<p>Forgive me if this is old news from the U of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, but I just came across it today.</p>
<p>In May an annual parade by the Kappa Alpha fraternity created a controversy when the marchers, many dressed in Confederate Army uniforms and antebellum hoop skirts, paused in front of a African-American sorority house. Apparently the pause was unintentional and had no meaning at all to the march, but sorority members and alumna from all over the nation complained to UA’s president, citing racial insensitivity. The UA Kappa Alpha chapter said it meant no harm and members readily apologized.</p>
<p>How should the broader community feel about the controversy? As for me, I don’t get excited about Confederate events. While I am greatly uncomfortable with the Confederate symbol being affixed to state flags (SC, GA, MS), Confederate regalia and parades are just so much pomp and circumstance to me. Minimally significant nostalgia expressed by the ill-informed and the obsessive alike. And even though that misguided nostalgia is even expressed by bigots on ocassion, I nevertheless feel that demanding that Confederate nostalgia be banned gives it a significance that it doesn’t deserve.</p>
<p>There’s an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story on the May 2009 UA event. Just search ‘Kappa Alpha’ and ‘Old South’ and Alabama to find it.</p>
<p>That reminds me … now is the perfect time to go borrow Confederates in the Attic.</p>
<p>I have a fascination with the Confederacy really, even though I’m a Singaporean Chinese whose main American experience has been in Maine. Had I grown up in Virginia, re-enactment would probably be my thing.</p>
<p>Galoisien, in and of itself, historical concerns and intellectual curiosity about the rise and fall of the southern Conferacy is legitimate. But obsession with its racial ideology is bothersome, but not enough for me to demand that displays of confederate symbols be banned.</p>
<p>There are actually two fraternal organizations known as Kappa Alpha. The first, Kappa Alpha Society, was founded in 1825 at Union College in Schenectady NY, and is the progenitor of the modern fraternity system in North America.</p>
<p>The second, Kappa Alpha Order, (KA) was founded in 1865, when four men at Washington College, in Lexington, Va., decided to bind their friendship by a “mutual pledge of faith and loyalty.” </p>
<p>Their founders sought to create an organization “rooted in the highest ideals of the time; honor, chivalry and gentility.” </p>
<p>This latter, Kappa Alpha Order, is the group in question and the majority of its chapters are located below the Mason-Dixon line, most in the deep south. It has a few disparate chapters in places like North Dakota, Oklahoma and Ohio and even has a chapter at Princeton!</p>
<p>Sadly, the tradition of Old South Balls reaches across many of their chapters and at most of them Confederate army uniforms and antebellum hoop skirts are required clothing. At several large southern chapters they revel in their not so secret “secret” that all wait staff must be “Negroes” to preserve the authenticity of the event. The annual event at UT-Austin is huge. My D is at U South Carolina and has told me several stories about their event that is defintely rooted in traditions of the “Old South”, Confederate uniforms and all.</p>
<p>This is directly from their website:</p>
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<p>I guess you can read anything you’d like into that statement.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification, eadad. The AJC article did note that it was the “Kappa Alpha Order,” the fraternity that originated at Washington & Lee University.</p>
<p>“Apparently the pause was unintentional … The UA Kappa Alpha chapter said it meant no harm and members readily apologized.”</p>
<p>Depending on one’s bias, I suppose this could be read either way. My dad grew up just north of the Mason-Dixon line, and in those days there was no hair-splitting on race. So I guess this controversy shows how far race relations have come in three generations.</p>
<p>I know that history is taught a little differently depending on where you live, and I’ve become aware that having never lived in the South, I don’t really get the nostalgia for the Confederacy. There must obviously be more to it than being slave owners, but that’s all I know about it so I can’t really understand why anybody would want to dress up like that. Also, we won. The pause may or may not have been intentional but I’d think it would be offensive even without the pause.</p>
<p>I went to grad school in the south, a few decades ago. I went to a job interview at a major corporation, and in the room there was a large framed map of the “Confederate States of America.” I found that repugnant. In a museum, it might be acceptable. Should they also frame a map of the Third Reich??? My parents were in North Carolina during WWII, when my Dad was stationed there with the Army. My mom told the story of being shocked when she went into town, and the blocks that had been used for slave auctions were still standing there 75 plus years after the war ended. My grad school experience was nearly 120 years after the war ended. At some point it is not just ridiculous, but highly suspect to commemorate confederate soldiers and antebellum “belles”.</p>
<p>I think that it is important not to sweep away all artifacts of history, but use them to teach lessons. How will we remember and learn? Remnants of concentration camps are still standing.</p>
<p>I’m really charmed by the South … but then again the bulk of my Virginia experience has been C’ville and NoVa … though I did see a man flying four CSA flags from his pickup at a McDonalds and that attracted instant ridicule. A lot of it is probably identity – in an era of industrialism, and later, globalism, Confederate chivalry and antebellum belles may provide a sense of belonging for the disenfranchised. </p>
<p>Just look at the subject matter (and video!) of Taylor Swift’s song ‘Love Story’ … classically Southern, even though Taylor Swift grew up in Pennsylvania…</p>
<p>I sort of have a similar sentiment for the Republic of China (who essentially lost the Chinese Civil War). The KMT wasn’t a particularly good government, especially under Chiang Kai-Shek, but I might be attracted to a group that wore National Revolutionary Army uniforms and 1930s Shanghai dresses and combined the White Sun logo with arbitrary symbols. Re-enacting the CPC’s role during the Chinese Civil War would also be interesting even though I hardly support the CPC’s political position.</p>
<p>It’s sort of a cliched historical question now, but since probably every AP US History student examines the idea – was the Civil War really about slavery? Abolitionism seemed to be just a point, though a very major one, on the Republican election agenda, like universal healthcare in Obama’s campaign. If the sheer majority of the South didn’t own slaves, what were all the Confederate volunteers fiercely fighting for? To a large part I think the common Southerner would have been frustrated with the increasing economic power of the federal government. And since the Civil War did destroy a large swathes of economic power and infrastructure of those who were never slaveowners, it is easy to see how resentment, conscious or subconscious, can arise and get passed from generation to generation.</p>
<p>It is no secret that the South is more economically backwards than the North even today – and economically the Civil War did set an entire century back compared with the North. (California’s infrastructure? Preserved.) War reparations to pay, war debts not forgiven, on top of destroyed infrastructure. And in Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry we do see that the poor whites exhibit a more bitter racism against blacks than the wealthier whites, because the racial “edge” is all they have. So what can be more appealing than indulgence in the idea of “honorable” Rebellion, harking back to an ostensibly more glorious era, with stronger state and local governments (and with it, stronger state militias). </p>
<p>I do think you can wave a Confederate flag and not necessarily be racist. Had the slavery issue not been involved during the Civil War, there’s a good chance I would actually be drawn into this whole romanticism of the Confederacy thing</p>
<p>Yes, yes, yes. State’s rights were essentially the right of each state to decide race-related issues: slavery in the 19th century and segregation in the 20th.</p>
<p>Volunteers in the South were fighting to be kept off the lowest end of the totem pole. In the North, lower-class whites had to do the same work as lower-class blacks. In the South, lower-class whites weren’t well off by any means, but still lived a better life than blacks and lower-class Northern whites, simply because all the worst jobs were taken by blacks.</p>
<p>I lived in the capitol of the Confederacy for several years. During that time I definitely came across a few people, who sadly, still can’t grasp the concept that the war is over. </p>
<p>However, what I mostly learned is that while the Confederacy certainly landed on the wrong side of history, politically and philosphically, that doesn’t diminish many of the personal qualities and individual characteristics of many of those who fought and died. I strongly detest what the Confederacy stood for in our country’s history, but at the same time encountered several human interest aspects I found quite compelling, even admirable in some instances. </p>
<p>While I recognize it’s not always the case, I like to hope that most of those celebrating the lore of the Old South are doing so out of admiration of the latter rather than the former. </p>
<p>And on a more general note, as a yankee born and bred in the north, I must say my personal experiences have led me to believe that real racial problems are far less nefarious in the south than the north. I’d much rather contend with seeing a conferderate flag from time to time than go back to the utterly miserable segregated conditions of the city where I grew up.</p>
The pause may or may not have been intentional but I’d think it would be offensive even without the pause.</p>