For my friend Paul Fahrenheidt, a brilliant, beautiful writer, Yockeyan and a bonafide son of the South.
“They call me white trash 'cause my hair hangs long
My ragged pants got no buttons on
My teeth are black and my shoulders sag
But I fly — the Confederate flag”
Eric Clapton, “White Trash”, from “White Mansions” (1978)
Why do I, a racially-mixed cosmopolitan with no ethnic, historical or ancestral connection whatsoever to the white South, fly the flag?
You can call it a LARP if you want.
You could call it cultural appropriation, but I would hope that the New South does not take after other resentful postcolonial populations, who react aggressively when it comes to the use of their symbols.
For the longest time, I credited my reactionary disposition for my affinity for Dixie. This most assuredly plays a part - a childhood spent in the afterglow of Hong Kong’s glory days1 did much to shape my sympathy for lost causes2.
The irony is, my preference for the Southern Saltire is purely propositional, purely philosophical.