Opinion Graphic
‘Dixie,’ a word that caused a tremendous amount of commotion and sparked many debates. I have read and would like to congratulate the people who have written articles about this topic, whether I disagree or agree with their respective opinions on this subject. I would also say that I appreciate Student Body President Jackie Gonzalez for her bringing an issue to the campus’s conscious.
I will be honest. I had no idea that this was even an issue, and even now I do not have particularly strong feelings about the removal of the word ‘Dixie’ from the alma mater. Although if I had to “pick a side” I would just remove it, but there is a bigger conversation that needs to be had when it comes to ‘Dixie.’
The bigger conversation is this: that Confederate imagery and culture are being used for social order and social control as a tool, amongst many, to keep minorities in their respective place within a racial hierarchy, even on this campus.
I have heard many different defenses for Confederate imagery in public spaces and I want to address the defense that confederate imagery is an important part of history and should not be discarded.
They are an important part of history, but they belong in the dusty bookstacks of libraries, not in the public spaces of “the land of the free.” The views and values of the Confederacy have no place on this campus.
NC State values diversity; those are not my words, but the words of the leadership of this campus. For that reason, I believe Confederate imagery has no place in public spaces because those images are intrinsically antagonistic to minorities and legitimize white supremacist views. The Confederate monuments have no place in today’s America; the history has its place, but in museums and libraries.
I believe it is also poignant to point out the history of Confederate monuments as it does illuminate how Confederate imagery is used as a tool for social order and oppression. Confederate monuments were not built immediately after the Civil War, but during that period of time memorials for soldiers who had died were built, according to Mark Elliott, a professor from the UNC-Greensboro.
A majority of Confederate monuments started to be built from the time of the 1890s to the 1960s with two major spikes in the 20th century, the biggest being in the early 1900s. These spikes coincide with the Jim Crow segregation era and the civil rights movement as revealed by a study done by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
These monuments were funded primarily by white women of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group that champions the “lost cause” movement. The “lost cause” movement is basically a movement that revises history downplaying slavery (including propaganda stories of “happy slaves”) to portray the South’s cause as a noble one.
These monuments were erected to teach values, to memorialize the “lost cause” movement ideas and values. What these monuments are really about is transforming white supremacist leaders to benevolent figures in order to keep their racist principles in the public consciousness, specifically in the South, and another way to keep minorities, specifically black people, in their place.
Now, what does all that have to do with ‘Dixie’? Well, a lot see this conversation as a part of a greater conversation of how we can reconcile the painful history of southern culture with today’s values. How can we as a campus ethically value diversity while our alma mater spits on it by placing NC State in a time where the winds of “Dixie” blows? Frankly the winds of Dixie no longer blow, the Confederacy is gone and it shall never rise again.
Another part to ‘Dixie’ and how it relates to the monuments has to do with an allegedly conservative student group painting the alma mater on the Free Expression Tunnel. Well, the people painted the alma mater with ‘Dixie’ being highlighted; excuse me, but you might as well hang a confederate flag over ‘Dixie’ as far as I am concerned.
And this is what I mean when I discuss the use of Confederate imagery/culture against minorities; ‘Dixie’ being highlighted was not a simple shenanigan. Their message behind that, even if not intentional, was a very clear and disgusting message.
The message is: Stay in your place, do not dare to challenge the social order and do not dare to challenge the student body to have a dialogue.
When trying to have challenging conversations and letting them devolve into such shameful, classless and despicable actions as these I question the heart of this campus. If we are so sensitive to any type of challenging dialogue, how are we supposed to grow? I also question some people’s humanity or lack thereof for the simple lack of empathy, lack of openness to a conversation and toleration of antagonistic antics.
Frankly I am disgusted with how this ‘dialogue’ has played out instead of constructive discourse. I read that people are calling into question faculty members’ credentials, the painting in the Free Expression Tunnel, the questioning of the student body president’s leadership and the accusations of her trying to remove ‘Dixie’ when she was trying to start a healthy dialogue. It makes me sick and the actions of those individuals are classless and shameful.
We as a campus, but even more so as human beings, have a long way to go when it comes to this discussion, and on the eve of the Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration I encourage people to reflect on their views and their actions as well as their empathy and humanity. This issue is not going anywhere anytime soon, as indicated by South Carolina lawmakers proposing to build a Confederate monument to the black Confederate soldiers who fought for South Carolina. However, pension records from the South Carolina Department of History show there were not any black Confederate soldiers fighting for South Carolina, just body servants and cooks.
*Editor’s Note: Shawn Fredericks is a correspondent at Technician.