Woke Awakes to History

by Bernard McCormick Wednesday, January 25, 2023 3 Comment(s)

A phenomenon of our time is that things we once took for granted, such as history, are now being challenged. Florida leads the way in making sure our schools, at least the public ones, are not poisoning young people’s minds with woke nonsense, such as that slavery once existed in our country and the residual effects have taken a long time to overcome.

In investigating this controversial subject, we have discovered that among the many myths long promulgated in our history books was that there once was a Civil War. Admittedly there was a problem, back in the 1860s, when what started as a peaceful protest in South Carolina got a little out of hand. But like the more recent Jan. 6^th Washington event, it was really just patriots exercising free speech. And when General Sherman, if he ever really existed, marched across Georgia, it was just typical tourists from Minnesota wanting to see how their southern neighbors got on.

Over the years, various commercial interests have taken advantage of the Civil War myth to make money. Battles that many people still believe actually happened are products of local chambers of commerce, aided by willing Hollywood filmmakers and other media. As columnist George Will has noted, visitors to Gettysburg have been heard saying there could not have been much of a battle there because there are no bullet holes on the monuments. In fact, many of these so-called battles appear to be concocted just to attract visitors to our national parks.

We can trace the Civil War myth back to the 1920s when Margaret Mitchell wrote a book called “Gone With The Wind” which later became a wildly popular movie. With characters such as Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler, and Mammy, none of whom ever existed, it made war seem so romantic that writers have been enlarging the theme ever since. You might call it systemic fairy tales, whatever that means.

The 1939 film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone with the Wind’ starring Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel as Scarlett O’Hara and Mammy.

Once these historical myths get rolling, they are hard to contain. Getting the Civil War out of our history books altogether may be a hopeless task. There is too much money being made by producers of Confederate flags and politicians keeping their names alive by arguing about woke stuff. But as long as Republicans control Florida, we can expect them to give it the old college try. Although, they aren’t likely to permit the topic to be discussed in college.