07-08-2015, 09:21 AM
I don't. I may have been born in Pennsylvania, but I have resided in Virginia for all but the first year of my life so I am a Virginian and also a southerner. It's interesting, because I was born in a very backwoods, racist area of PA, and I currently live in a city that is in what most Virginians consider to be a very backwoods, racist part of Virginia. We're not quite into SWVA territory, but we're as close as you'll get. Even with all of that, I have never identified with the Southern Cross.
Growing up here you hear more about the Civil War than I'd bet anywhere else. The Shenandoah Valley was the breadbasket of the South and so was a constant quagmire of violence. You can't throw a rock without hitting a monument or a marker to recognize a battle being fought or a soldier falling. Virginia had more battles than any other state and because the Valley didn't play much of a role in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War, the Civil War is the history we pay much more attention to here. I'm a lover of history and so have absorbed all of it. I love going to the museums and battlefields, I've considered reenacting even. People here fly, wave, display, and wear the Southern Cross without irony or a hint of racism (not to say there aren't racists here, far from it) and do it because of the history and heritage. Even with all of that, I have never had a connection to the flag, or any flag of the CSA.
Give me the flag of Virginia any day of the week. Tyranny laid to waste by Virtus, symbols of our freedom from Britain's restriction as well as monarchical rule. That's a flag I can stand behind, under, or carry with pride.
But I also just don't like the color red.
Growing up here you hear more about the Civil War than I'd bet anywhere else. The Shenandoah Valley was the breadbasket of the South and so was a constant quagmire of violence. You can't throw a rock without hitting a monument or a marker to recognize a battle being fought or a soldier falling. Virginia had more battles than any other state and because the Valley didn't play much of a role in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War, the Civil War is the history we pay much more attention to here. I'm a lover of history and so have absorbed all of it. I love going to the museums and battlefields, I've considered reenacting even. People here fly, wave, display, and wear the Southern Cross without irony or a hint of racism (not to say there aren't racists here, far from it) and do it because of the history and heritage. Even with all of that, I have never had a connection to the flag, or any flag of the CSA.
Give me the flag of Virginia any day of the week. Tyranny laid to waste by Virtus, symbols of our freedom from Britain's restriction as well as monarchical rule. That's a flag I can stand behind, under, or carry with pride.
But I also just don't like the color red.
