'For The Forgotten African-American Dead'

NOTE: Todays post is different. I plan on submitting the response you’ll find at the end of the article “For the Forgotten African-American Dead”; as it is going in the New York Times. I would ask everyone to critique my response to the article“. Did I misinterpret what they said? Did I state an erroneous fact, misspell something? May-be you could divide your post into a critique of my response then your own comment? Thank you.

There are those who make every issue racial. They use their position as a soapbox and like “Fake News” spout off until someone believes them or in an effort to silence them agree. In this case they offer articles on slavery in the United States never once addressing the many countries that practiced slavery
and who live without belittlement or judgement. Whose populations have accepted life and moved on. They never address modern slavery almost as if broaching the subject would violate the limits of politic correctness. They certainly never address the religions or countries still practicing slavery as apparently that might spoil their status in the world’s eyes as a righteous and non-biased source.

Let’s discuss neglected cemeteries, but both white and black. Once a community because of demographics and opportunities or lack thereof moves on, their social stratification their museums, churches, graveyards often falls into neglect. There are countless cemeteries along with other community sites in every State which are abandoned and neglected.
In the piece “For the Forgotten African-American Dead” the author would have us believe that military graveyards are on the same footing as civilian.
It is clear the author is every bit as biased as the audience he is writing and complaining about. If he were the unselfish, unbiased person he possess to be he would understand even if he does not agree with someone else views. He should at least respect them to the limit(s) he claims he is entitled to be respected. Soldiers admire their foes Yamamoto; Rommel the Taliban. As General Lee said of Grant “Sir, if you ever presume again to speak disrespectfully of General Grant in my presence, either you or I will sever his connection with this university”. The Union Army veterans helped secure Confederate
cemeteries.
Many minorities speak of discrimination when it is clear the last minority is the Southerner. No other class, race, nationality, religion can be slighted without the media and public rushing to their side. Yet, these very person(s) not only do not rush to the Southerners defense, they continue to insult, ridiculing the language, food, dress and heritage. The State of Mississippi has voted several times in the 70 to 80 percentile to leave their State flag as it stands. These numbers show that to remain unchanged, blacks would have to have voted for it to remain unchanged. Yet the flag is continuously attacked, though usually by outsiders.

It is their view of the author and others the Confederate Battle flag and Southern monuments represent white supremacy; that the Confederate veteran is a criminal because he chose what they deemed was the wrong side. No one listens to the Southerner who feels the flag and monuments represent the bravery of a 14 or 70 year old who suffered and died for what he thought was his duty.

It is no different than Viet Nam or any other conflict, it was their duty. It is not up to the soldier why or where to fight but to answer the call. Come to think of it “you” did the same thing with the Vietnamese war; to this day you ridiculed these veterans. I just saw the petition demanding the removal of the Viet Nam Memorial it does not matter which monument you remove first does it? If our monuments need to come down to make you feel better than the monuments to the Horse Soldiers and the United States Colored Troops (USCT ) should come down. These troops mistreated the Native American, Latinos and civilians worse than anything the soldiers of the civil war.

The same thing with the revelations of blacks having fought for the South. Persons like the author incorrectly believe because we are proud of the blacks who fought for the Confederacy, it is to strengthen our claim the war was not fought over slavery. In reality we feel it is just another boy who did what they thought was right.

Most of them ignore documented evidence if they don’t agree with it calling it a lie.
When the Virginia history book posted the report by Doctor Steiner that he personally saw a regiment of black Confederate soldiers it was instantly a lie. Keep in mind this was a Union official whose reports the government used to combat the foe. So either he was a liar or telling the truth. Since he kept his job and appeared to be rather good at it, let’s assume he was telling the truth. It was likely a slave regiment. Documentation shows these units were armed and on countless occasions went into battle. Probably not more than 15,000 total while the Union Army United States Colored Troops (USCT) numbered almost 200,000. What keeps an armed man or men in an army when there were no guards and that was not where he wanted to be? Unless that was where he wanted to be? For some reason it upsets the people of today that anyone could hold a different view than what they
do.

But rather than whine on like the author allow me to end with a statement from a young man by the name Pharrell Williams, who recently said in part "...There’s no space, there’s no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017 and moving on…” . I ask, does that apply just to minorities, gays, women and transsexuals or does it include Southerners who, regardless of the insinuations of the author are less racist than the author?
Further proof of that last accusation can be found in his argument where he calls for the tax-payer to care for abandoned cemeteries of Afro-Americans did he forget or purposely omit the abandoned graveyards of the Irish Catholics; Latinos; Native Americans; Creoles and certainly Middle Easterners. He made it quite clear it did not include white Southroners.