It takes a willful disregard of history to appreciate how white Southerners could look at the Confederate battle flag and see states' rights or a way of life or a tradition - and not one human being whipping another, which was a common occurrence.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the selective interpretation of symbols and their histories, particularly regarding the Confederate flag.
Richard Cohen's quote addresses how some white Southerners view the Confederate battle flag through a lens of states' rights and tradition, deliberately overlooking its connections to slavery and oppression. This willful ignorance of the historical context allows them to maintain a narrative that sanitizes their past, ignoring the suffering and brutality that the flag represents for many others.
In practice
In a lecture on American history, this quote can be used to discuss the symbolism of the Confederate flag.
Republicans and others who are in anguish over the possibility of socialized medicine ought to have to explain their ideology to a mother with a sick newborn. They ought to have to explain how this nation can debate health care and not mention how abysmal ours is.
Your grandparents came of age in the Great Depression, when everyday life was about deprivation and sacrifice, when the economic conditions of the time were so grave and so unrelenting it would have been easy enough for the American dream to fade away.
It's a touchy subject, but as a Southerner, you can't ignore our history any more than a Renaissance painter can ignore the Virgin Mary. And it's impossible to drive down a road or eat a vegetable or pass a church without being reminded of slavery.
Also, what mountains of dead ashes, wreck and burnt bones, does assiduous pedantry dig up from the past time and name it History.
History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.
David Ben-Gurion was a mythic figure, the founding father of Israel and a modern-day prophet, but he was also a real man who stormed through history on human legs. It was my great privilege to know him and work with him for many years.
If you are attempting to study American history, and you don't understand the force of white supremacy, you fundamentally misunderstand America.
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