A Confederacy of Dunces

By Jack E. White

Buckwheat and I were playing bid whist with Charlie Chan and the Frito Bandito at the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes in Hollywood last week when the Kingfish rushed in.

"Holy mak'rul dare, Brother Buckwheat!" he exclaimed. "It look like STUPID done struck again!"

"Oh, no," squeaked Buckwheat before dropping into the deep baritone and Standard English he uses except when he's in character. "You mean the Society for Turning Up Phony Issues and Diversions, that secret outfit that goes around making us black folks look like fools by stirring up dumb racial controversies like the idiotic fuss in Washington last year over the word niggardly? Cut the Ebonics, Kingfish! If there's another STUPID racial fight going on, it's a serious issue."

"It sho' is," Kingfish agreed. "But this time it's white politicians in South Carolina who're making fools of themselves by claiming that the Confederate battle flag doesn't have anything to do with slavery and segregation! They say they're just trying to honor their 'Southern heritage' by flying it over the statehouse. Now, that's really STUPID! Everybody knows that until Martin Luther King Jr. came along, the so-called Southern Way of Life that the flag symbolizes was based on keeping black folks separate and unequal. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous."

"I know, I know," sighed Buckwheat. "The flag's defenders claim they started flying it in 1962 to commemorate the Civil War centennial, but that doesn't fool anybody. What they were really doing was signaling their resistance to civil rights. But that's ancient history--even Strom Thurmond campaigns for black votes these days! What's the point of keeping it up there? It's costing South Carolina big bucks because civil rights groups have organized a boycott of the state until the flag comes down. According to polls, 60% of South Carolinians, black and white, want to get rid of it. Even Governor Jim Hodges said last week he wants to move it from the statehouse to a nearby Confederate memorial. Continuing to fly it is STUPID!"

"Maybe they need psychological counseling, like that baseball player John Rocker," mused the Kingfish. "He hasn't said anything crazier than the vile remark from state senator Arthur Ravenel, who called the N.A.A.C.P. the 'National Association of Retarded People' for opposing the flag. The next day he apologized to retarded people, but he hasn't told the N.A.A.C.P. he was sorry. Talk about STUPID!"

"Heck, even George W. Bush, John McCain and Steve Forbes have been saying loony things about the flag issue," added Buckwheat. "All three of them claim they want the Republican Party to appeal more to blacks and other minorities. But not one of them had the courage to say what Al Gore and Bill Bradley said, that the flag's an offensive symbol of white supremacy that ought to come down right away. If Republicans think more black folks are going to vote for them after this performance from their front runners, they're really STUPID."

"With all due respect, I think you fellows are overlooking a clue that explains why some white people are so attached to the Confederate flag," Charlie Chan chimed in. "No. 1 Son has been telling me about a must-read new book called The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, by Randall Robinson, which makes the case that white America is suffering from a massive case of denial about the impact of slavery and discrimination. He contends that most white folks just aren't emotionally ready to admit that their lofty position in the world is partly due to 246 years' worth of unpaid labor by millions of slaves."

"He's right," said Buckwheat. "It's like there's a deliberate effort to whitewash all that ugly history. Take the national Capitol in Washington. Many of the huge sandstone blocks it's built out of were quarried by slave laborers. In fact, The Statue of Freedom--the figure of a Native American woman warrior that stands on the dome--was cast in bronze by slave laborers in 1863 and hoisted up there. You'd think there would be a national museum or monument to them, but there isn't even a plaque."

"Maybe that's because the white folks are afraid the government would have to pay reparations to African Americans if they fessed up about what their ancestors did to our ancestors," said Kingfish. "Brother White, didn't you calculate a couple of years ago that the due bill for slavery could be as much as $24 trillion? I sho' could use my share of dat!"

"Now who's being STUPID, Kingfish?" said the Frito Bandito, as he began to deal the next hand. "If you could ever get white folks to admit that black folks are owed reparations for slavery, they'd probably try to pay it off with Confederate money."