Civil War Still Happening

“YOU DUMB NIGGERS WE’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!”
“BRING IT ON CRACKER I’LL SEND YOU TO HELL!”
In southern United States, these are the types of conversations you will find between whites and blacks, KKK and BBB, skinheads and gangsters. All the groups have different names, but the same cause, to be the better race, and to eliminate the inferior races. Most of the hatred links back as far as the civil war and judging by the hostility of the people the war is still going on.
The two races would go to the extreme to protect what they consider theirs. They kill each other over race, power and respect to prove their superiority. In the story Confederates in the Attic, (chapter: Dying for Dixie) a portion of this hatred is displayed when a high school student is murdered by some of his black classmates. He got murdered for what? Money? Disrespect? None of that, he got killed for hanging the school flag out of the back of his pick-up truck. Granted, the school mascot was a rebel so their flag was the confederate flag, something that offends blacks, but nonetheless it was their school flag. Michael Westerman think twice about it, the flag was just something he grew up with. To the blacks it was an offensive signal toward them.
This quote from Mr. Westerman “They say that war ended a long time ago. But around here it’s like it’s still going on” suggests the idea that after all these years of racism, people aren’t willing to come to some form of compromise. The war has long since been over, but the people of the South are still at war with each other for small petty things that don’t even matter, things like flags, ethnicity, and religion. Because of all the tension between races a number of clans, gangs, and organizations have been started. These organizations are like modern day confederate and union. They keep the civil war going today by causing all sorts of hate crimes and executions. As always it’s blacks vs. whites
In Tony Horwitz’s journal when he explains his trip to the sight of Michael Westerman’s murder, he describes himself going into a biker bar. In this bar he finds bikers, skinheads, white supremacists, and just all around mean people. He was treated with hostility and hatred. He asked a simple question to a patron at the bar and the patron was ready to start a fight over this small harmless question. His question was, “What does the acronym FTW stand for?” He was answered with threats on his life that sent him scrambling out of the bar. These scenarios happen every day at these types of bars, it’s not in some distant land and it’s not a thing of the past it’s happening right now.
Things like this happen everywhere, but in the southern America it happens more than other places and the roots of all this hatred can be traced all the way back to the Civil War times, back when blacks were slaves and whites were fighting over the future of blacks in slavery. The war lasted for 4 years, Union vs. Confederates. Millions of dollars were spent on the campaign for both sides of the battle. At the end of the war the Union was victorious but both sides were at a huge financial loss. After years the Union states recovered and flourished again. As for the Confederate states, they recovered slightly but after all these years they still aren’t fully recovered
Hate crimes, gangs, and race related killing happens everywhere, in some sections it’s even more prominent than in the South. The only difference between the South and other places that have all these crimes going about is their roots. The South still has great pride for the confederacy and still wave Confederate flags.
To some in the south the flag is a sign of patriotism but for blacks, its a sign of white supremacy and racism. In other words, to a black man the confederate flag is a threat. It’s saying that they support slavery, in some black people’s minds.
The South has too much pride to care for the people that actually live there hatred and killing happens everyday and there’s little that anyone can do to stop it. The states are just too broken from the civil war and recovery doesn’t seem like its going to be in sight any time soon.

Works Cited

Horwitz, Tony. "Dying For Dixie." Confederates in the Attic Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. New York: Vintage, 1999. 89-125. Print.

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