MLK Day

[studyhard]

The whole point here is that the subject quickly turned "south". We all say we are not bigots or racists but seriously, there's some sort of proof.

Gary, I believe your profile says you're from New Jersey? If you've never lived in the deep South, you may not realize that things like Lee and Jackson's birthday are just a neat deal to some folks. It's not just some sort of "nyah nyah" to MLK day. This Saturday I am going to a Lee-Jackson banquet, one of many in my state. The speaker is a reenactress who does a first-person presentation of Jackson's wife. I am going to be wearing a Civil War ball dress and playing 1860s dinner music on my harp. It's just a cool thing to us. It's not some sort of in-your-face nastiness--we just like to celebrate it, because we respect those men.

I'm saying this because I think your assumption that saying "It's also Lee/Jackson's birthday" is bigotry or racism. Bigotry and racism says, "My race is superior to yours." I'm simply saying, "Hey, there's a neat Southern celebratory day the same day as MLK day," that all.

I have no use whatsoever for an attitude that things one race is somehow superior to another. I have black friends. They are super cool. I can't fathom thinking that I'm somehow better than someone else because of my skin. How OBNOXIOUS. Yeah, a lot of Southerners believed in white supremacy back in the 1860s. So did a lot the Northerners though. That's just how society was back then. But it's certainly not how I am today.