Yesterday’s newsletter covered a new trend among Republican politicians, influencers, and mouthpieces: Calling themselves “Heritage Americans.” They claim Heritage Americans are those who have ancestors who were on US ground during the Civil War.
I did a deep dive into the different definitions of the word HERITAGE and focused on its archaic definition “Christians or the ancient Israelites. Seen as God’s chosen people.” I include a link to that newsletter in case you missed it:
Today, let’s focus on how the word HERITAGE has been used to excuse continued displays of the Confederate battle flag and associated behaviors.
Until this year, I lived in the Southern United States.
I grew up in a segregated neighborhood with one Black family that I knew of. I attended a segregationist White Christian Nationalist school; it existed because parents didn’t want to send their children to school with Black kids, even though they told themselves their children were exposed to Bible stories instead of evolution.
Of course, I saw Confederate flags. People flew them. Wore t-shirts and hats emblazoned with them. One bedecked the dome of the South Carolina state capitol when we went to Columbia on a field trip.
When anyone was asked why they’d display such a hateful, racist emblem, they always responded, “It’s HERITAGE, not hate.”
In the wake of Charlottesville, the Christian magazine Sojourners outlined this argument in order to debunk it. It goes something like this:
The Civil War was fought over state’s rights, not slavery. My ancestors fought for their families, their homes, and for the constitutional right of states to govern within their own borders, not for the right to own slaves. The Confederate Army was made up overwhelmingly of poor farmers and my ancestors and the vast majority of those fighting for the Confederacy never owned slaves. The flag under which they fought was not, and therefore is not, a symbol of racism but of the struggle for state rights. And the first amendment guarantees my right to freedom of speech, so I have a right to display the Confederate flag in whatever manner I choose. It’s heritage, not hate. (SOURCE: Sojourners)
To illuminate this racist, insulting argument, I’m going to leave readers with pictures of what anyone who wants to call themselves a Heritage American should forever be associated with.
Because in my view, the term HERITAGE AMERICAN derives directly from this racist HERITAGE, NOT HATE argument to reframe the Civil War as a struggle for “state’s rights.” It seeks to label only White Christian Nationalist men who have ancestral ties to the Civil War as HERITAGE AMERICANS.
Therefore, anyone who wants to call himself a HERITAGE AMERICAN should be saddled with everything that represents.
Warning: These images may be upsetting.
Heritage Americans think it’s just fine to own other human beings and treat Peoples of Color as inferior. This is the “heritage” they defend. These are enslaved Black people near Savannah, Georgia. Circa 1860. Their forebears were kidnapped, dragged into ships against their will, thrown overboard if they died in route to such an extent that sharks followed slave ships, sold like animals at public auctions, separated from their families, and forced to do backbreaking work seven days a week for no pay. They were often beaten and tortured, and many of the women and girls were repeatedly raped.
The Confederate battle flag is the flag of a Heritage American (IMAGE SOURCE: CNN). This one is part of a monument South Carolina legislators erected on the statehouse grounds after they were forced to remove it from the dome. Until 15 July 2015, the Confederate battle flag flew where the South Carolina state flag flaps in the background.
This an example of a historical Heritage American costume:
Though contemporary examples of Heritage American uniforms include the following:
Heritage Americans revere this man, failed Confederate general and traitor to his country Robert E. Lee:
