The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

To recap Republican "history education", anything that mentions Black history is prohibited because it makes white students feel unfairly guilty. Instead, we must therefore celebrate Confederate Heritage Month to honor the traitors that turned against the US in order to preserve, you know, slavery of Black folk.

 

For the fourth year in a row, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has signed a proclamation declaring April as Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi, keeping alive a 30-year-old tradition that former Republican Gov. Kirk Fordice first began. Black people make up 38% of Mississippi’s population, which is the highest for any state.

A branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the SCV Camp 265 Rankin Rough & Ready’s, posted a copy of the proclamation on its Facebook page on Tuesday afternoon.

“Whereas, as we honor all who lost their lives in (the Civil War), it is important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation’s past, to gain insight from our mistakes and successes, and to come to a full understanding that the lessons learned yesterday and today will carry us through tomorrow if we carefully and earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us,” the proclamation says.

“Now, therefore, I, Tate Reeves, Governor of the State of Mississippi, hereby proclaim the month of April 2023 as Confederate Heritage Month in the State of Mississippi.”

Starting in 2016, Donna Ladd reported first and then annually in the Jackson Free Press on then-Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant’s Confederate Heritage Month proclamations, and later on Reeves’ first Confederate Heritage Month proclamation in 2020. The Mississippi Free Press reported on Reeves’ proclamations in 2021 and 2022.

Reeves’ 2023 proclamation is dated April 31, 2023—a date that does not exist because April only has 30 days. In Facebook comments, members of the SCV Camp 265 Rankin Rough & Ready’s noted the error, with the group’s administrator writing, “what do you expect it’s from Tater.”

“Woops,” the administrator added in a followup comment.

The group has posted Reeves’ proclamations annually since 2021; the R.E. Lee Camp 239 SCV Facebook group posted the 2020 proclamation. Without SCV groups posting the proclamations and the Jackson Free Press and Mississippi Free Press reporting on them, they could have gone unnoticed as they did before 2016; neither the governor nor any other state official publicizes the proclamations or posts them on any state websites or social-media pages.

Reeves defended issuing the proclamations in 2021.

“For the last 30 years, five Mississippi governors—Republicans and Democrats alike—have signed a proclamation recognizing the statutory state holiday and identifying April as Confederate Heritage Month,” he said in a statement to WAPT at the time. “Gov. Reeves also signed the proclamation because he believes we can all learn from our history.”

 

I assume nobody in Mississippi's state government asked Black kids how they feel about honoring the people who fought to keep their ancestors enslaved, but I'm sure Black folk don't have human feelings because we're not considered sentient lifeforms anyway.