Things the Confederate heritage community could do, to help itself.
We NEED to make people willing to support us. So, how we approach others is important.
I think it goes without saying that I support Confederate heritage. And, I also think it goes without saying that Confederate heritage has been under attack, especially for the past few years.
I’ve been active in the Confederate heritage fight ever since 2021, when Virginia Military Institute—-egged on by woke Virginia Democrats, national Democrats and Ian Shapira of the Washington Post—-erased virtually all signs of Stonewall Jackson’s legacy. (The Naming Commission episode followed right on the heels of that.) During that time, I’ve observed a few things about how the Confederate heritage community operates, that strike me as being unhelpful to our cause. ESPECIALLY if we’re trying to get people OUTSIDE of our community to support us. We are not a majority in American society, so we need to attract supporters. Some of the things I’ve seen Confederate heritage supporters do, in my opinion, don’t help us attract the supporters we need. In no particular order, here they are:
We sometimes act as if we are sorry that the Confederacy lost the Civil War. I am a proud citizen of the United States of America who has Confederate roots. I am NOT a Confederate. If someone asks us “Are you glad the Confederacy lost the Civil War,” the correct answer should be “Yes, of COURSE I am!” Instead, too often we hesitate when asked that question. We mumble, then drift off into an explanation of why Southerners felt secession was the right thing. What we should do is respond “Yes, of COURSE I am glad the Confederacy failed. But I understand why good men and women, who lived in times that are much different that we have now, supported it. The 21st century Don Smith would have fought for the Union, but the 19th century Don Smith would have fought for the Confederacy, because those would have been two very different people, shaped by the popular beliefs of two very different times in American history.”
We ramble. If someone is willing to listen to your argument, to devote some of their precious personal time to listen to the points you want to make—-then you need to get to the point! Too many times, I’ve seen Confederate heritage supporters start their pitch off with a rambling discussion of why they joined the SCV, or the detailed personal history of their Confederate ancestor, or their fond memories of seeing the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue in Richmond, etc… Instead, when people agree to listen to us, we need to give “elevator pitches.” An “elevator pitch” is a well-thought-out, concise, easy-to-comprehend explanation of your key points. It’s short enough that you can give it, completely, in the time it normally takes an elevator to travel from one floor to another. If people agree to listen to us, they are NOT agreeing to listen to us give lengthy speeches, or long-winded reminiscences of our Confederate ancestors. They expect our elevator pitch. If they like what they hear, they might listen to more of what we have to say. They are not OBLIGATED to listen to us. We have to make it easy for them to listen to us, and to keep listening. Otherwise…they won’t.
We don’t stay on target. I’ve seen this happen when meeting with Congressional staffers. We gain a meeting with them to talk about one or two specific aspects of Confederate heritage—-base names, statues in a city, Confederate battle streamers, the Reconciliation Memorial, take your pick. Then, when the meeting starts, someone on the Confederate heritage team starts bringing up ALL THE OTHER THINGS they are concerned about. It’s almost as if a dam breaks free. Your Confederate heritage supporting colleague has all this stress bottled up over the poor treatment of Confederate heritage, and he/see sees the meeting as an opportunity to let it all out, to relieve the stress. This is exactly what politicians and government officials want you to do. If they can get you to throw a whole lot of topics into the discussion, that allows them to avoid dealing with the topic you WANT them to focus on. I’ve seen Congressional staffers employ this technique. They will look at a member of your team and ask them “Well, what do YOU think? What are YOUR personal concerns on this issue? I want to hear them.” Too often, we oblige, and unburden ourselves. The staffers listen, and nod sympathetically. Then, they say that they have to wrap up the meeting, because the Congressman is very busy you know, but they’ve listened to our concerns and they’ll be in touch. They get up and leave, and that’s it. An opportunity lost, because we lost focus.
We won’t accept that things have changed. Why are we trying to bring the Confederate statues back to Monument Avenue in Richmond? Richmond is now a majority African-American city. As are many cities in the South. Very few Confederate heritage supporters live in cities now. I don’t like it, but that’s reality. If we do get some of the statues put back on their pedestals, does anyone think the governments in those cities will actually protect them? It reminds me of settlers in the Old West who insisted on living in areas where they not only knew the cavalry couldn’t protect them—-the cavalry had specifically told them it couldn’t protect them. We need to move our Confederate symbols and memorials to places where they won’t be constantly targeted and poorly protected. (I’ll stipulate that there is a difference between state and city/local property, and state capital cities versus average cities. A state capital represents everyone in the state, or it should. Accordingly, there should be places in the capital cities of Southern states for state-owned Confederate symbols.)