We Are All Confederates Now

(SUMMERVILLE, S.C.) — Residents of a predominantly black South Carolina neighborhood marched this weekend to protest the display of a confederate flag outside an area home.

The flag, which hangs outside the residence of Annie Caddell, a white woman, drew criticism from the crowd who says it represents Civil War-era sentiments of racism and slavery.

Nearly 80 residents of Summerville, S.C., protested the display.

On the opposite side was a group of approximately 15 of Caddell’s supporters who gathered in front of her home with confederate battle flags.

The woman, who has the legal right to display the flag, has refused to take it down, calling it a symbol of her heritage.

Copyright 2010 ABC News Radio

It happens again and again: the politically incorrect act or statement, followed by condemnation in all directions, and then apology or silence.

I remember attending a session on “racism” at a lounge in my dormitory during my freshman orientation at college. (My college was probably 80-85% white.) The presentation emphasized the subtle ways that students “of color” suffered because of unconscious prejudice and “institutional racism.” In the discussion that followed, a white boy raised his hand and said, “If black students have their own exclusive groups that whites can’t belong to, isn’t that a kind of racism?” Good question, but the discussion that ought to have followed was cut short by one of the politically active black girls, who said, “well, I’ve heard people say that, and it’s pretty much bulls—t.” I am afraid not one white person there, including the professor who was mediating the event, had any reply to this, so the question went unanswered and the questioner learned what happens when you try to have an honest discussion about race.

This at a prestigious institution of higher education.

I’ll bet that black girl ended as up a high-paid lawyer or judge.

Now that I have become accustomed to getting most of my news through blogs and other sources that are not ruled by political correctness, I wonder what reality must look like to people who are getting their information from mainstream TV, magazines, and newspapers. What is odd is that I think they are actually getting most of the same news I am getting, but filtered in different ways. For example, I read about the Ground Zero mosque controversy mainly on anti-jihad blogs, but most of my relatives probably had it presented to them by Newsweek, CNN, and Jon Stewart.

These mainstream, liberal organs are incapable of presenting the reality of matters like the Muslim threat to the West or the ways in which whites are harmed by the shrinking of their share of the population. And yet, unintentionally, they do often present information that contradicts their politically correct perspective.

For instance, one element of their liberal “script” is the presence of large numbers of ignorant, angry white Christians who are always getting in the way of progressive ideas like national health care or mosques in downtown Manhattan. Consequently, they seem to feel compelled to bring attention to such individuals.

And as if in synchronicity with this impulse of mainstream journalists, somehow or other politically incorrect views and statements do emerge. These may be mainstream personalities who have a “slip of the tongue” or go too far in trying to be provocative, like Bill O’Reilly stating that “Muslims killed us” on 9/11. Or they may be non-mainstream leaders like the Pastor Terry Jones with his Koran-burning project. Or ordinary people who for whatever reason felt compelled to act, like Koran-burner Derek Fenton, who I dearly hope has been able to find a job, because he did exactly what I would have liked to do. Or people who just don’t want to change the way they live, like Annie Caddell, who has been flying a Confederate flag in her mostly black neighborhood.

The funny thing is, there are hundreds of people writing (mostly anonymously) on the Internet who express dissident views with far greater erudition and intelligence, but the media instead focuses on what you might call easy targets, people who are not fully able to articulate and defend their views, but who through a certain thick-skinned quality and arguably a lack of sense, drew the attention of their religious or ethnic adversaries or of liberal journalists. I mean, honestly, is it quite sensible to fly a Confederate flag in a black neighborhood that you’ve moved into? No, it is not. I wouldn’t do it, and I would wonder if someone who would is lacking a bit of common sense. I mean, she is either naive or extremely audacious. But in this crazy world, people like her end up doing a valuable service, because they keep certain issues alive in the mainstream. And I believe that when the mainstream media highlights a person like this, they weaken the liberal position that they intend to support, because some people are going to notice that ganging up on the non-PC person is a sign of something much uglier and more dangerous than the “hate” or ignorance that non-PC person is supposed to embody.

By the way, I’ve always identified with the North in the Civil War, but when I was a kid it was permissible to feel that both sides represented part of the American heritage, and that there was much nobility and tragedy in the story of the defeated South. And when I was at Gettysburg, I bought a Confederate flag, and thought it was pretty darn cool.

I suppose that the media typically pick weak targets because if they were to engage with the few articulate public figures opposing the liberal regime – and I do not mean those writing for National Review, but people more like Jared Taylor – they would be in danger of guilt by association, or of having to engage with arguments too powerful to handle. But I also feel that there is a certain compulsion to seek the politically incorrect on the part of the most adamant defenders of liberalism. They must know, on some level (I am speaking of white liberals), that some part of the truth – which is also their truth, since they belong to the same ethnic “family” as the non-PC offenders – is being suppressed. So, in an odd way, the self-censoring PC liberals and the not-quite-civilized non-PC actors are doing a kind of dance together. Who knows but that the dance may not lead to both sides getting to know each other better?

If Annie Caddell is eventually forced to back down – which is the usual result in such cases – it will be a small tragedy. But I like to believe that such irruptions of rebellion against the liberal order that is, python-like, squeezing the life out of our historic nation and culture, are the forerunners to a much larger movement, in which the various actors will find their voice and band together to be a force to reckon with.

Update

It’s not exactly the same thing, but Robert Frost has a good poem which is, as I understand it, the wry self-defense of someone who has said or done something a little socially unacceptable, but not really bad.

Not Quite Social

Some of you will be glad I did what I did,
And the rest won’t want to punish me too severely
For finding a thing to do that though not forbid
Yet wasn’t enjoined and wasn’t expected clearly.

To punish me overcruelly wouldn’t be right
For merely giving you once more gentle proof
That the city’s hold on a man is no more tight
Than when its walls rose highter than any roof.

You may taunt me with not being able to flee the earth.
You have me there, but loosely as I would be held.
The way of understanding is partly mirth.
I would not be taken as ever having rebelled.

And anyone is free to condemn me to death——
If he leaves it to nature to carry out the sentence.
I shall will to the common stock of air my breath
And pay a death-tax of fairly polite repentance.

Representing Diversity

If America is a land of immigrants characterized by “diversity,” how do we represent ourselves to ourselves?

Prior to the 1960s, Americans were represented in advertising and the popular media as white, without shame or self-consciousness. After that, a black presence came to be increasingly obligatory, often in the form of a single black person added to an otherwise white group. This was normally done with the very best of intentions, though in doing so whites would often find themselves then accused of “tokenism.” Does anyone remember the character Franklin in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts?

Now, all bets are off. One thing we can be sure of is that to portray an all-white group of people is to open oneself to the charge of “racism” by advocates for various non-white ethnic groups, and by whites themselves. Such was the case when Vanity Fair recently ran a photo feature on actresses it deemed the “fresh faces” of Hollywood, and daringly (or doltishly) failed to include any women of “color” in the lineup:

Most Americans seem to accept the “diversity” presented to them on the walls of Kroger, Wal-Mart, and Target and on numerous pamphlets by government agencies and insurance companies, not to mention the majority of TV advertisements, as a positive thing. I used to feel this way myself, back when the “minority” population of the United States was still only 15% or so, and I hadn’t realized that it was growing at rates that would eventually make minorities the majority. When I noticed, for example, how judges were being represented all out of proportion to reality as black and female, my thought was something like: “This may not reflect reality, but it shows black people that we welcome them in these roles, and it represents an ideal we all aspire to.” I suppose many people think similar things today about the far more advanced ideal of diversity that reigns today, especially since the minorities really are growing very strong in numbers and, seemingly, can’t be ignored.

I no longer think, though, that the ideal of “diversity” is positive, or even harmless. The reason is that to put the ideal in visual or artistic form requires the suppression of the deep, enduring differences between the various ethnic groups in America today and the relentless conflicts, trauma, and expense associated with their co-existence in the same society. These differences and conflicts will only continue to grow with the ongoing transformation of America into a white-minority society. No one taking any account of trends in social ills like crime, terrorism, and illegitimacy, or of the increasing dysfunction of our educational and political institutions, can deny that “diversity” has extracted a serious toll on our national well-being.

In any event, the ideal of diversity is manifested in some peculiar and inconsistent ways in the media. It can be amusing to note some of the practices that have emerged. To name a few:

1) Local news anchors. Where I live, the combination of one black man and one white woman, or one black woman and one white man, has long been virtually de rigeur. (In CNN and other national media outlets, Hispanic and even Asian and Indian ethnicities are increasingly represented, and this has trickled down to the local level to an extent.) Black people might find “tokenism” objectionable, but when the total number of the group is only two, the requirement that one be black is disproportionately empowering.

2) The light-skinned or biracial black woman, often with the unthreateningly frizzy hair. Only a minority of black women look like this in real life, but you wouldn’t know this from advertisements.

3) The figure clearly intended to be identified as Hispanic, who simultaneously looks so “white” that you could never prove that intention. In reality, most Hispanics here in the U.S. are clearly identifiable as Mestizo or Amerindian. One way acceptance of “Hispanic-ness” is being foisted on us is by surrounding us with images of lots of tannish-looking people who are plausibly white. Didn’t Americans always look like this? Well…no. By the way, my wife says that the “nude” color for women’s underclothing in the U.S. has become noticeably tanner in recent years.

4) Images of people of certain ethnic groups in roles clearly contradicting our image of those groups in real life. There is a very amusing poster at my local YMCA showing three children or youths performing physical activities. There is a black boy swimming, an Asian boy playing basketball, and an Asian girl lifting weights. Each one is doing precisely the thing you’d expect him to be poor at. Incidentally there is no white person present at all.

5) The panel, ensemble, or other group, of which each member comes from a different ethnic group. An example would be the early lineup of “The View,” with a black, white, Jewish, and Asian member (there seems not to be an Asian in the current lineup). Or, consider the quartet of musicians who played at the Obama inauguration: Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero, Itzhak Perlman, and Anthony McGill. Wonderful musicians; I begrudge them nothing. But I do remember someone at the National Review writing something like “Do you suppose they were picked for their ethnicity? I sure hope not!” OF COURSE they were chosen for their ethnicity.

The reader will certainly be able to think of other permutations.

Informally enforced diversity in advertising and the media may only be a minor issue for most people: at times unnoticeable, at times annoying, at times amusing. But it reflects a deeply oppressive power at work that forces us to constantly think about all the “others” in our society, something which I believe affects our ability to simply be ourselves and, on that basis, to live the best lives we can and to create the best society we can. Lawrence Auster put it well in his pamphlet The Path to National Suicide, when he discussed the future of art in a multicultural society:

As the image of our civilization, as expressed in the arts and literature, changes to a multiracial, multicultural image, what kind of art will result? Movies and plays, instead of portraying the relationships of individuals within a community or family, as drama has done time out of mind, must focus self-consciously on race relations. Established literary works that have formed a living bridge between one generation of Americans and the next will fall into oblivion, to be replaced by works on minority, Hispanic and Asian issues. The religious paintings of the multiculturalist society, instead of portraying a group of individuals chosen from the artists’ imagination, would follow a statistical formula; the figures gathered around the Christ child would have to be x percent brown, x percent black, yellow, white and so on, all chosen on the basis of racial balance rather than their individual character. Diversity would so overwhelm unity that the idea of diversity within unity would be lost.

Though it may be easier to go with the flow, I can’t accept the culture we Americans are now being presented with. It all starts with immigration, and though it may seem that the “horse is out of the barn” with respect to Hispanic and other non-European immigration, we must continue to resist this colonization of the United States which now continues clearly for the benefit of the groups coming in, not those already here. And whatever the results may be, we traditional Americans are going to have to find a way to live in our own society so we can be ourselves. It starts with refusing to accept the status quo, and challenging it wherever and however we can.

Ohio’s Rejection of a Western Democrat

I have been concerned with the fate of William Allen, lifetime Democratic politician and governor of Ohio from 1873-75, since it was announced that there was a movement to remove his statue from the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol building, where it has stood for 113 years. Each state is entitled to place in the hall two statues of

deceased persons who have been citizens thereof, and illustrious for their historic renown or for distinguished civic or military services such as each State may deem to be worthy of this national commemoration….

Allen’s statue joins that of President James Garfield in representing Ohio. Unfortunately, Allen held views that now mark him as “racist,” an unforgivable crime in our society today. Since there appear to be no extenuating grounds, he will have to go, forcibly deported to his home state, where hopefully there will be a few supporters left in his one-time residence of Chillicothe to take him back.

In classic liberal-bureaucratic problem-solving mode, a committee of lawmakers is soliciting names for a replacement. Thomas Edison seems in this article to have the most support (though he doesn’t seem to have lived in Ohio after age 10), and the Wright Brothers are strong candidates, but count on Jesse Owens and Annie Oakley to leverage the “diversity” factor and make a strong showing.

Allen was one of the memorable politicians of his time, a skilled orator, scrupulously honest and loyal, and a Jacksonian Democrat deeply devoted to his constituency. It is true that he does not emerge as a truly great figure. As his biographer wrote, “He was not the equal of Daniel Webster in scholastic acquirement; nor the peer of Henry Clay in oratory; nor the rival of John C. Calhoun in the subtlety of debate.” (1) As a  senator he won renown for his speeches attacking the national banking system on behalf on Van Buren and for supporting U.S. annexation of the entire Oregon Territory. He emerged from retirement at age 70 to be elected governor of Ohio on an anti-corruption platform, and succeeded in lowering taxes, but fell out of public favor for his support of the inflationary policy of printing “greenbacks.”

All in all, an interesting and mixed legacy. However, the real problem for him today is the position on slavery he took as a “Northern Democrat” during the Civil War.

As a Democrat Allen believed in the policy of non-interference with the slavery question. He could not approve either abolition or the rising tide of free-soilism that was already invading his own section. Occupied in the past few years with foreign affairs, he failed to perceive that slavery had become the absorbing question of the day. He did not wish to yield to the slave owner nor to interfere with the latter’s property rights. He opposed all agitation on the subject. (2)

Allen initially supported the Lincoln administration in the Civil War, but “as the war progressed and abolition of slavery rather than the restoration of the Union became the evident objective, he changed to an uncritical [i.e. unconditional] opponent.” (3) His views were identical to those of a vast number of Northerners. His misfortune today comes from the fact that he expressed them in dramatic speeches.

In 1862, responding to the first Emancipation Proclamation, he conjured to his audience his horror at what liberation of the slaves might bring about.

“Every white laboring man in the North who does not want to be swapped off for a free nigger should vote the Democratic ticket,” commenced Allen. “He regarded the policy that the mad abolitionist fanatics were endeavoring to fasten on the country as destructive of the Constitution, the Union, and of the white man’s interests…. Suppose that the contemplated emancipation should be inaugurated successfully. Seven or eight hundred thousand negroes with their hands reeking in the blood of murdered women and children would present themselves at our Southern borders demanding to cross over into our state as Ohio’s share of the freed negroes – seven or eight hundred thousand negroes without money, without food, and without personal property of any kind, who, in virtue of nature’s law were compelled to eat and be clothed. Then would come the conflict between the white laborers and the negroes. The negroes would enter into such competition with the white laborers that the latter would have to abandon the field of labor here – make way for the negroes – or maintain their ground by waging a war on the negroes that would result in driving them from the state, or in their extermination.”

Allen added that “None of these fanatics who claim to be acting in behalf of philanthropy…would consent that their sons and daughters should intermarry with the negroes.” He imagined that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued by Lincoln under pressure from the fanatics in the Republican party at an impractical time, “to teach the radicals that the measure could result in no good.” (4)

Allen obviously comes off here as someone appealing to the fears of his white constituents, not as someone moved by compassion for negroes; nor could his imagination extend to anticipating the nuances of how a black migration to the North would take place or what its consequences would be. In truth, he seems not to have grasped the unsustainability of the slave system, or why there was such bitter opposition to it. Still, we should not be too quick to judge him for his prejudices. Was he wrong to fear black migration to Ohio? It was to have consequences for places like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo that would have stunned Allen and his “section.”

Allen’s 1925 biographer tempered a general admiration for his subject with the conclusion that:

To the author, William Allen is an example of the leader who appeals to the emotions of his constituents rather than to their reason. He played upon their national passions, their unreasoning antipathies, their inherited prejudices and their unthinking desires. He seldom, if ever, tried to formulate their longings on the basis of calm, balanced judgment. He strove to discover and satisfy their wants with the blind devotion of the servant rather than the wisdom of the ruler. His career discloses vividly the power of public opinion, for good and evil, in the working of our government. When this public opinion is partly molded by leaders that strive to arouse the intellect, it is apt to be a thinking public opinion; but if the leader plays only on the emotions, these alone are likely to be stirred. The latter was Allen’s general procedure. (5)

Ironically, Allen’s limitations were grounded in his Democratic principles, and the appeal the early Democrats made to the intemperate desires of voters certainly has its echoes in present-day politics. It may be that someone can be found who is qualified to replace Allen in the statuary. The problem, though, is that we are not qualified to replace him. With our mindless march to the tune of “diversity,” we cast aside the memory of our forebears, condemning them to be replaced by a collage of predictable figures – black athletes, proto-femininists – that reflects the fantasies of a society in decline. I suggest to Ohio that they give Allen an extension. Fifty years, perhaps, would be enough time to see whether his proposed replacements stand the test of time, or whether even greater men emerge.

Notes

(1) Reginald McGrane, William Allen: A Study in Western Democracy, Columbus, Ohio: F. J. Heer (The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society), 1925, p. 259.

(2) Fred Haynes, Review: William Allen: A Study in Western Democracy, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 (March 1926), p. 604.

(3) Ibid, p. 605.

(4) McGrane, p. 157-159.

(5) McGrane, p. 260.

Was Life Better Before the Revolution?

One passage from George Orwell’s 1984 that has stuck with me for a long time is the scene where Winston Smith, suspecting that the accounts of British society prior to the totalitarian revolution may be false, decides to ask someone who was actually alive then about them. Wearing the “worker’s” overalls that mark him as a Party member, he slips into a pub which caters to the Proles, or common people. There, he encounters an old man who is unsuccessfully trying to order a pint of beer:

“And what in hell’s name is a pint?” said the barman, leaning forward with the tips of his fingers on the counter.

“Ark at ‘im! Calls ‘isself a barman and don’t know what a pint is! Why, a pint’s the ‘alf of a quart, and there’s four quarts to the gallon. ‘Ave to teach you the A, B, C next.”

“Never heard of ‘em,” said the barman shortly. “Liter and half liter — that’s all we serve. There’s the glasses on the shelf in front of you.”

Winston buys the man a drink and proceeds to question him about what life was like when he was younger. The man, though, responds unsatisfyingly that the beer was better, and cheaper. Winston then presses the point:

“The history books say that life before the Revolution was completely different from what it is now. There was the most terrible oppression, injustice, poverty worse than anything we can imagine. Here in London, the great mass of the people never had enough to eat from birth to death. Half of them hadn’t even boots on their feet. They worked twelve hours a day, they left school at nine, they slept ten in a room. And at the same time there were a very few people, only a few thousands — the capitalists, they were called — who were rich and powerful. They owned everything that there was to own. They lived in great gorgeous houses with thirty servants, they rode about in motor-cars and four-horse carriages, they drank champagne, they wore top hats-”

The old man brightened suddenly.

“Top ‘ats!” he said. “Funny you should mention ‘em. The same thing come into my ‘ead only yesterday, I dono why. I was jest thinking, I ain’t seen a top ‘at in years. Gorn right out, they ‘ave. The last time I wore one was at my sister-in-law’s funeral.”

Winston keeps trying, citing pieces of “history” that are increasingly ludicrous and unbelievable: the “capitalists” could do what they liked with you, “ship you off to Canada like cattle,” sleep with your daughters, flog you with a cat-o’-nine-tails. The old man, though, is unable to grasp the meaning of the questions, responding instead with his fragmentary memories of the vanished objects and words. His nostalgic tone implies that things were not so bad, but he fails to directly refute any of the Party’s claims. Finally, Winston asks him simply: was life, then, better in 1925, or in 1984? The man merely replies that the ailments of old age are troublesome, but that he is glad to be free of the worries of a young man, concerning, for instance, women.

Winston’s conclusion:

Within twenty years at the most, he reflected, the huge and simple question, “Was life better before the Revolution than it is now?” would have ceased once and for all to be answerable. But in effect it was unanswerable even now, since the few scattered survivors from the ancient world were incapable of comparing one age with another. They remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister’s face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago: but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones. And when memory failed and written records were falsified — when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.

Even in a society with strong traditions, the bulk of memories held by a particular generation are lost when they pass away; after two generations, the loss is almost complete, or, as someone remarked on View From The Right today, “I know basically nothing about my great grandparents!” On the other hand, provided that a people satisfy the minimum requirements for maintaining their identity as a people – reproducing, inhabiting the same land, passing down their language and essential values to the next generation – then however much the culture may change, there is always the possibility of re-connecting with the past generations. It is in this way that the Chinese, only a few decades after smashing their ancient monuments and sending their intellectuals to labor camps to be purged of “feudal” thinking, can now set up Confucius Institutes (!) in places like the United States to promote their culture abroad. Unfortunately for the United States, the changing ethnic composition of our population is threatening us in ways that Communism never threatened the Chinese.

The United States is rapidly slipping into a state of collective amnesia about her past that truly rivals that of Orwell’s old man. Large numbers of people – white Americans – truly seem to believe that prior to 1965 black people could not venture out in public without running into white men who would push them into the gutter and snatch their wives away; or that women were prevented from learning to read and chained inside the home to be brutalized by their husbands.

All right, I exaggerate a little. But white America is certainly portrayed in a consistently negative light. I recently caught an episode of a TV drama, Mad Men, which illustrates perfectly the liberal view of the older America. Beneath the surface of bourgeois ideals, nice dress, and prosperity is a world of sexual predation, ruthless competition, self-satisfaction, abortions, alcohol abuse, Cold War paranoia. Even with the sound off, the shadows and shifty glances of the characters convey a society so ugly as to be hardly worth saving. And yet there are millions of Americans still living and active who belong to the very generation being portrayed. Why aren’t they criticizing this program?

I am afraid it is vain to hope that older people will come to the rescue by telling how things actually were. As long as the authoritative ideology rules, perpetuated by our “experts” and institutions, the memories of individuals will be, in Orwell’s words, no more than “rubbish heaps of details.” Even more, ideology shapes the way people understand their own memories. When we are told that something we remember as good or benign was actually evil, unless we are equipped with a mental defense of our perceptions, we will be inclined to believe what is being claimed.  This, I think, is what has probably happened with many older Americans. Many do have a strong feeling that things were better in the old days, but they are not able to articulate why this is so. Indeed, since it was their generation that initiated the breakdown of the old social order in the 1960s and 1970s, it is safe to assume that there were flaws in their ideas to begin with – just as Orwell’s old man bought in to some of the socialist rhetoric of his time. (Well, so did Orwell.) It may be too late for most of them to come to terms with this.

Still, the truth remains the truth, and it is waiting to be discovered, or perhaps, to be brought back to life. If you believe that something is not right with the direction of our society, and don’t accept the present common wisdom (read: the common un-wisdom) about how we got here and what needs to be done, you have a powerful weapon already. And, unlike Orwell’s imaginary regime, I believe the actual ruling powers are deeply immersed in stupidity and blindness. That’s not reassuring when you’re counting on them to protect you, but it may be an advantage when you’ve decided they need to go.

Another Atrocity in Deerfield

The images had remained with me since childhood: an Indian dashing a baby’s brains out outside a house, and a great wooden door with a jagged hole chopped in the middle, through which the same Indians fired a gun at English men, women, and children taking shelter from the attack.

I learned about the Deerfield Massacre from a family visit to the Deerfield Memorial Hall, and from two books: The Boy Captive of Old Deerfield (originally published in 1904) and The Boy Captive in Canada (1905) (1), both by Mary P. Wells Smith, a college-educated Unitarian and supporter of women’s suffrage who had an active career in community affairs. The books tell the story of the year of captivity among the Indians suffered by Stephen Williams, the 10-year-old son of the Reverend John Williams, minister of Deerfield. I was about the same age as Stephen when I read them. The small frontier town of Deerfield was attacked by French and Indians in 1704 as part of the conflict known as Queen Anne’s War. 50 residents were killed and 112 captured and marched 300 miles to Canada to be held for ransom.

The two volumes are classics for older children, combining truthful accounts of the brutality of the attack which make the reader shudder, with romantic imagined episodes of young Stephen’s interactions with the Indians. The latter would be perfect in a Disney version of the story: the kind Indian girl; the nasty boy who pushes the white boy under the ice; the one who befriends him and teaches him to hunt. Stephen is described as intelligent and sensitive, unwavering in his Christian, Protestant faith (some of the Indians are partially-converted Catholics) but willing to learn Indian ways from his captors. The Indians, despite their willingness to instantly dispatch of any captive lacking the strength to travel, by and large treat him well once they have determined to adopt him and teach him Indian ways. Since Stephen, after attending Harvard College, did go on to become a minister active in missionary efforts with the Indians, Smith’s portrait of him is reasonable.

It is essential for American children to be acquainted with stories such as that of Stephen Williams. Through them they can understand their link with the settlers of 300 and more years ago, and understand the hardships and adventure and human drama of the formation of the country. The author also portrays the absolute centrality of religion in Puritan society in terms a child can easily understand. In a Preface to the second book, she writes:

In reading this true story, we can but wonder afresh what superhuman power enabled a young boy, suddenly dragged from home and friends by savages, to endure and survive such an ordeal, and realize anew that in the religious faith instilled by our Puritan forefathers lay the secret of this power of enduring seemingly unbearable hardships and sorrow, so often manifested by our ancestors in the trying times of the old French and Indian wars. (p. vii)

I was disappointed, though, when I recently returned to the Memorial Hall. The door was there, of course, and various portraits and artifacts displayed; but there was no coherent narrative of the events of 1704-5. The lack of clarity came, of course, from the unsuccessful attempt to reconcile contemporary concern with the suffering of displaced Indians with the original and inherent purpose of the museum, which was to commemorate the experience of the white forebears of modern America. The display on the massacre (now called a “raid”) featured numerous Indian artifacts and explanatory texts musing over how “Natives” are ambivalent about the memorializing of Deerfield.

Even worse, the exhibit attacked the more recent inhabitants of Massachusetts for their supposed bias against Indians. For instance, a photographed re-enactment of the “raid” from, I suppose, the early 20th century, showing an “Indian” carrying away Stephen Williams’s younger sister, Eunice, was described as follows:

The darkly painted face on the “Indian” contrasts sharply with the white Puritan cap and innocent face of little “Eunice,” drawing a firm symbolic line between the sinister “savage” and the helpless child.

Another photograph shows young men of perhaps college age standing outdoors, dressed in “Indian” garb and pretending to perform a prayer. The text helpfully informs us:

In pretending to be engaged in a Native American religious activity, they belittle the customs of Native people.

Now I am the first to agree that it is desirable for objective information be given about the three tribes involved in the Deerfield incident and the reasons for their actions. And some devices do not work today, like having the Indian characters say things like “heap good fire,” as Smith did in her novels. Nevertheless, Deerfield is not and never can be a monument to American Indians. It was a town built by English settlers and partly destroyed in a horrific attack which became enshrined the memory of their descendants. These settlers ultimately prevailed against the French and Indians alike to form a new nation.

Have white Americans been guilty of demeaning and belittling the Indian peoples who inhabited the continent before them? No doubt; but in the history of human affairs I do not see why they should be singled out for doing what all people do: placing their group first and seeing things from their group’s perspective. And of course a tradition of humane concern for and admiration of Indians has existed for as long as Europeans have been in contact with them. I would like to defend the young men “praying” mentioned above, who were obviously conducting an innocent ritual that expressed, if anything, admiration for Indians, with no intent to belittle anyone. And if the seizure of a seven-year-old white girl by an Indian warrior can be portrayed without making the girl look innocent and the man sinister, I would like to know how! Further, it seems to be assumed that to identify with the English in the Deerfield incident somehow means to demonize American Indians, which is obviously not the case.

If the reader wishes to see an even more nightmarish deconstruction of Anglo-American identity, he may refer to the website entitled “The Many Stories of 1704,” which attempts to give equal “airtime” to each of three Indian tribes involved, the French, and, yes, the hapless English. To get a flavor of the bias of the website, note the picture which visually suggests that the settlers had destroyed an Indian village to build their own, and the anthropological description of the English as just another human “tribe” driven by economic and other pressures (supplemented by a painting reinforcing a view of them as a collective mass). Amazingly, the website even emphasizes Stephen Williams’s lack of cultural sensitivity – apparently he was an ungrateful captive and “offended” his captors with his eagerness to be ransomed and preference for the French.

This is the kind of “Indian atrocity” that takes place today. The massacres are long past, but our memory of the white founders of America is under continual attack, and the ferocity of the attacks is increasing. If they are not countered, the day may come when the lovely colonial buildings in Old Deerfield, and the Memorial Hall, no longer tell their story at all – if they are even still standing. (If the reader believes that “Old New England’s” future existence is secure, he should look up demographic statistics for cities like Springfield, Massachusetts, now about 30% Hispanic.)

Today, it is not Stephen Williams, but his younger sister, Eunice, who draws the interest of historians (2). Eunice Williams, like one-third of the Deerfield captives, never returned to her original home. Only seven years old when captured, she forgot her English and assimilated completely to the society of her captors, marrying an Indian and converting to Catholicism. Stephen and others made contact with her and repeatedly attempted to persuade her to return to Massachusetts, but to no avail. In our era, in which non-European immigrants steadily move in to overwhelm the white, English-speaking, Protestant population, assimilation out of the founding population is the new ideal for historians, most of whom support the change. Eunice thus replaces Stephen as the subject of interest and sympathy. I too find her to be a sympathetic and interesting character. Nevertheless it is the survival of Stephen that is most important for Americans to remember, symbolizing as it does the roots of our nation and, one hopes, the strength we will find to survive threats of a very different sort.

Notes

(1) Mary P. Wells Smith, The Boy Captive of Old Deerfield (Deerfield, Massachusetts: Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 2004), and The Boy Captive in Canada (ibid).

(2) The Unredeemed Captive, by John Demos (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), is a very popular and scrupulously researched account of the incident which focuses on the fate of Eunice. I do not make use of it in this essay, however. The Memorial Hall also gives her story much attention. The Indian practice of adopting whites into their tribes, suggesting that they were less “racist” than the English, seems to be generally admired these days.

David Crockett, Indians, and Us

Note: I discuss David Crockett in greater detail in the follow-up to this post, A Portrait of Grandfather David.

It seems to me that when I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s, even as one radical social change after another was setting in motion the disaster of the present, a certain core culture and way of life continued relatively unchanged for most people. As I look back upon my own childhood in small-town America during that period, I imagine that it was not so different from the 1950s. Our fathers worked and we kids ran around the neighborhood watched by our mothers as they did housework. We played many of the same games our parents had played. Not only that, 1950s culture itself was still present on TV and radio.

For instance, my childhood image of frontiersman and Alamo hero David Crockett (1786-1836) came directly from the “Davy Crockett Craze” of 1954-55 (1), which started with a Disney movie and its theme song “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.” It was characterized by phenomenal sales of merchandise, most notably the coonskin caps worn by small boys. The “craze” died down within a year or so, but I myself remember running around with a coonskin cap and watching the movie on TV in the early 1970s, so Crockett obviously remained in the culture to some extent.

What about Crockett appealed to Americans so? Undoubtedly it was the way he embodied the “frontier spirit” of America. Long after the frontier was settled, well into the 20th century, Americans saw their national character as being derived from the frontier experience: the restless craving for discovery, the ambition to build a new and better life in a new land, the courage and rugged individualism, and sometimes the crudeness and base acquisitiveness of those who led the westward expansion of our nation. From Westerns and books like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series the word “frontier” may be associated more with late 19th century images, but of course it expresses a central theme for all pre-20th century U.S. history.

Crockett’s 1834 autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of Col. David Crockett, Written by Himself (2), is a fast-moving episodic account of the high points of his life, peppered with dialect and folk humor. Its full title summarizes the contents: Life of David Crockett, the original humorist and irrepressible backwoodsman: comprising his early history; his bear hunting and other adventures; his services in the Creek war; his electioneering speeches and career in Congress; with his triumphal tour through the northern states, and services in the Texas war. To which is added an account of his glorious death at the Alamo while fighting in defence of Texan independence.

The book was written to promote Crockett’s political career. It consists almost solely of episodes, told in an amusing style apparently capturing something of the charm of Crockett’s public speeches. According to James Shackford, the Narrative is almost certainly ghostwritten, since it contains deliberate “backwoods” dialect and errors different from those that appeared in Crockett’s letters. However, the material is considered highly reliable, suggesting that Crockett checked the material and approved the final contents. Shackford (writing at the time of the Crockett craze) considers the narrative a forgotten classic of American literature, depicting the life of a real-life frontiersman who became overshadowed by a myth.

In today’s myth-debunking climate, Crockett the man may actually be faring better than in the 1950s. A newer children’s book, David Crockett: Sure He Was Right (3) , for instance, is a reasonable recreation of Crockett’s autobiography, though largely omitting the Indian fighting and bear hunting that gives his story most of its flavor. But we have lost the legend. Crockett is, after all, a White Man With A Gun. He killed bears, he killed Indians, and he killed Mexicans, activities essential to the creation of our country but which our liberal society, seeking to incorporate groups such as these (including the bears) as fully privileged citizens, finds shameful and ugly.

While American traditionalists will have no trouble rejecting the political correctness that leads to the expunging of figures like Crockett from history, it may still be hard to love him the way previous generations did. Indian fighting is central to Crockett’s character, even if he only spent a few years at this activity. In retrospect, the removal of the Indians seems like a sad inevitability at best, and in cases like the Cherokee removal, a cruel atrocity, not something to be celebrated wholeheartedly. Shackford lays out the problem in the opening passages of his biography:

The frontiersman was history’s agent for wresting land from the American Indian. How often – and how well – did he play his bitter role! Pursued by civilization which crowded him too closely behind, he arrived inevitably at the “final” boundary set by the latest Indian treaty. In front of him lay the rich wilderness and the trail of the retreating game upon which his very life depended. Pushed from behind, pulled from in front, he moved on inexorably into Indian territory.

Just as inexorably, the Indians resisted his encroachment. Angered by this betrayal of their established rights, they attempted to enforce the white man’s treaties in the only way they knew, by attacking the invaders – by pillage, burning, and scalping. Then came a new “war,” and a new treaty. Always the new treaty gave legal sanction to the latest accumulation of lands illegally acquired by these frontiersmen. No power on earth short of overwhelming physical force could have made them retrace their steps and abandon their “improvements” and the wild game on which they lived. Then the cycle would be renewed: new encroachments upon the new treaty, the inevitable massacres, the consequent accommodating treaty, – and new encroachments. So dwindled the hunting grounds of the redskin. (p. 3)

Elsewhere Shackford exhibits a very contemporary and, as we are seeing in the 21st century, unworkable liberalism in his assessment of the lessons of American history, something I will return to in a subsequent post. For now, I would like to consider, based purely on personal perceptions, the role of the Indian in white American identity.

It is part of the American tradition to be fascinated with the Indian and to seek to emulate the perceived bravery, discipline, and honor of the aboriginal American peoples. For instance, when I was in the Boy Scouts there was a society called the Order of the Arrow (which still exists) with an initiation rite that was supposed to emulate a manhood ritual of the Indians. More broadly, there are, of course, the names of sports teams and so forth that were understood to express the warrior spirit. I have talked about Crockett in my boyhood but in fact I was much more an “Indian” kid, doing my best to make Indian weapons and running around half-naked in a loincloth. In fact I generally sided with the Indians in my mind.

We cannot deny that America was created as a country by Europeans who claimed the land essentially for the reason that they wanted it, and could take it. Yes, this also meant the spread of Christian civilization, but we can hardly claim this was done for the Indians’ sake! It is a good thing for Americans to reflect on this aspect of their nations history.

However, contemporary discussions of the Indian problem are twisted by anti-Americanism. First, whites are judged by today’s standards, as if they were a 21st century army marching in to exterminate Stone Age people. In fact most Americans prior to the 20th century lived by the sweat of their brow, many died young, and all were dependent on the support of family and neighbors to survive. Society was violent, with wars fought and murderers hanged and duels and violence of all sorts common. In this context the settlement of the continent – at one’s own risk – was perfectly legitimate. From the European point of view Indian ways were backward and Indian societies were not “countries.” Further, many whites strove to find a humane and just solution to the Indian problem. In the end, sheer demographic force made the European settlement of the continent inevitable. The U.S. government broke its promises, but it had made promises it had not the power to keep.

Second, Indians are romanticized, as we can see in any contemporary movie that portrays them. Forgotten are the incredible cruelty they were capable of and the ongoing warfare between tribes and clans.

Finally, precisely the wrong lesson is derived from the conquest of America: that to atone for driving out the Indians, we must open our society up for the rest of the world to colonize. To the contrary, the American experience showed that Indian assimilation into white society didn’t work. Is it not madness that we now import whole “tribes” just as alien as the Indians into our society en masse? What kind of “Indian wars” are we setting up for the future?

In the next entry I will discuss some particulars of Crockett’s life and autobiography. Interested readers may be able to read it electronically on the University of Michigan Library website at:

http://www.umdl.umich.edu/.

(1) http://www.geocities.com/toppsgreen/01FrontPage.html.

(2) Crockett, David, Life of Col. David Crockett, Written by Himself, Philadelphia: G. G. Evans, 1860. This version includes an account of Crockett’s death at the Alamo.

(3) Shackford, James Atkins, David Crockett: The Man and the Legend, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1956.

(4) Wade, Mary Dodson, Davy Crockett: Sure He Was Right, Austin, Eakin Press, 1992.

Welcome, Readers!

This weblog has been created in response to the terrible crisis faced by the American people and by the West as a whole. Its author is an ordinary citizen of the state of Michigan, whose own field of expertise cannot be applied in any obvious way to the struggle to save our nation. In a better world there would be plenty of talented politicians and statesmen fighting for our cause, and I might be content to send checks, stuff envelopes, and hold meetings in their support.

Sadly, with a handful of exceptions, there are no such men and women in our public life. Our movement as yet is manifested mainly on the Internet, invisible to the larger society. To post messages on little-known forums, often under a pseudonym, is unsatisfying to one who feels a moral call to sacrifice his own comfort for the good of his country. And yet, with no publicly recognized base to work from, and the prospect of ostracism and worse in the workplace if one challenges the “politically correct” orthodoxy, for many of us it is still too early to take a stance of open confrontation. Instead, anticipating a long struggle, perhaps for many generations, we need to study the past and present, gather our weapons, and plan for the future. It is a daunting task, but we have no choice. May we find strength in our fellowship as our numbers grow, and may we find joy in engaging with the truth and fighting for the good!

With this blog, I hope to engage with and contribute to the existing discourse on Western traditionalist conservatism and American nationhood. The basic format will be a weekly entry, posted on Fridays. Barring unforeseeable difficulties I plan to maintain this schedule for at least one year.

Every writer and blog takes a particular perspective. This blog will focus on traditional American culture – specifically, on the task of reviving and reconstructing an actual, living American culture which expresses the particular, historic traditions of our society and orients us toward the transcendent truths – towards the true, the good, the right, the beautiful. While using the blog to discuss how to do this, I also hope to draw like-minded readers, especially in the state of Michigan, who are interested in meeting in person to begin the rudimentary work of forming a living, alternative community of American traditionalists. It may be early yet, but I believe that if even “two or three are gathered” who truly love their country and people, we may awaken powers that none of us have access to as individuals. I therefore request any readers in Michigan (or able to travel here) who agree with the organizational principles of this site to email me at the address indicated at the top of this site.

A discussion of basic principles (a work in progress) will be the subject of the next entry.