I'm old enough to have absorbed quite a bit of pre-1960's white culture in the South while simultaneously having been reared by my grandparents and great-grandmother.
In order to help you comprehend the Southern mindset, I have to begin with the premise that much of America was settled by very determined, hard-headed, no-nonsense, under-educated people with a Do-or-Die attitude. So many people, such as my great-grandmother faced death and privations in everyday life. My Great-grandmother told me of her family's move from Tennessee to Texas in a covered wagon, in her words: "Chased by bloodthirsty savages whooping war cries" along the way.
To present day folks, this is not a politically correct phraseology!
Native Americans are seen today as simply as stone age aborigines dispossessed by white people. To my Great-grandmother, they were terrifying murderers hellbent on her destruction.
Now, what does all that have to do with the Confederate Flag, you may well ask?
The deeply ingrained attitude of black and white, life or death, right or wrong stemmed primarily from US or THEM. It was a no-brainer.
This is reflected in our old friend, George Bush's famous words: "If you're not with us, you're against us."
Survival was the only real truth. There were no social or political niceties in the South.
People sized you up at a glance and formed a rock hard opinion at the get-go.
Remember that . . . it will help us later.
Confederate States consisted of a mixed bag of diverse people who hated Northern politicians. Southerners were a pre-technology people and they looked upon their slaves as human farming equipment--no more and no less. The fact that they looked human could have quickly made it impossible for decent, god-fearing Christians to treat them so inhumanly--IF it weren't for the fact Southern preachers disabused them of that notion.
Not only were blacks the beneficiaries of a curse placed on Noah's son Canaan, but God actually approved of slavery. So--what's to lament?
Northern industrialist city-slickers were trying to horn in and force genteel Southern folks to--in effect--get rid of their farming equipment! HOW DARE THEY!
Beginning to get the picture?
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When I was a child, I saw red-neck men everywhere and I deeply feared them. They had their sleeves rolled high, they cussed, they treated their wife like shit and were damned well not going tolerate anybody telling them what to do. They worshipped Jesus Christ, loved their shotgun (which rode just behind their head on a rack in the ever-present pickup truck--and would be quick to condemn Yankees as worse than rats spreading the plague.
Where did this attitude come from?
Easy--from their Daddy and his daddy before him.
When the South lost the Civil War for real--it did NOT PENETRATE the cognitive dissonance of these stubborn jackasses!
"THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN!"
This still holds in much of the state of Texas, for sure.
What other war in history is RE-FOUGHT every year in perpetuity by grown men dressed up in uniforms on a 'sacred battleground' like Little Round Top and Gettysburg?
Why?
They just won't face reality: the old ways of Southern charm and comfort are gone with the wind.
Southern men had privilege. They were each the king of his own castle. Each man's world was ideal (for him.) Little boys grew up next to their Redneck Dad watching him and listening to him pontificate on "Right and Wrong." It was a deepset bond.
Fortunately, I did not grow up with a Dad in my household. So, I escaped this plague of 'culture'. But, I'm here to explain it to you today.
In the very same way Jehovah's Witnesses cannot open their mind to any idea which does not make them the ONLY TRUE religion--Southerners in the U.S. cannot abide giving up their Confederate Flag symbol of hard-headed, never-say-die insanity.
How bad is this attitude today? In Fort Worth where I live, only men over the age of 65 secretly express these views. These are the Fox News constituency. They dare not say any of this aloud--only privately.
Texas, Georgia, North and South Carolina and other southern states--depending on the heritage of Father/Son--are the seedbed for Confederate obstinancy.
When men my age die off--so too will this mindset.
