Virginia Is For Lovers...of Slavery?

With all due respect to Virginians who aren't racist assholes...

What the fuck?

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has quietly declared April 2010 Confederate History Month, bringing back a designation in Virginia that his two Democratic predecessors — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — refused to do.

"Refused to do" - yes, well...decent, non-hateful people generally do refuse to pay homage to disgusting and shameful periods in history. But apparently McDonnell has no such qualms. How nice. And by "nice" I mean excuse me while I imagine throttling him.

People often try to claim that waxing nostalgic about the days of the Confederacy totally doesn't mean they're racist because, you know, it's just their HISTORY. As though it's somehow a character flaw, or an insult to your state or your family name or whatever, to recognize the fuck-ups of the past. Or as though ever admitting that the United States has maybe kinda sorta been a shitty place for certain people to live at times means you're a traitorous heathen who might as well poop on the flag and run off to dry hump Osama bin Laden.

The proclamation apparently makes no mention of slavery, which is not surprising but is incredibly mind-boggling. Think whatever you like, racists, but wanting to celebrate "Confederate History Month" is wanting to celebrate slavery, pure and simple. You are celebrating a time when an entire group of people, because of the color of their skin, were treated like garbage, like objects, were specifically deemed to be less than whole. You are honoring laws and policies that labeled human beings as property. You are longing for a time when your beloved South wanted to secede - which sure doesn't sound patriotic to me - in order to continue these practices, rather than face the reality of NOT BEING SLAVE OWNERS.

That is what you're doing when you support "Confederate History Month". If you're okay with that, I suppose I can't change your mind, but you at least have to be honest about what it means. Don't tell me you're not racist - the belief that all people are of equal worth no matter their skin color is in direct opposition to the practice of enslaving a people based on their skin color. If you don't like being called a racist, then somewhere inside you, you know it's a bad thing to be. So take a step back and think about what kind of person you claim to be, what kind of person you want to be and what kind of person your words and actions say you are.