New Article on Dean and the Confederate Battle Flag

I've mentioned Edward Sebesta's Temple of Democracy before as an excellent source on far-right groups, especially the "neo-Confederate" movement. He's been critical of Howard Dean's position on the Confederate flag. And he has now posted a long piece on the Issue called, "Howard Dean and White Liberalism" on 11/15/03.

One point that he makes clear is that Dean's earlier position on the Confederate battle flag in South Carolina was very similar to George Bush's in 2000, until the other Democratic contenders pushed him to oppose it. Sebesta also observes:

<< There has been a lot of commentary assailing Dean's comment as a stereotype of the South and clumsy. It is true that most white people in the South don't have either a Confederate flag or decal on their motor vehicle of any type. In fact it isn't that common to see at all. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't a politically significant number of white Southerners who don't have the Confederate flags in their hearts and heads. >>

He worries that the Democratic Presidential candidates are being too hesitant to criticize white racism as such and too reluctant to deal head-on with the neo-Confederate movement. He even cites the examples from South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi of Democrats trying to appease the neo-Confederates rather than oppose them head-on.

And he points out how odd Dean's statement about a black-white New Deal alliance in the South in the 1930s is.

<< Did southern and African American working families come together in the Democratic party under FDR? What alternative universe is this? The Voting Rights act and the voter registration drives didn't come until the 1960s. The Democratic party of FDR was a Democratic Party that had no significant civil rights program. When the Democratic Party adopted a very modest civil rights plank at the 1948 Democratic convention when Truman was president, that is when the Dixiecrat rebellion occurred. The Democratic Party that Howard Dean is nostalgic for is the pre-civil rights era Democratic Party. >>

Sebesta's article is well-informed and thought-provoking. Check it out. And the rest of his Web site, too.