--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> While it's true that the
> North & Lincoln
> weren't anti-racist and anti-slavery except when it
> was convenient,
> that doesn't really matter for talking or singing
> about Dixie today.
Depends on who you are talking about. Many white soldiers fighting for the North still recalled the feudalism/unfree labor of Europe and were indeed anti-slavery. Then there were black soldiers in the Union army, too. Also, dont forget there were even marxists in the union army. Wedemeyer (sp) was in it, I believe.
I dont know the history of this song. While I dont see that it is explicitly racist, it does seem kindred to these artforms (like "Gone with the Wind") or movements (like John Crowe Ransom and "the Fugitives") to mythologize and glorify the "Old South" and therefore could be considered racist in that way.
On the other hand, it could be argued that it is the ballad of one man's bitter personal experience after a horrible war. To make something of an analogy, I mean, there are the stories of certain Red Army soldiers raping german women when they swept through Nazi germany. One can imagine that a woman who suffered this would have a bitter memory of that event, but a song to that effect would not necessarily be a political condemnation of the Soviet Union's efforts, would it? In like manner, if this song is seen as just the tale of one man's personal experience then it is not necessarily a condemnation per se of Reconstruction or necessarily a glorification of the "Old South".
-Thomas
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