If you think about it, the South’s Peculiar Institution was really a jobs program for immigrant Africans.
Of course, nobody ever says thank you.
No, instead they attack Our Culture and desecrate Our Monuments.
They melted down a bronze statue of Our Beloved Marse Robert astride Traveler, his Noble Steed.
They banished St. Augustine’s own Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, one of Florida’s two statues in the U.S. Capitol, and replaced him with Mary McLeod Bethune.
She founded a college and was, no doubt, a Credit to Her People, but hardly comparable to the hero who helped lead the 1862 invasion of Kentucky.
Fallen tribute
Now the mayor of Jacksonville has taken down the last Confederate memorial in that once-proud city.
Under the cover of morning on Dec. 28, Mayor Donna Deegan’s hired Philistines arrived to remove the Tribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy from the park where it had rested peacefully since 1915.
First to go was the bronze goddess bearing the Flag of the Southland 1861-1865, then the statue of a sweet Southern Mother reading to her children.
These Works of Art were erected only 50 years after the War of Southern Independence ended, not to remind Black folks they were second-class citizens — we had Jim Crow laws for that — but to celebrate the valiant ladies who “sacrificed their all upon their country’s altar.”
Jacksonville, named for the great general who liberated our best cotton land from the so-called Native Americans who seemed to think they had some rights to it, used to Honor its Heritage.
There are at least a dozen sites dedicated to the War of Southern Liberation, including the site in the St. Johns River where Confederate mines sank the “Maple Leaf,” a Union ship; the site of Camp Captain Mooney where seven gallant soldiers in gray were cut down by Billy Yanks retreating from their fanny-whooping at the Battle of Olustee in February 1864; and, most importantly, the Museum of Southern History, where you can go and learn the Real Story.
The Museum was founded in 1975 by the Sons of Confederate Veterans to counter Fake News about “the Antebellum South, a unique civilization.”
Belittlers
Like so many of us here in Dixie, that civilization, now tragically Gone with the Wind, is “misunderstood by many, belittled and misrepresented by some, but deeply revered by the grateful descendants of the brave men and women whose sacrifices and dedication to a cause created a chapter in our nation’s history.”
Yet despite the best efforts of those who would destroy our glorious birthright, Florida has some Manly Men who rise up and vow, This Aggression Will Not Stand.
Men like our brave governor. Challenged by a Yankee reporter about whether schools in Florida taught the so-called “evils” of slavery, he fought back.
History as taught in Florida is “accurate,” and anyone who says otherwise should shut up with their Wicked Prevarications.
Gov. DeSantis deplored Jacksonville’s insult to the Ladies who Resisted the Invaders from the North: “I’m opposed to taking down statues,” he said. “The idea that we’re going to just erase history is wrong.”
But deliverance is at hand, Southrons! Like Gen. George Pickett charging over Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg, Rep. Dean Black has now put forth a bill (HB 395) for the 2024 legislative session to stop the Desecration of Our Patrimony. Removing monuments will be a Crime. Those who pull them down will have to put them back up on their Own Dime.
The law will be retroactive to 2017, which means the statue of Tallahassee’s Beloved Francis Eppes, planter and founder (kind of) of Florida State University — where folks know what it’s like to be Defeated by a Cruel Enemy with Unfair Advantages such as an industrial economy able to manufacture munitions or a dominant defensive line — may be returned to campus.
Naysayers
When naysayers like Rep. Angie Nixon say things like, “We should not be uplifting losers who wanted to keep my people enslaved,” it just demonstrates the damage done by Woke Schools.
They teach that Reconstruction, when some freed slaves started voting before white people had a chance to educate them on proper decorum, was some kind of attempt to make the “all men created equal” thing a reality.
And that in 1861 Southern white folks weren’t asserting their Rights as Americans but engaging in an insurrection against the United States government.
Oh, Contrary to all of that! Reconstruction forced literally hundreds of the great plantation families of the South into poverty. These were cultured people whose judicious use of free labor enabled them to own fine furniture and nice silver, which their slaves enjoyed polishing.
The states had every right to disassociate themselves from the power-crazed lefties who took office in 1860. Anyway, Lincoln probably stole that election.
Now can I get a Rebel Yell?
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