Growing up in a part of Texas that legitimately belongs to the Deep South more than it does to the spreading plains of central and northern Texas, I grew up hearing again and again things like this:
-The Civil War (usually "The War Between the States" or even occasionally "The War of Northern Aggression") was about "states' rights" and trying to uphold the 10th Amendment.
-The Confederacy weren't the aggressors, even though they fired first at Fort Sumter. They were merely defending their right to secede from Yankee tyranny.
-Slavery, and its abolition, was only an issue when "preserving the Union" fell apart in the face of Confederate military victories in the Eastern Theater of the war.
-Confederate symbols in post-bellum Southern society were about heritage and a remembrance of the fallen; race and racism had nothing to do with it.
I wore my Southern gear proudly. My gray kepi made appearances has been seen on my head at Grand Gulf, Vicksburg, Antietam, Harper's Ferry, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and the Wilderness/Spotsylvania. I don't think I had it with me when we went to Chickamauga, but it may as well have been on my head there, too. I always played as the South when playing games like "Civil War Generals II." I was a minor expert on military history related to the Civil War, always willing to talk about how the South could have won if only they'd (fill in the blank). I wrote an article on young people that made it into the e-mail newsletter of the (thankfully now-defunct) Southern Party, a group of new-school secessionists. I advocated an independent Texas; I once expressed a desire that George Wallace's campaign for the presidency in 1968 hadn't foundered. I defended the likes of Strom Thurmond. I remember once "man-splaining" to an African American teacher why it was that the Confederate flag wasn't, in fact, a symbol of racism, but just a part of "our Southern heritage."
The moment it all started to change for me was in 10th grade. For Bible class at my small, private, Christian secondary school, we were required to spend the first 15-20 minutes of class reading. Our teacher offered up a pretty wide array of devotional literature, spiritually edifying fiction, and the like; every quarter, we were to have finished at least one book. To help us out, we could check the books out from her and read at home, too. For one quarter, I opted to read a novel called Dominion by Randy Alcorn. Its protagonist is African American, and there's a lot of reflecting on the realities of race and racism in society throughout the novel.
Of course, since I "wasn't racist" because I never said certain slurs out loud (I merely thought them), I figured I was not the person the novelist needed to address, until one day when I was putting gas in my car. In the novel, the protagonist describes the experience he's had, as a black man, of watching women clutch their purses closer when he walks by, and of watching men check their pockets for their wallet - all done instinctively, without any conscious effort. Naturally, I thought this was interesting, but assumed I'd never do such a thing. An African American man pulled up to the pump next to me. The next thing I knew, I felt my hand wrapped around my wallet. I froze and felt a cold, hard chill settle over me.
It was the moment I realized that I am racist. Not by choice or by conscious design; simply because it is virtually inescapable in U.S. American society as a white person. We're programmed, for the most part, to treat people of color (especially people who are black) like threats and react accordingly.
Much of my adult life has been spent trying to come to terms with my "Road to Damascus" moment at a gas station, fittingly in Lee County, Texas...yes, named for *that* Lee. I wondered if I was defective. I tried to figure out ways to qualify my own attitudes held within me, to make me out to be "just" a little prejudiced, ya know, like everyone else. I toned down my "moonlight and magnolias" rhetoric and started distancing myself from some of the hardcore right-wing ideas I'd once considered.
As a college student, I made a conscious decision to force myself to deal outright with whatever prejudices I had burbling under my surface. I chose to spend a semester in Ghana, where I would have to confront the reality of my whiteness, the legacy of slavery, and learn how to live and function in a world in which I was the minority. I researched the articles of secession from Confederate states in the 1860s, and discovered that "states' rights" is only an accurate assessment of the rationale for secession if "...to preserve slavery" is added on to the end of the phrase. Every state explicitly cited maintaining slavery as its reason to leave the union. I lived in a house with two African American roommates. I made my peace with the fact that the voice in my head, that tries to label people of color with derogatory terms and stereotypes, will always be with me - a reminder of where I come from, a thorn in my flesh.
I've committed myself to the work of anti-racism as a recovering racist. Like an addiction, my racism never goes away. The voice is always there. However, I can be conscious of it and choose not to listen to what it says - by the grace of God, I am free to change my behavior even if I can't change immediate thoughts.
In my old childhood bedroom, that Confederate flag and gray kepi still hang on a pair of deer antlers, a stereotypical Southern scene reflecting the world which helped form me. On my next trip to Texas, they're getting thrown out because, in a world where racism has ripped its mask right off and revealed its ugly face, they serve no purpose other than to antagonize. "Heritage, not hate" is as gone with the wind as Scarlett O'Hara. The problem is that the heritage can't be held separately from the hate it's incubated and nurtured.
To those whom this has shocked or offended, I offer my apologies. More importantly, to those who have been offended or hurt by own actions and attitudes stemming from the racism which for too long informed by interaction with the world, I offer my apologies. To those who are struggling with how to be a white U.S. American in the face of racism, or who are fighting hard against a sense that they, too, might be racist, I offer my prayers and an open invitation to talk with someone who knows those roads too well.
"There is no future without forgiveness," says Desmond Tutu. The journey to forgiveness begins with confession and repentance. I make my confession, I express my own journey of repentance, and I ask God to help and guide me along the way.
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