Lawyers, Guns & Money has a good post up about the absurdity of trying to make April “Confederate History Month” which would, in any case, be more appropriately entitled “Treason in Defense of Slavery Month.” Proponents claim that it’s about “Southern Heritage.”
The mythology that has emerged around the Confederacy, and especially the “Lost Cause” is not simply a question of historical antiquarianism; such nostalgia invariably carries a racial component, and is deeply embedded within a narrative of hatred and oppression towards African-Americans. Confederate nostaligia has always included this racial component, and has never been about the “heritage” of the American South. The southern states have been part of the United States of America for 231 years, and were in rebellion for four; that leaves 227 years of potential heritage that don’t involve a brutal war fought in the service of human servitude. As others have noted, Confederate nostalgia is about the hate, not the heritage.
Undercutting every element of Confederate nostalgia, including the idea that men fought for their states and not their ideology, or that African-Americans fought in numbers for the Confederacy, or that the Confederate elite behaved with any honor, or that the Confederacy was even particularly popular among poor Southern whites, is a valuable project. As long as states see fit to have Confederate Heritage Month, it will be necessary to describe the essential perfidity of the Confederacy. In all honesty, I look forward to the day when Confederate nostalgia is every bit as respectable as fond remembrance for Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or Imperial Japan.
For my part, here is what you need to know about Confederate History: “The war is over. The good guys won.” Nostalgia for treason drives me up the wall.
I look forward to the day when Confederate nostalgia is every bit as respectable as fond remembrance for Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or Imperial Japan.
There is no nostalgia for Soviet Russia? Have you BEEN to a college campus?
How about Che shirts?
I think that the relationship between southern whites and southern blacks is a lot more… complex… than we Yankees give them credit for. I would not make a blanket statement that “Confederate nostaligia has always included this racial component, and has never been about the “heritage†of the American South.”
In 1985 the Richmond Red Devil band went to southern Georgia to march in a parade. We were down there on Confederate Day. I remember Mr. Varnell telling us that no matter how we felt about the war, as guests we needed to be sensitive to our hosts. To my knowledge nothing big came of it. I mean like my host family didn’t suddenly dress in confederate uniforms and fly the confederate flag on that day.
On the way back north we stopped at a very nice resaurant in Macon, GA. While we were eating a number of local high school students came in wearing confederate uniforms and antibellum dresses (You know with the big hoops and all.) One of my friends told some of these students they liked their costumes for the costume party. Turns out it was prom night…oops! (Damn Yankee!)
T will attest that our grandmother (Who was originally from Georgia) always maintained that the south stopped the war because they were gentlemen. My grandfather’s hero was Abe Lincoln. Guess their’s was a mixed-marriage.
And finally…if you look at markers for war sites in the south they read “War between the States.” Course I guess there’s nothing “civil” about war.
I read about these Che shirts, as if they’re everywhere. Then I go spend time on a college campus and I never see one.
I think people wear the crappy Che shirts to commemorate an interesting revolutionary (later part of a crappy dictatorship) who overthrew the crappy dictator we were propping up. Quick–name one caribbean leader who hasn’t been crappy. But Che was a rugged revolutionary who took a good picture, so apparently that appeals to some people.
We spend too much time being overly offended by Cuba. Could they have a better system? Sure. Would I consider living in Cuba more repressive or hopeless or uncomfortable than living in a “freer” country like Haiti or Nicaragua? Not so much.
The southerners who still try to claim the war had nothing to do with them wanting to keep blacks in their place just crack me up. The century of lynchings across the south after the war is kind of the giveaway.
The other thing that cracks me up is when Southerners say it was about “states’ rights”. What’s funny is that the only “states’ rights” issue they had involved the right to hold in bondage and abuse blacks. Then you don’t really hear about states’ rights for about seventy or eighty years. Then those blacks started getting uppity with their wanting to not pay poll taxes, wanting to have equal justice under the law and other such things, and suddenly the Southerners rediscovered the importance of states’ rights.
I can’t name any issue they claim states’ rights on that doesn’t involve them wanting to subjugate black people. At least not pre-Roe. Some politicians give lip service to wanting the states to regulate abortion. But if the feds made abortion illegal than I’m thinking it would stop being a states’ rights issue.
Would I consider living in Cuba more repressive or hopeless or uncomfortable than living in a “freer†country like Haiti or Nicaragua? Not so much.
That you even think of Cuba in the same light as Haiti is indicative of how bad Castro was.
In 1959, Cuba was socioeconomically similar to Portugal and Argentina. Castro has taken them down to the level of the Dominican Republic, if not Haiti.
The number of unreconstructed Communists on college campuses is just sad. Here’s one. I’d say a woman like that should be committed, she is obviously quite insane. I feel sorry for any student that has to put up with crap like that. In the comments, there’s another PUC student that had run ins with college Communists.
You guys sit in your segregated northen subrubs and go on and on about “southerners”.
With all due respect, you don’t know a god damned thing about southerners. You don’t know who they are, the relationship that they have with African Americans, nor their motivation for “Confederate Day”.
It’s the height of arrogance for a bunch of Hoosiers, who don’t live within 5 miles of an African American, who live in one of the most segregated states in the country, to pass judgement on people who did a damn good job of desegregation 40 years ago, and who live a lot closer to African Americans than white Hoosiers do.
I write this as someone who has my great-great-great grandfather’s sabre from the Union army. I’m not a southerner, never lived there, don’t want to. But there’s a lot of BS in that commentary, as well as these comments.
Buzzcut, I don’t know a thing about southerners. Fine. I don’t have to.
Having a month to celebrate an event that I find racist offends me. So, do I need to try to understand how southerners are not really looking at this in a racist way, or do they need to understand why we find if so offensive?
Hmmm… I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood with seven African Americans living in the same block as us. Within five mile, I would suppose there were some more. I didn’t tend to know the people more than six blocks away. I went to school with primarily whites, African Americans, and some Filipinos. Yeah, right here in Indiana. The difference between 1980’s Indiana and 1860’s-1960’s Mississippi is we didn’t decorate our trees with them.
I don’t have to walk in anyone’s shoes to judge on this one. The treatment they endured was reprehensible. Even if it is claimed that a small minority was doing the most evil deeds, many of the “good” were too silent and tolerated such crap.
I’ve never been to Germany, either, but when considering genocide against a race, you can pretty reliably put me in the “against” column.
Indiana isn’t immune to such behavior. One of the sickest spectacles was a lynching in Marion in I think the 1910’s or so, complete with smiling men in ties smiling for the camera. We also were practically governed by the Klan for a few years there. The difference is that Indiana doesn’t have a “Hey–remember how cool it was when the Klan was big here?” History and “Heritage” month”.
My great(3) grandfather served in the 38th Georgia from 1861-December 1864. He deserted. I appreciate that he obviously went through some bad times. If he hadn’t deserted, I doubt he would have survived the war–which would have prevented my existence here today. I also know the “cause” of the Army he served in and the “country” her served for was a very bad one.
I saw LOADS of Che paraphenalia in Ecuador last month. Generally, we saw much more of it in the rural areas than in the cities. I took dozens of pictures, because some of it was so hilarious.
In Otavalo, one man wore a white, long-sleeved shirt with Che on the back. The jeans? Armani!
In Quito, I found a young man wearing a Che t-shirt with a NY Yankees jersey shirt!
I wanted to know if either got the fine ironies displayed. I might as well have been in Williamsburg (Brokklyn NY).
Anyhow, here was a blog post of mine on the Che phenonomenon: http://koleecuador.blogspot.com/2008/02/otavalo-pt-2-otavalo-ecuador-heres.html
Buzzcut-Maybe it is because of the segregation we see in Indiana-especially here in Lake County- that makes us offended whenever we see something that is potentially racist. How many blacks in the South do you think want Confederate History Month? And will they choose the shortest month of the year, like Black History Month?
I tend to agree with Buzzcut’s comments. I was in South Carolina when the balloon went up for the flying of the Confederate Flag from the Statehouse. At this same time, there was a string of diners that also flew the Confederate Flag. The good Revs Sharpton and Jackson entered the fray with urging black folks to boycott the diners until the flag was removed. My wife and I went to one of the diners out of curiosity and were surprised good food trumped the crap that Jackson and Sharpton were preaching as there were just as many black folks as white folks chowing down. Later that same trip I went to a flea market and flags of all types were being sold. I asked the owner of one of the places selling flags (who was black) if he didn’t feel strange selling Conferate flags. He smiled and said the only folks that a problem with the Conferate flag were from the North. Hmmm, I don’t think we have a clue of the relationship of the whites and blacks in the South.
I read your post, Mike. It looks like a fascinating trip.
Maybe you would agree that the impoverished people you encountered were drawn to the idea of poor people getting political clout (from the rich presumably), through revolution or otherwise. So Che’s image become a catch-all symbol for that feeling. Sure, if you carry around a book of his writings you could find all kinds of things they wouldn’t agree with. But it still wouldn’t change that they evidently have a void that his image seems to fill for them better than any other.
Why that appeal reaches college campuses, I have no idea.
I think he’s an interesting guy. His travels in early life are the type of stuff I like to do. Any politics that tramples free speech and individual rights is something I would tend to disagree with, whether it’s Castro, Che, or anyone else you could come up with.
The thing about the Caribbean is that on average, the people are poor. The poor in Cuba live better than the poor in most of the other islands down there. But you’re probably going to stay poor there, too. But in most of those islands you’re going to stay poor anyway. I’m looking forward to reforms that liberalize rights in Cuba while hopefully not having the quality of life of the poor (access to healthcare, at least subsistence levels of nutrition or hopefully better, etc) go down. Our involvement there could help hasten that. The current policy prolongs the wait.
Segregation isn’t just a northern phenomenon, either. On my first visit to Corinth, Mississippi, I was convinced no black people lived there. Then I found about a several square block area that was all black people. Then a few blocks later I crossed some kind of line and suddenly–no black people. I was weirded out to the point of calling my wife about it, because although we have similar situations in the North, I had never noted it to be such a stark line, with what appeared to be all in or all out. The houses were in poorer repair, the same with the cars. I felt like I had been transported to a different era somehow, where at least superficially.
Not just his writings, T, but his actions.
The guy was an absolute sicko when it came to killing those that opposed him.
Read a little more about him here
I find a picture of him turns my stomach just as much as a picture of smiling white guys at a hanging.
The Confederacy wasn’t just about owning people though; it was about committing treason in defense of the right to own people. People who get worked up about a guy saying “god damn America” somehow get nostalgic for people who actually took up arms *against* America.
Sure he was a sicko. The guy they replaced was worse. Maybe 2,000 political killings by Che. That sucks. Upwards of 20,000 under Batista. That sucks x10. That doesn’t make Che any less sick than Che was. But he couldn’t really hold a candle to the guy he overthrew. Batista came to power though a coup to thwart the desires of the electorate, and ruled as a brutal dictator. But he was OUR guy. We didn’t wear his T-shirts, but we recognized him, and were friendly toward him.
I don’t have to have the slightest inkling about race relations in the South to know how I feel about Southern states celebrating the act of taking up arms against our country.
Doug–but he’s a black guy saying, “God Damn America.” If he wore whiteface, moved to Ruby Ridge and said it, it might have been taken differently.
Doug, I take your point. But the treason angle was not what you excerpted.
My in-laws live in South Carolina now, and its the transplanted New Yorkers that bitch about the Confederate Flag the most. F-them. If they don’t like it, move back to the People’s Republic of New York.
Buzzcut,
Having grown up in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi, I’ll thank you not to paint the readers of this blog as ignorant of what the South “really is”; fuck you very much.
Having grown up in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi, I’ll thank you not to paint the readers of this blog as ignorant of what the South “really isâ€; fuck you very much.
So you’re pissed at me for “painting” the commenters for “painting” Southerners.
Nice.
Hey, are you a racist redneck? Use the N word alot? Go out lynching and whatnot? Get dressed up in Confederate garb and re-enact the Glory of the South?
Didn’t think so.
As for the commenters, we have one Southerner. Any of you other commenters a Southerner?
Didn’t think do.
And Brandy, and time you want to F me, you just leave a message on my blog. We can meet and see just how tough you really are.
Talk is cheap, honey.
My experience in the Old South kind of reminded me of France.Everything is understood,but not discussed, and people live in a comfortable balance racially for the most part,but if anyone questions his station,it causes friction and there could be violence. My brother lived near Charleston SC when he was a Navy man and he and wife lived in a small town just north.I enjoyed going to visit.
The Blacks lived in the country and the town and shopped at the Piggly Wiggly. The Whites also lived in town and country but all shopped at Publix.Housing seemed to be segregated but I never checked it out. I was struck by so many Blacks living rurally,because up north Blacks are city dwellers in my experience. People seemed relatively poor,both white and black.
Everyone was polite and respectful,which is a mark of the South ( and that’s how the French are too socially,and social graces hold the hostilities at bay ). There were a lot of very small churches along the road and seemed well attended,and not just on Sundays: Some churches were for whites and some were blacks.I always had a feeling I was on a movie set and that I was part of some large ante-bellum filming production.
My understanding of the Confederate Flag is that it has a double meaning and it’s both historic and symbolic. The flag stands for the historic Confederacy before the Civil War,but it also is a modern symbol for segregation because when the Confederacy was defeated the slaves were freed and the Confederacy was no more.It was all ‘gone with wind’.So it’s understood that recalling the spirit of the Confederacy would put Blacks back where they were.
Here’s what the census bureau has to say.
The South is significantly less segregated than the Midwest or Northeast. Slightly more segregated than the West.
As of… 2000. Of course.
As a true Southerner, I am amazed at some of the comments I’m reading here. Other than Buzzcut most of the commentators don’t have a real clue what they are talking about; but rather are relying on the propaganda and half truths that they have been taught by the folks who wrote history…the North. “He who wins the war writes the history”. Gotta have a moral issue as a good excuse…
We are proud of our ancestors; just as you are of yours who fought and died during the War Between the States. It is the North as well as the NAACP who have propagated the myths about the South and her heros.
There have been many times where the NAACP, Jackson, Sharpton, and others have come in and telling the blacks “…don’t you know that you are suppose to be insulted”. They are the true racists. It is just fine to have a Black History Month; but God forbid a Confederate History Month. Just like it is ok for someone who is black to wear a t-shirt that says It’s a black thing or I’m proud of my black heritage…; however put a t-shirt on a white person that says anything to do with being white or being proud of their Confederate heritage then they are a racist. In my mind I find something wrong with this.
Political Correctness has and is ruining this country! There are those who wish to commit genocide on Southern history as well as any and all reminders of our heritage. My ancestor’s who fought in that war were dirt farmers scraping the ground to feed their families and never owned a slave nor did they want to. In a time when less than 8% of Southerners had slaves why would people leave their homes and families to fend for themselves to go and fight as well as mostly die just so some rich folks who didn’t have to go could sit around and sip mint julips?
That war was about secession which the states had the pre-1865 Constitional right to do.
There were many reasons for the states to want to leave and yes slavery was an issue; however it was not the reason. Slavery was still legal and slaves were still used in the North at that time too.
Gen. Lee had come to believe that slavery was immoral and freed his slaves two years before the war where as Gen. Grant and his wife didn’t free their’s until made to by the radification of the 13th ammendment.
There are several letters and speeches where Grant made the statement that “…if I thought this war was being fought over slavery I would offer my services to the South…”.
Lou, there were over 400 different battle flags and there were 3 flags that flew over the Confederacy of which the battle flag I would assume you are speaking of did not. It was a soldier’s flag of the Army of Virgina and the Confederate Navy Jack. It is the St. Andrews Cross from Scotland and to my knowledge wasn’t used before the war and was never meant to have a political meaning; however it has taken on some negitive views because of it’s illicit use by some racist groups. The real racist flag should be the Fed. flag which the same racist groups also wave and of which the slaves brought to this country were brought under.
We have mixed race neighborhoods…plenty of them…I live in one. Our children go to school together, some choose to be together some don’t. I’m not saying we don’t have race issues…we do. There are plenty of racists both white as well as black.
We are all Americans and we salute the American flag; however we honor our Confederate heros and ancestors for the sacrifice that they made just as we honor our Southern soldier’s who are fighting now in the Middle East.
Oh, and I am one of those that puts on a Confederate uniform as a member of the Confederate Grays Honor Guard and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who has many a black member amougst her ranks.
Well, here is the crux of my disagreement with you. No, they didn’t. And, they were traitors for trying. Making matters worse was that the primary impetus for them to make this treasonous attempt was because they wanted to continue to have the right to own people.
The Union soldiers deserve our respect because they were fighting to *preserve* our country whereas the Confederates were fighting to destroy it. I’m sure many of the Confederate soldiers were fighting for reasons that were not pernicious – they loved their state; their state leaders led them into rebellion; and they followed. Perhaps they don’t deserve universal condemnation, but it would be ridiculous for the United States to revere as heroes those men who took up arms against it.
The Union soldiers deserve our respect because they were fighting to *preserve* our country whereas the Confederates were fighting to destroy it.
That’s a very post-1865 point of view.
Before the Civil War, most people considered themselves a citizen of their state first. The sense of patriotism that we have now for our country was lacking, and indeed was forged during the war.
Other than Buzzcut most of the commentators don’t have a real clue what they are talking about;
I freely admit that I know very little about this subject, typical public school grad that I am (“Don’t know much about history…”).
I just don’t like Southerners being stereotyped by a bunch of Yankees, who hold others to a racial standard that they themselves cannot meet (see that census report about segregation).
Sir,
Of course this is your blog and you are entitled to your opinion as we are of ours.
You should read “The Secession of 1861 Founded Upon Legal Right” by E.W.R. Ewing also author of “Legal and Historical Status of the Dread Scott Decision”.
Secession rested upon fundamental law. The sucession from the United States by the several states of the South in 1861 which led to the war was within constitutional right found in the Constitution of the United States. That secession was the means in the sense that the right of revolution as such a means is sometimes justified, for the purpose of preserving the sacredness and blessings of written constitutional government and for these purposes only.
After the war there were and still are contrasting versions of that war. The Lost Cause interpretation which came out of the South, the Union Cause which is the Northern equivalent of the Lost Cause, Emancipation Cause which emerged from black and white abolitionists as well as Radical Republicans and The Reconciliation which is still evident today. So I suppose it would depend on where you were raised; but with that said I am always greatly offended by Northern agressionists that call my ancestors traitors. I would suppose that they could be called traitors in the same way that our Revolutionary forefather’s were labeled traitors during that split from the tyrannical Empire of England.
This is an argument that will never be won but will most likely continue as long as there are differences between people and yes we are different. People always try and judge history by the standards of today and you simply can not do that realistically. One can not truely know what goes on in another man’s mind of a different era.
I personally could care less if the U.S. reveres our Southern heros. You certainly don’t see Gen. Grant Day or streets named after Northern heros here either and we don’t redicule you for honoring them. So why do you harass us for doing so? What is the North afraid of?
Don’t you suppose that if the South had won the war that the North would feel the same as we do…
Thank you Buzzcut. Wish that there were more people to the North that felt that way
Of course. And you’re right to point out that a freedom fighter and a traitor are basically the same person; the only difference being that the former was victorious and the latter was not. The English would (and perhaps do) rightly view our Founding Fathers as traitors. They were traitors to England; patriots to the United States. My loyalty is to the U.S., so I view them as patriots.
If my loyalties were to one of the Southern states instead of to the U.S., I would probably view Lincoln as a tyrant. But they aren’t, so I don’t.
And don’t forget, Doug, that we grew up in a highly Quaker town that was a part of the Underground Railroad. Even though I am not Quaker; I am proud of that Abolitionist heritage.
Guess we were traitors when it came to “property” rights.
What is a “true” Southerner? That will be an interesting reply.
Whether any of us “have a clue, or not” it’s hardly dependent upon knowledge of rationalistic interpretations of pre-Federalist concepts. What you refer to was no longer accepted as valid after the John Adams years, at the latest. Wishing otherwise doesn’t change it.
I don’t mind if you’re proud of your ancestors, or not. It’s superfluous to the discussion.
I don’t disagree that Jesse Jackson and Al Shaprton are racist. But, on the other hand, I generally believe that most people are racist to one degree or another.
You need a Confederate History Month? Whatever for? There is more interest in the US Civil War than in almost any other period of US history. Just what are you missing out on? Do you feel emasculated that you have to confine your butternut fetish to weekends out in the fields?
What is propaganda and half-truths is the belief that secession was allowable and justifiable in 1860. Some had been discussing it for twenty years, or more. Had Zachary Taylor not died suddenly, the Compromise of 1850 would have likely failed. President Taylor wouldn’t have been so indecisive. Odd, considering that a son of Taylor became a Confederate Lt. General, and a daughter became Mrs. Jefferson Davis (briefly, before her untimely death). Or, if James Buchanan had been even a halfway decent President, the Civil War wouldn’t have happened when it did, or perhaps ever, either. There’s a lesson in that for voters needing to be really serious about electing their Presidents.
Like it or not, the “Southern Cause” was tainted by the strict adherence to the continued propagation of perpetual chattel. So what if it were “legal”? Would you like to try it out as chattel for a couple of decades? Likely not.
Most likely, for both North and South, one could probably boil down the cause of the Civil War to money. Enough “taint” in that to go around for everyone.
Still, don’t expect sympathy for the honor and valor of anything “Southern”. That’s just another myth, one you just happen to promulgate. Southerners weren’t Knights Errant in an Arthurian fantasy, and hoping it was true doesn’t make it so.
“All of us true Southerners have nothing against folks who aren’t Southern. We have long since been willing to be reconciled, but there are some people who just won’t leave us alone. They insist on insulting our ancestors, distorting our history and, in short, attempting to commit cultural genocide. They want to tear down our monuments and rename our streets and schools until they have blotted out every sign of our past. We have no choice but to resist”.
A “true” Southerner? It’s a way of life. Not just born and raised in the South; but raised with honor, respect, politness as well as other fine attriubutes instilled in us.
Honoring Confederate History has been around for 100 years…called Confederate Memorial Day. The whole idea is not to honor the politics of the war; but to honor our veterans. No one exspects the North and her people to care about it one way or the other. And frankly no one here really gives a rat what the North thinks about it anyway.
Nuff said…God bless ya’ll
I don’t think reconciliation has taken place unless the Southern citizen:
1) Places his or her loyalty to the United States above his or her loyalty to a state or a region of the United States; and
2) Recognizes that the Southerners who revolted against the duly elected authority of the United States were wrong to do so.
It’s the romanticization of the Lost Cause that I think is damaging; in much the same way as the “stabbed in the back” mythology of 1920s Germany was damaging or in the way of “the dirty Hippies lost Viet Nam” is damaging.
Doug,
Do yourself a favor and read the new Book on Jefferson Davis which reveals the U.S. Government’s Uncertainty on Secession’s Legality
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln did not want to imprison Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In fact, Lincoln wanted Davis to escape. Lincoln , his successor, Andrew Johnson, and their cabinets feared that putting Davis on trial for treason would give him the chance to prove before the U.S. Supreme Court that secession was – and is – constitutional.
Pursuit: The Chase, Capture, Persecution and Surprising Release of Confederate President Jefferson Davis (ISBN-13:978 -0-8065-2890-8, June 3, 2008 , Citadel Press, $24.95) by Clint Johnson covers Davis’s escape from Richmond in April 1865, his capture in May 1865, his two years imprisonment from 1865-1867, and the legal maneuverings in 1868 that resulted in Davis finally being freed without any trial ever being held. Pursuit also reveals:
*The U.S. government lied about Davis ’s capture. He was not dressed in women’s clothes as the government claimed and newspapers like the New York Times reported.
*The U.S. government tortured Davis while he was held in a U.S. military prison.
*The U.S. government manufactured false evidence against Davis in an attempt to frame him for the assassination of President Lincoln.
* Chief Justice Salmon Chase secretly met with Davis ’s attorneys to keep his case from going before the entire U.S. Supreme Court. Chase feared that Davis could prove that the 620,000 deaths suffered by both sides in The Civil War were the Union ’s fault, not the Confederacy’s.
The Citadel Press? I’d like to read the book, too.
If the thesis is that “the U.S. Gov’t”, blah, blah, blah, then it is likely just more fecal punch.
There was a lot going on, and it wasn’t a faceless government behind it. There were political machinations, and this was a part of it.
Offhand, sounds like a suave swipe at southern revisionism.
or in the way of “the dirty Hippies lost Viet Nam†is damaging.
Except that it’s true. ;)
Look, good public school grad that I am, I couldn’t even answer the question “when did the Civil War occur” when I graduated high school. So I hardly think that the average person has a good feel for what was happening there, other than the feel good propaganda that is taught in the schools.
But I think the Vietnam analogy is apt. That was a mere 40 years ago. And it is still contentious.