A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen FordClick the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an mp3 copy of this BA Radio commentary.
The so-called "tradition" of U.S. presidents honoring the Confederate war dead began with the Dixiecrat Woodrow Wilson, in 1914. Wilson, born in Virginia, brought segregation to Washington's federal bureaucracy, and praised the Ku Klux Klan-celebrating movie, Birth of a Nation. The Confederate Memorial at Arlington was designed to honor those who fought to "save Anglo-Saxon civilization" - meaning, white rule. President Obama carries on the tradition.
Racist Symbolism Or Memorial Day Tradition? Obama Honors Confederate Dead
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“Obama cannot possibly harbor genuine respect for Black Union dead if he conveys the same honors on Confederates.”
Most of what presidents do is about wielding power, but a great deal of being president is symbolic. Barack Obama is as attuned to symbolism as any of his predecessors – maybe more. When President Obama delivered a wreath to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, on Memorial Day, he knew was playing a very cynical game of incompatible symbols. One cannot pay sincere tribute to the memory of the Black soldiers that fought for the Union in the Civil War, while giving equal honors – or any honors at all – to the soldiers of the Confederacy. But Obama tried to do both. Obama thinks he can finesse anything – which is an indication that he truly respects nothing. He cannot possibly harbor genuine respect for Black Union dead if he conveys the same honors – in the form of a wreath – on Confederates.
Obama is also disrespecting those of us who possess an awareness of history.
The Confederate Memorial was paid for by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and presented as a gift to the federal government in 1914. Woodrow Wilson was president – the most demonstrably racist resident of the White House of the 20th century. The Jim-Crowing of the South was by then all but complete. Wilson was a Democrat – or rather, a Dixiecrat, born in Virginia – and he lost no time imposing segregation on the federal bureaucracy in Washington, DC, where it had not previously existed. Wilson put up walls and partitions to keep Black and white office workers apart, and instituted separate bathrooms. When D.W. Griffith screened his white supremacist epic, Birth of a Nation – a celebration of the Ku Klux Klan – at the White House, President Wilson gave the film its best review. "It's like writing history with lightning,” said Wilson. “And my only regret,” he continued, “is that it is all terribly true."
“President Wilson was embracing a national reconciliation with the Confederate cause – at Black people’s expense.”
In short, President Wilson was a low-down, Ku Klux Klan loving, racist dog. It was, therefore, totally in character for Wilson to become the first president to lay a wreath at the Confederate Memorial. The practice began as a political act, celebrating the new consensus among whites, North and South, that the race problem – the “Negro problem” – would no longer divide them. Instead, the South, and Woodrow Wilson’s Washington DC, would be allowed to divide Black people from whites at every level of society – and to lynch those that objected. That’s the spirit behind Woodrow Wilson’s embrace of the Confederate Memorial. He was also embracing a national reconciliation with the Confederate cause – at Black people’s expense.
Barack Obama now continues the symbolic practice, which celebrates the definitive triumph of white supremacy over all vestiges of Black Reconstruction, at the highest level of the U.S. government. African Americans are supposed to accept that the first Black president sends a wreath to honor Confederates, because he also sent a wreath to the Black Unionists’ memorial. Obama doesn’t think we’ll notice that that puts the Black Civil War dead on an equal basis with the people who were trying to put them back into slavery. He pretends not to recognize that that’s an insult to every decent American. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Comments
"Obama doesn't think we'll
"Obama doesn't think we'll notice that he puts the Black Civil War dead on equal basis with the people who were trying to put them back into slavery."
Except for the few people who 1) didn't drink the Obama kool-aid, and/or 2) don't depend on mainstream media for news - everyone else won't notice this or any of Obama wicked ways. As usual, they'll cover his ass with the excuses "He's trying to be fair," "He can't appear to favor blacks over whites," "The whites in power made him to do it."
I give up trying to talk sense into these ignorant ass black and white fools. They are too brainwashed by and ignorant from years of mass media propaganda and information suppression - along with infatuation with a well-spoken, attractive head biracial negro in charge- to face reality or develop any hint of critical thinking skills. The only "hope" of them waking up and smelling reality is if/when ObamaCo cuts their Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare; f&%ks up their health insurance even more than it's f%&ked up now; or the body count gets into the major 5 figures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even then, they'll be dumb f*&k suckers blaming the white man and Republicans, not Obama and his henchfolk administration.
708
Once again I thank Mr. Ford for being on top of things.
No other Blacks in media seem to be. My, how many more ways will Barry
Obush
think up to show his contempt for Black America. Obama is following in the foot steps
of his role model Ronald Reagan. Regan went to Bitberg, Germany to honore a
Nazi SS grave yard.
I am going to give Barry a quick history lesson. The Confederacy was treason
against
the USA. The Confederacy was backed by foreign powers, Britain specifcally.
After the Civil War white southerners wer forced to retake a loyalty oath to the
USA
and the Constitution. The document of surrender at Appomatox Court House
is still
treaty law. Revisionst apologist for the Confederacy often state that poor
Whites did
not own slaves. My question to them is why would poor Whites fight for elites
that did own slaves?
The last slave in my family was named Nancy. I am a direct descendant of her.
I am sure that Barry does not know this nor care.
His actions are an affront to me and my family. You will not find me
honoring anything about the Confederacy.
Eric
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