Mississippi is where America stores morons when Florida is full. It's such a sinkhole of semi-literate, drooling dumbasses you could be forgiven for wondering if it's hard-to-spell name was sent by God just to taunt them... along with all that obesity, racism and poverty.
So no surprise then that the state guvmint in Jackson is issuing a specialty license plate commemorating General Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Forrest is also fondly remembered in those parts for leading the 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow. NAACP Mississippi president Derrick Johnson reacted to the news by saying "Really? Wow."
And to think we wasted two atomic bombs on Japan.
(BTW, if you think I'm being overly harsh on Ol' Miss, just go there before you be the judge of me. Hell, Mississippi makes even the most redneck parts of Texas look like f*cking Stockholm on ecstasy.)
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Really?
ReplyDeleteSweet Jebus Forrest was a vicious killer, in a time and place where vicious REALLY meant something. Too bad the south (well confederates wherever they are) still think they were on the side of God was it Pendelton who was an Episcopal Bishop???
(remember the Germans belt buckles said Gott Mit Uns...)
Well, I'm not 100% sure on US history, but I can't understand why the celebration of this character offends (as indeed it should) because of his antics as you describe them, yet you're quite happy to celebrate Abraham Lincoln who ordered a similar massacre of Souix Indians despatching an equally vicious General Pope to carry it out and who also advocated the deportation of Black people from the USA. Surely that should be equally outrageous?
ReplyDeleteMG, if you played blame as a zero sum game, you'd end up with literally no-one to commemorate (Churchill springs to mind... Dresden bombing?) Everyone accepts most historical figures as at least part asshole - or at least they should - with some redeeming achievements worthy of remembering. Yes, Lincoln wasa c*nt to the Indians - just like every US president in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. But he did fight a war to save the union and abolish slavery. But Forrest was 100% asshole with nothing worth celebrating.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'll take your word for it about Forrest that "he was 100% asshole with nothing worth celebrating" as I don't know enough about him to dispute you. Yet it seems someone somewhere thinks he is worthy of celebrating so he may have done something noteworthy at some point. The fact that "if you played blame as a zero sum game, you'd end up with literally no-one to commemorate" is exactly the point I was trying to make. Virtually every hero from history has a dark side except maybe Ghandi. The thing about Lincoln is that he was also a racist (like this Forrest) who use the 'n' word, made jokes about blacks and believed them to be sub-species. And, from what I understand, he ended up fighting the war to free them more by incremental default rather than some grand, idealistic plan. But, as said, if Forrest was somehow a lot worse, I'll take your word for it.
ReplyDeleteMG, I guess we agree then. I just think it would be a horrible, soulless world if we didn't let some sh*t slide and regard some people as heroes so long as their good, within a historical context, outweighs their bad. Lincoln was a man of his times. And at that time, "good Christian white folks" used the word nigger and it was taken for granted that black folks were only "3/5ths human" under the constitution. But he still freed the slaves. Forrest didn't do anything good except for people who think slavery, secession, civil war and the Klan were good things.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Gandhi? You got me wondering if there would be dirt on even him... check Wikipedia and the bit about Ghandi and his thoughts on South Africa:
"Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilised—the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals."
So not even Gandhi then!
Even Gandhi, eh? Only Santa Claus and Alf Tupper remaining from my childhood pantheon of heroes. And they were both fictional. Well, I don't mind that, it's just the sentimentalised inability of many people to face at least a near approximation of reality that exasperates me.
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