Hood Bastards: Lost Cause Myth, pt 1

In the Behind the Bastards series on Robert E Lee, We talked a lot about the Lost Cause myth. This episode is about what the Lost Cause actually is.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yo, I'm out and about right now. I got my
daughter Soul with me, say what's up. But I wanted
to do a quick little intro. This, if you don't know,
is connected to the Behind the Bastards pod we're doing
like a four part series on Robert E. Lee just legendary,
horrible human. But part of that needed a primer where

(00:29):
we talk about the lost cause in the narrative. So
if you haven't listened to those other episodes from the
Bastard's feed, I mean, it's fine, I guess, but like
this won't make sense too much unless you understand that
that's what this is about, all right, the politics of
prop all right, Bastards crossover episode, the politics we prop

(01:03):
uh and we talk about some.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Of these like g moves, this gangster shit.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know what I'm saying. Robert and Sophie got into recently.
You feel me, y'all willing to talk about it yet?
Or we need to like play a low now.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
We got to know how the company is gonna want
to play it.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Okay, yeah, we got to play a low right now.
But just know, like these fools is these fools gay?
They're getting certified over here on this side Yo saying
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
I don't know why I'm looking down when you're saying it.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Like like like some sort of plausible deniability, like can't
nobody see us.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I don't know you're talking about allegedly. Listen, listen, Yeah,
now you guys got to start sounding like New York gangsters.
How they be like allegedly, Like you have to say
allegedly before everything. Now we allegedly and then allegedly just
just just put allegedly.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Before everything before everything.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, listen, not true, and we are allegedly gonna continue this.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
This series here, all right.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
So first of all, welcome too politics. This is one
of those things like we did with like crack sober Fest,
where you know, most of the story, actually the rest
of the whole story was on the The Bostards was
on the Bostards podcast feed, And.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
What accident are we doing today?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
The Bostards? You know, we're gonna do the Bostards. We're
gonna do drill music, isn't.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
It get the proper food, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:33):
So we've been covering Robert E.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Lee and this is somewhat of a like let's call
this like a primer, Like what are like the like
supplementary like documents like content to help you understand, Like
that's not a prequel, right, This isn't like a prequels,
like it's supplement right.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Is that a good way to put it?

Speaker 4 (02:53):
Yeah? Yeah, I think that works.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, so obviously I don't need to introduce the the
Queen Sophie Lickterman. I don't need to introduce Robert mage
y'all know who it is. You know what I'm saying.
We could just dive right in. Today we're gonna talk
about the Lost Cause, which was something that you know,
continue to like it's one of those things that like,

(03:16):
as you're telling the.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Story about the Civil War and Robert E.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Lee, it's like these things have to keep coming up,
but like at some point you got to step back
and be like, well, but what is it though, because
it plays such a like big role in the story,
right Yeah? Yeah, so a you're giving me Robert.

Speaker 5 (03:34):
Yeah, I it's interesting. Like I kind of debated as
I was putting together the episodes on Lee, like how
much to go into the actual history of like the
evolution of the Lost cos mythology.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
Yeah, because it.

Speaker 5 (03:48):
Like I wound up just kind of going with the
idea that, well, what I should probably do is just
kind of cover how parts of his life have been
covered in this yeah, and leave the rest of the
to you. So I'm excited for this because I didn't
have to write it.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
You know I'm saying, So this is like, yeah, politics,
reverse Bastard type situation. So I'm gonna read the script
if you will. I don't really script like Robert.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
Does like that.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
I don't know how you do it like a kind
of bullet point. Yeah, we're finna get into it. But anyway,
So what has continued on from from the Civil War
onto now, which is some stuff that like and as
we go through this, like I'm gonna be going back
and forth between like what was happening chronologically and how

(04:37):
it affects us now and how we're still seeing.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Sort of a lot of parallels.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
I think this was the first time when discussing and
I just racism in general and especially the American you know,
experience of it, because it affects me so directly that
this is the first time I've ever walked away and
actually felt a bit of I don't know, sympathy, Like

(05:07):
I actually like I felt bad for them, Like I
don't know how I've never interested.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's so interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
I was on this crazy journey, you know what I'm
saying in in uh in this so basically I'm going
to talk about like what are the actual like you know,
nuts and bolts of what is the Lost Cause?

Speaker 3 (05:29):
How did it start? Right? Why did it continue?

Speaker 2 (05:32):
You know what I'm saying, Like, how come nobody you know,
stopped it in the beginning, How it looks, how it
looks now? And really I'm going to connect it to
January sixth.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Believe or not.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
Oh that's exciting.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, it's really fun.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Back to another series we did together.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
True Insurrection. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
What I think is funny about the Lost Cause stuff
is that, uh, you know, as much of a failure
as Lee was in fighting for everything he tried to
fight for in life, the Lost Cause actually like ironically
considering his basis, and it actually has been like up
to this point, very successful. It's the most successful thing
and the whole which is kind of like kind of

(06:12):
disrespectful to Lee's actual legacy, you.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Know, for real.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, there's there's a phrase that came out of that
that we could go to now, which is like the
Confederates lost the war, but they won the peace. Yeah,
and and it and how they won the piece was this,
you know, uh, this whole process. But I want to
I want to start with a couple phrases because a
lot of this is really a lot of like psychology.

(06:36):
It's a lot of this is like why I love history,
you know what I'm saying, and why I love studying
this shit, and like why it's so interesting to me.
One is the doc you know, uh, my wife referred
to her by her prefix, put me onto this term
called apistemological rupture. Yeah you heard that before, Yeah yeah yeah,

(06:56):
yeah yeah, so yeah, in a pistemological break. And it's
like it was coined in nineteen thirty eight by French
philosopher and later used by I'm not going to say
this fool's name, right, Lewis. I don't know, I'm not
going to say his name, right, but anyway, right, So
it's like, think of it like this. It's the unthought

(07:18):
or unconscious structures that were imminent within the realm of sciences,
such as the principles of division, like mind and body.
The history of science, Blatcherd asserted that consisted of the
formation of an establishment of epistemological obstacles that then the

(07:42):
subsequent tearing down of those obstacles. This latter stage is
called an epistemological rupture, where an unconscious obstacle to scientific
thought is thoroughly ruptured or broken away from In other words,
certain thoughts break your brain right, And it's when you.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
Had to relevant concept today.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Exactly you see, I'm saying that's why I was like,
this is very very much now. It's the idea of
when you've established a world of just this is how
the universe works, the laws of physics, you know, science,
and just like but the evidence that's sitting in front
of you, you just your brain can't, it just does

(08:30):
not compute. But you have to accept it because it's
looking it's looking at you. The fact that the truth
of the matter air quotes truth is staring at you
in the face saying you have to let go of
the way that you've formed reality, right, And and it's
called epistemological rupture because of epistemology is like the study

(08:51):
of of knowing yea, yeah, yeah, It's like it's what
you know, so you know it's it's when when you
when you look at the sun and you from the
ground and you're like, well, the Sun revolves around the
Earth and you're like, well, actually no it doesn't. And
then like, but it looks like it does, you know,

(09:13):
So then you say, well, what would it look like
if it really did look like the Earth was moving
around the sun. Well, here's the thing. It would look
like that, because that's what it's doing. You know what
I'm saying. You have to like it just it breaks
your brain, you know what I mean. So like you
have to like rebuild all of our maps, we have
to reconstruct all of our understandings of the cosmos because
the Earth ain't in the center of it. That could
break your brain at it don't break our brains because

(09:35):
it's like obvious, but like certain things break your brain,
you know what I'm saying. But once it's broken and
you can reform reality, then we can move on and
then you find another one. Like in other words, it's learning.
I'm saying, like this this is learning. You know that
what you think something is and then you learn out

(09:57):
it's not and you just got to let it to happen.
So that keep that in mind as we talk about
this now lost, cause let's really get into it wrong. So, Robert,

(10:17):
have you ever got your ass kicked? Oh? Yeah, okay, okay,
now now you are. I can tell you're a fully
developed human. You're man enough to accept it, right, like
if you lost, you lost.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
Yeah, that's just the way fighting goes.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Right. You know, you've you've you've been in romantic relationships,
you've been in and I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
I've gotten my ass kicked.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Verbally you'm saying physically, I don't know, you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Sometimes sometimes you.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
Are physical over that any day of the week.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
Exactly right.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Sometimes you're just wrong, right, And when you're just wrong,
rather than being like, well I would have if this,
but still you was saying, it's like to me, that's
like a true sign of like of immaturity, like that
you're not fully processed.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
You can't embrace a l.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
Yeah, that is like eighty percent.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
Especially that's a problem for like our billionaire class, like
every Yeah, that's going on right now with these guys
like Bill Ackman going on these weird legal crusades because
like their nephew or niece said something they didn't like
at dinner, Like, yeah, it's so so funny, it's so stupid,
just yeah, bro, just take your l right.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
So, so before I get into there's there's six major
points of the Lost cause, like you have to understand
again why this was so important and who this was
really for. And to do that, you have to understand
the difference between history and memory, right, because history is
you know, it's bullet points, it's things that you know, timelines,

(11:54):
things that happen on the map. But history can only
be understood through storytelling, right, Like so, but storytelling, whether
we accept it or not, has a purpose, and the
purpose is shaping identity, right, And identity has so much
more to do with memory rather than history, because memory, yeah,

(12:18):
because memories about the future. Story is about the future,
it's about the next generation, you know what I'm saying.
Because if we was there, right, there's a part of
you that's like, again, I have to reconstruct the way
I remember something, because the idea of you just taking
that l right is almost unthinkable. Right Or when you
when you when there's a part of you that knows
for a fact you were wrong, right, but your brain

(12:41):
just can't you just can't let it go, right. So
I'm gonna read this quote here from Thomas Mumford, right,
who was a Confederate cavalry officer, and he says, again,
but memories about the next generation. They want their kids
to un understand that they were, that we we were

(13:02):
good men. And here's the quote when asked, why are
the old Confederates gathering again?

Speaker 3 (13:09):
And what.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Are they going to get out of it? To our
children and to their children's children, let it be our
pride to teach them, as is done in every land
where patriotism and self sacrificing spirits are honored and esteemed,
that the Confederates shed their blood for their mother Virginia,

(13:34):
defending a cause she knew to be just and right.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, that's so. It's like, I just don't want my
kids to know I was a piece of shit.

Speaker 5 (13:45):
Yeah, I don't want my kids to know that I failed, right,
failed thing I should never have been trued.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Because you should have never been a part of in
the first place. Yep. Now this's going to sound real familiar.
This is George L.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Christian Christian, who was a war vet, Confederate war vet
who became a judge and then a city councilman, believe
it or not, fourteenth Amendment, anyone that the.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
Shrewd calculating, check this out.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
The shrewd calculating of the wealthy Northerners realize the importance
to impress on the rising next generation the justice of
their course, and to that end, they soon flooded our
schools with the histories containing their version of the contest,
and in many of these all blame is laid on

(14:35):
the South. He was like, look, man, you're just telling
your side. You're telling your side of the story. You're
gonna act like it's like, oh, so it's my fault.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
It was our fault. It was our fault.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Right, So we need to make sure the schools don't
have these stories, you know what I'm saying. So we
need to correct your history books, because again, it's about
the future, right, and about telling a story that is
formed in a way that you want to be remembered.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
So how do you do that? You rewrite history? Right. Now,

(15:27):
here we go the Lost Cause.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
The Lost Cause itself can be kind of explained in
six points, right. So the first point is, and it's
the most important, right, which is that secession had little
or nothing to do with the institution of slavery. So
if that's the case, then we did not commit treason.

(15:49):
It was about the state's rights, which is something we
talked about in the Robert E. Lee episode, Right, because
what you have to believe that, like the Confederates for
this to work is like that there they were the
true America, that the Union had lost its way. So
if anything, they're the trees in this ones, right, Yeah,

(16:10):
that's the lost cause. Right number two is that slavery
was portrayed as a basically as a net positive right, submissive, happy,
and faithful slaves were better off in the system of
Chatdow slavery, which offered them protection.

Speaker 5 (16:24):
So like you know, but they kind of liked it, right, Yeah,
it was it was better for everybody, better for our
relations were better. Things got all confused and bad once
we once they started having choice.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, it was like they're fine, man, they're fine. Look
at them, they're fine.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Right. Number three is that the states the states that
the Confederacy was only defeated because the Northern States had
a numerical advantage of both men and resources. Right number four,
The Confederate soldiers were were portrayed as heroic, galliant and

(16:59):
saintly even after the surrender, they retained their honor right,
that that was an honor that what we didn't get beat,
we did the right thing. We understood that, like this
bloodshed needed to stop, so it was the right thing
to do for us to just like fall back. Yeah,
but as we've heard in the last four episodes, now
y'all was getting y'll ass handed it.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
Yeah, no, you guys fucked up because you made really
dumb choices just at the end of the day, right.
I Also I do love that, like, yeah, nah, we
only lost because they were better than us, as opposed
to like, yeah, that is very funny to me. But
if they hadn't, if they hadn't been so much better
than us, we definitely would have won. Everybody always says that.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, well if they if they just wasn't better fighters
and more trained and have more resources and more than
we would want.

Speaker 5 (17:45):
It's always funny to hear cope like that, especially in
a post Vietnam world, because it's like, what's y'all's excuse?

Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, what's y'all's excuse?

Speaker 3 (17:54):
You were the ones that were right and then that,
like we talked about for the whole week is that
Robert E.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Lee emerged as a sanctified figure, right, especially after his
death in eighteen seventy, and Lee himself became a symbol
for the lost cause. And then the thing called the
cult of Lee, which revered the Virginia as the ultimate
Christian soldier right who took up arms.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
For his state. Even was even called which what he
wanted to be the second Washington Right.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
And then six zero point six, I think is to
me is the most interesting, and it's the Southern women.
And I think a lot of people don't realize the
role that the women played in making this work right,
is that the Southern women also steadfastly supported their cause.
They sacrificed their men, They sacrificed their boys and their

(18:46):
resources more than their northern counterparts. And they it idealized
this image of the Southern bell right, this idealized pure
saintly Southern woman.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
Who heroically feeding her to the northern guns.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yes, yes, and and but the Northern women they wouldn't
feed they sons, not like us. We gave way more
of our sons because.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
We believed, yeah right, we believed.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
So so so you you you you get this, this
idea almost like the the Gone with the Wind woman,
you know what I'm saying, which actually plays a role
in Lost Cause too.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
Right, Oh yeah, yeah, So.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
I gotta I'm gonna be like you and I gotta
i gotta picture I'm gonna put into the chat here
because the role that art plays is actually big in
its origins. Right. So I'm pulling a lot from the
the National Humanity Center at the University of Virginia. This
this woman, Caroline Janey, who you could take her classes.

(19:45):
She was, She's brilliant. She wrote a ton of books.
She teaches a class every year in their graduates programs
about you know, this particular time in our history of
Lost Cause right now. So I'm pulling a lot from that.
But it's origins obviously, they developed over time, like we
talked about before, uh, it started like well, before the

(20:07):
war was done, they started formulating. Again, while youre getting
your ass kick, you gotta start coming up with excuses
for why.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
Yeah, when you're losing that bad, you really got to
like plan ahead of time.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, you gotta start planning ahead of time. So what
I want to show you is this this painting. I'm
gonna put it in here of it's called the Burial
of Latin.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
You could also share your screen, by the way.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
All right, cool, So let's do this one. So you
see this photo right here, So this is the it's
called the again, the Burial of Litany. Now it's very
important because so who it's supposed to be is that's
a fallen Confederate soldier right there. It looks like a
since this is an audio thing, it looks like like
a Renaissance painting, if you will, Yeah, and which is purposeful.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Rights the artist you know.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Uh, painting by William Dickinson. Okay, so the Burial of Latain.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
This is by.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
William Littney, No, not William Litney, William Dickerson, right, is
by William Dickerson. Really like huh, Billy Dicks Billy Dix right,
Renaissance style. It's it's the way that it's even set up,
it's almost set up like it's like it looks like
like a like a Renaissance painting of like of the

(21:25):
disciples right like, so it's like you have these very
somber and sad looks like you know, mother daughters, sisters. Yeah,
a priest like doing like the burial rights and then
it's got the whole dig dug out without the coffin
put in it yet, so the coffin still sitting there,

(21:46):
and you see the guy.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
Soord and he's got his like.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
Co or whatever.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Maybe yes, yes, Now on the left is what must
what has to be assumed to be his property, his slave.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Yeah who or at least the families, yeah, or the families.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Of yeah that lived on the plantation who dug this
hole for him, and they are seem to be mourning him.

Speaker 5 (22:11):
Also, oh yeah, exception of the dude who dug the grave,
who has this kind of like yeah, when do I
get off?

Speaker 4 (22:18):
You know, you're done here?

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Just kind of like his shovel, like, are y'all done
this fucking dead asshole? Yeah. So so this triumphant.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Returned this somber moment that the slaves actually wanted to
participate in because they actually they actually considered their owner's
family right, And what they're trying to say is I'm
gonna stop sharing here. What they're trying to say is
this idea that again they like, they liked the system
that they you know, with all the other things that

(22:56):
went on, like the basically the vast majority of the
slaves experience was more like this, where of course it
got rough here and there, but if you stayed in line,
your master treated you well. And really black people enjoyed this, right,
and they fought for a cause to continue a way
of life.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
Right, So.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
We were mourning the loss. Black people were mourning the
loss of the Confederates, just like everybody else in the South.
Because so this is a part of like the media blitz, right,
So hundreds of pieces of art were starting to pop
up around this time around these things as bodies were
getting shipped home. Right, So this image like really solidifies

(23:39):
the origin story, the original seeds of what's going to
grow into the Lost Cause myth, right, because it's not
really a full myth just yet, you know what I'm
saying now, by eighteen sixty three, you know, like we
said before, Lee was, I mean, he's godlike, right, he's venerated.

Speaker 4 (23:56):
He's perfect, he never told a lie.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yes, yes, completely venerated, right, and it's farewell addressed after
they surrendered, right, you already seen him as this soldier
who was brave and fought to the last man. And
of course, but of course, like if if this is
your general after y'ad ha already surrendered. Nobody wants to
hear like, well, guys, look, I ain't even want this
job anyway. You know, I'm saying I could have worked

(24:20):
for the other team.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
This, It is stupid. I just wanted to keep our land. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying, Like.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
I was just doing it for a paycheck. And I
can't believe you guys. Let me that was bad at
this shit.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, I really shouldn't have done this. I just need
done fucked up. Yeah, my bad, Like.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
I just look, man, I was just trying to get
the cloud right, But you didn't want to say that, right, so,
but he's but he had to say again like you
said that first point. Look, we were outnumbered, right, and
the death toll was too high. It just wasn't worth
it to keep sending these people to bleed. And that's
but that's not defeat, right, Yeah, that's me being a
good general. Like, we were not outnumbered, we were not rebels.

(25:01):
We're the real patriots, right, which is all fine and dandy.
You know, you guys can get together and swap war
stories or whatever, right, but that's not going to make
the cement settle.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
The cement doesn't settle until.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
The ladies get involved, right, And how the ladies get
involved is this thing called the Ladies' Memorial associations. So
what they started doing, these proper Southern bells who were
and it's very important to understand this too, is like
these were middle and upper class women, right because again

(25:37):
most white people was poor like everybody else, Like you
ain't really own land.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
You had to be like like that.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
This is why you know, critical race theory and intersectionality
is important because it's like everybody wasn't like that, you
know what I'm saying. So these middle and upper class
women who could only have the life they had because
of slavery, like they were leisure us, you know what
I'm saying, Like what you guys would call like you know,
welfare queens or whatever, like y'all don't ever work, you

(26:05):
just want money, Like that's what they were. You had
everybody else doing the work, so they could sit on
the porch and with day fans and drink day sweet
tea because somebody else is doing the work, you know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (26:16):
Yeah, back in, I mean, one of the things I
think is important to get across is that like in
this period before you've got washing machines, before you've got
sewing machines. Yeah, for people, for most people, for people
who do not have entire families enslaved to work for them.
If you're like a mother or something, just keeping your
family in clothes is like a full time job.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
It's a full time job sewing.

Speaker 5 (26:40):
The knitting, the repairing, you know, in addition to everything
else that you've got to do. So like one of
the things you have to look at from the perspective
of these like Southern women, they are like fighting for
their the human beings that act as their leisure saving
devices exactly. Like that's a big that's really what's going
on here.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, the principal of the like they their argument, which
that's a great point because their argument is like listen, dude,
we're a political we're just mourning our sons, right, we
just want to we just want to give our sons
a proper Christian burial. But like you said, no, their
entire existence. If slavery falls, we gotta go back to

(27:23):
the river to washing clothes again, Like we got to
pull this cotton out the ground, we gotta pick this corn.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
We go back to doing all this work in the fields.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
So they're like I kind of like I kind of
like just having like tea parties and and you know
what I'm saying, that like sitting in the cool of
the day under the JUNI for trees, Like that's kind
of nice, you know what I'm saying. So their whole
their whole social just think just just think Hollywood, just
rich kids, Like their whole way of life is done,
you know what I'm saying, if there's nobody work in

(27:55):
these fields. So obviously they have skin in the game.
But what they started doing was again putting together this
Ladies Memorial Association, and they were starting to give proper burials.
And the first one, the first Ladies Memorial Association, appears
to have organized in Westchester, Virginia by a woman named

(28:16):
Mary Dunbar Williams. She was a resident of the town
and she was horrified by the lack of proper burials
for the Confederate soldiers who had defended defended their land. Now,
as we said at the end of the Robert E.
Lee episode, where like the way the Union was doing
was like we don't bury all soldiers on y'all's land,
because fuck y'all you know what I'm saying. So it's

(28:38):
like I don't give a ship where y'all guys you are,
you know what I'm saying. Like it was like this
was a part of the disrespect. Was like y'all don't
even get you don't get burials, like let the birds eat.
You shouldn't have done this shit anyway, you know what
I'm saying. So that's kind of that's kind of part
of the story. And they're like, look like it or not,
that's still my son right now. In May of nineteen
or eighteen sixty five, she visits her sister in law

(28:59):
Eleanor Williams Boyd, whom she recounted, this is crazy, a
story of a farmer who had plowed up the bodies
of two Confederate soldiers while just trying to prep the
field for corn. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
So yeah, you just you just like you got life
gotta go on. We still got to grow corn.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
And as you dig in the ground, it's like, oh,
there's a Confederate soldier, you know, And of course that
would be shocking to anybody, right, but like anyway, so
these are the same women that were volunteering in the
hospitals that were like they were a part of the
war effort, while at the same time it was very
important that they were under they were they were to
be understood as just grieving mothers.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, you know, it's like we're not. We just we
just want to we just want to bury our babies.
Right now.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
By the autumn of eighteen sixty eight, right there was
like more than twenty associations organized in just Virginia. And
again now I'm gonna I'm gonna switch gears again to
the to the psychology of this, because like, like cemeteries,
monuments are for legacy, right, it's for honor, because like

(30:08):
I said before, like I was like I was joking
about it, but that's real. It's like you get a
proper burial as a way to honor, right, for us
to come and look at later, like to remember again,
because it's about memory. So so they felt it important
to be like, well, we don't want our boys. They're
saying this, we don't want our boys who have died
in Vain, even though they absolutely died in Vain.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
Yeah yeah, and badly, yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (30:34):
And a stupid, stupid war and a stupid attack owned
by carried out by a guy who did.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
Not really know what he was doing exactly.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, you don't want to admit that, No, nobody wants
to admit that, right, But the reality is, like we said,
every aspect.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Of Southern life was connected to slavery, right, yeah, all
of it. You know.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
So if anything, they're just trying to preserve their parts.

(31:23):
Now by or by eighteen sixty eight, we're obviously fully
into reconstruction, right And at the end of reconstruction or
at the beginning of reconstruction, after everything was all the
dust had settled, the country had to declare martial law,
like obviously, you know what I'm saying, Because it's like,
who's gonna really agree to this shit?

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Right, you know what I'm saying. So you had to
declare martial law.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
And union soldiers basically they took the states and they
broke them up in the districts, right, and union union
soldiers were in charge of making sure that the people
behave properly. Right, but so so they wasn't loud, like
they wasn't letting Confederate soldiers gather, Like y'all couldn't party,

(32:08):
y'all couldn't kick it. It's like nah, man, because like
I don't want this shit to pop up again, right,
So they weren't really free to do a lot of
the stuff that they wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Right now.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Jew Ball Early, that's the boy's name, Jewball Early. You
heard Jewebra Early.

Speaker 5 (32:23):
Yeah, yeah, he's We actually quoted him in the episodes
on him talking about Lee. But yeah, he's a Confederate
general and like an early Lost Cause proponent.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
So so what he does after this is he starts
the United Confederate Veterans Association. Yeah, right, so he starts
you know, we have veteran association, So he starts one
for the Confederates, right, and they got together and was like, well,
in some senses, the North is telling everybody why we fought,

(32:54):
Like why do y'all get to say our motivations?

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Like let us say why we fought?

Speaker 2 (33:02):
And like any vet would do, like we said, to
keep your sanity, especially when you know you're on the
wrong side of history, is you got to spend a
story for yourself right to not be a monster, right,
because that process of de radicalizing, I would imagine, would
be super painful. Like here's like, here's the true story

(33:24):
for me, Like there was a guy at my high
school who was a couple of years older than me,
that was like full on neo Nazi boot tied skinhead, right, yeah,
went to our school, right, and him and his homies,
like one of my friends got jumped, like it was
by this like Nazi group whatever. Right, awful by that

(33:44):
this would happen when I was a freshman. By the
time I was a senior, you know, he had graduated,
He had been gone for two years. He had gotten
out of that world, right, so he got so he
had gotten out, and he was coming back to our
school to kind of tell his story about like him
coming out of and realizing a lot.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
Of this shit. And what it really reminded me of
is like I find.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
I find just learning people, knowing people being to be
Like I just find people interesting, Like I think, you know,
some people are super funny, like they have great stories.
Like so when I think about a lot of times
when I think about like the Deep South and stuff
like that, Like surely you went to your Paul Paul's
house and he was a loving man, you know what
I'm saying, And like, and you enjoyged your relationship with me.

(34:32):
Maybe you got a really good biscuits and gravy like
like recipe. But because of this wall, right that it
and it sucks because I'm the wall. Because of the
wall of your racism, I could never we could never
experience that type of human connection with this person. And
I remember when this kid came back to our school,

(34:54):
I was like, do his fool's like super funny man?
He could draw like he was like a super talented dude.
And like I said, a couple of grades older than me,
and I was like, damn man, like I was an
ap art student. I was like, bro, you would have
been in my art class. Like you're like you're like
a cool ass dude, you know what I'm saying. And
but this, but this thing that for a long time
he could not let go of kept us from ever

(35:17):
having like a real relationship. And part of what he
said before.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Was he was like, bro, like you know, he gave
his reasons for like why he like got.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Involved in all this good stuff, but like ultimately he
said the whole time he's in the back of his
mind was just like I don't know if I believe
in you this shit, you know what I'm saying, Like
I just I mean, I think, like I don't like
I don't know enough black people to hate him, like
you know what I'm saying. Like, so he was really
talking about like I just I'm not really sure this

(35:47):
is me, but it is what it is. And then
finally he said part of the part of the reasons
he got out of that world was he was just like,
I'm just missing out on so much fun. Man, Like
I have to keep lying to myself. Like he was like,
I'm I I have to keep myself from just like
for us, it was acknowledging. He was like, Yo, he
would see us, you know, listening to Woo Tang and

(36:09):
you know, partying and dancing, you know what I'm saying,
and like having a good time, and he was just like, damn,
that looks fun. But my friends would kill me if
I ever admitted that that was fun, you know what
I'm saying. So he was just like I for a
long time, I say all that to say, like this
this this thing that they were gathering together for like
for a long time. He would like, I'd have to
keep staying in these gatherings because it was a way

(36:31):
for me to create a sense of belonging and like
to make me feel sane, like I'm I think this
is crazy, but I'm gonna keep going here to tell
myself that I'm not crazy. And then finally he was like, nah,
it's some bullshit and got out, you know what I mean,
and then enough enough to be able to come back
to the school. And I commend him, you know what

(36:52):
I'm saying for being for willing to like separate himself
from his whole social status.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
You know what I'm saying, this whole.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Society, his whole commune, because just to make a right
decision like that, actually it takes a lot out of
a person because you're not just pulling yourself from the ideology,
you're pulling yourself from your community.

Speaker 5 (37:09):
Yeah, well that's and you know, to reinforce that. That's
why I have a lot more respect for the Southerners
who stayed with the Union as opposed to the ones
who fought for the Confederacy, because one of those things
just requires being willing to get shot, which a lot
of shitty people are willing to get shot. Very few
shitty people are willing to give up, like their connections

(37:31):
to the culture they were raised in when that culture
does something evil. You know, Yes, it's the same things
as like, yeah, there were a lot of fucking Nazis
who were willing to like go get machine gunned in
the Eastern Front, but there weren't a lot of Nazis
who were willing to actually stand up to Hitler. One
of those things is respectable. The other just shows that
you're not scared to die, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
So, yeah, so you got the Ladies' Memorial Association, and
now you have the United Confederates Association Confederate Veterans Is Sociation.
But at this point, these are still people who lived
through the situation. But it's still just like oh, folks, right,
like so, but now a generation is starting to be

(38:13):
born and to come into their own mind, and they're
going to start making their own decisions. They're gonna start
thinking about what their parents did, and again, because history
is just us, then they're probably gonna have the same
logical conclusions most of us.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
Did to where it was just like, yeah, maybe y'all
shouldn't have I don't.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Know, Pop, Like, I mean, i'll see you in your
homies talking about I hear what you're saying, but I
sound like bullshit to me, you know what I'm saying.
So the next generation is where we got the first
United Daughters of the Confederacy, which started in eighteen ninety four,
which carried all the way to the mid twenty first century. Right,
our twentieth century is it's the next generation. So now

(38:53):
it's their job to actually solidify the Southern version of
what happened. So now we're having what we could possibly
actually be collectively called the Lost Cause, right, and what
they were the ones that did was started building all
the cemeteries in the monuments.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Right, So.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
Thenment but the first monuments, what I think a lot
of people don't realize are out there are monuments to
the Faithful Slave, and there's one in Fort Mill, South
Carolina in eighteen ninety six. Now remember plus E versus Ferguson. Yeah, yeah,
I remember that the one Drop of Duty. Right, this

(39:40):
is happening around the same time, right that that they're
starting to establish these ideas of the faithful slave, where
they're building monuments not just to their fallen soldiers, but
to the good colors, right, which I at this point
feel like I can't I can't wrap my mind around that,

(40:05):
Like I honestly can't wrap my mind around it. Now,
the plessy versus Ferguson. Why this is important is because
this is what establishes separate but equal and real quick
story down south in New Orleans.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
In Louisiana, you have you know, the Creole, you have
the French, you have black.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
So now you have a lot of like actually rather
wealthy black people, right, who are half French Canadians, so
they're rather fair skinned. So what Plessy was was a
very light skinned black man and who could now afford
a ticket to get on the train, right, Yeah, so
he gets on the train, and again, since the trains

(40:45):
were separated by color and class, right, they had this
idea of like, well, let's send this light skinned dude
who you can't really tell you black and that, you
know what I'm saying, send him in there. And he sits,
and he sits in the white person's the white people's
like train cart and they're like and then while he
gets there, it's a whole political stunt that they're doing.
They go he asked the train guy like, hey think

(41:08):
I should sit here, and the dude's like, yeah, why not.
He goes, I'm actually in the wrong trying because I'm black, right,
And the dude's like, well, what do I do. So
they're trying to say that, like you're this is absurd,
right that, like you don't know what black means, Like
you guys don't know what you means these laws that
you're setting up, because again this is reconstruction. You don't
know what it means. All this is ghastly Slavery's done.

(41:29):
Can we please move on? And I'm showing you how
stupid your thing is. At the same time, there are
this movement in the South where people are like, there
used to be a time that black people knew they plays, right,
and we're gonna build monuments to that, right, which is
all part of this this media narrative where we're looking
at the same thing, but we're telling two different stories, right,

(41:51):
so so, and it's the Daughters of the Confederacy that's
like starting to make all this shit happen.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Right, and then and then this kicks off the the
full media blitz.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Right there's a Lee monument that pops up in May
of eighteen ninety Then there's a thing called the Confederates
Magazine in eighteen ninety three. And I'm still like, I
still can't stress enough, Like you lost, Like y'all you're
the Lucy, you're the losing team. And again this goes

(42:26):
back to that thing we're saying before. It's because the
Union won the war, but the Confederates won the piece.
And this is how they're winning the piece. They kept
the story going, right, if you keep the story going,
which again brings us to now, like, how are we
literally watching We're watching a Supreme Court decide if President

(42:49):
Trump was actually a part of the insurrection or not, Like,
because he kept his story alive. If you keep his
if he keeps the narrative of live, it skews reality
to a way to where we actually have to engage
in something that clearly we're looking at the idea of
saying that like no person with can hold office, who

(43:12):
took an oath, who can you know and engage an insurrection?
And now you actually arguing if the president is in office,
and I'm like, I you're this is how you win
the piece. You keep the story the way you want
it to go.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Right.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
So they had a magazine he was up, he's just
doing revisionist history.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
Well, he's smith, he's wordsmithing.

Speaker 5 (43:36):
It's this constant thing that like centrists and liberals never get,
which is that the fight isn't just over because you
beat them once, Like if they're willing to keep fighting,
and you decide, oh I want to keep I want
to get on with my life. I don't want to
keep like rehashing this shit. Let's just ignore them. Yes,
then like they they they can turn a loss into

(43:58):
a win, Like it's what keeps happening with these people,
and it's purely the result of not being willing to
continue throwing down, like you have to actually break the
sons of bitches.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, I mean for me, I have this like constant
flashback to what happened when they when they announced Biden
won the twenty twenty election. Yeah, and I and I
used to live in West Hollywood and people were cheering
in the streets. John Legend and Christy Tagan were in there, like, bro,
I saw this.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
Yes, We're in their car through the moon roof. They're
waving like their Queen Elizabeth.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Like they had just done it. And I'm like, I'm like,
you know, that was cool? That that that I mean cool.
I mean it's great that Trump didn't get re elected
that time. Yeah, it's sad that that that that was great,
But like that wasn't even like we're not that was
that was barely even step one.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Yeah, that wasn't even step one. Yeah, yeah you gave up.
You just you won.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
And that's it, right, you're thinking that, Yeah, you're not
paying attention to like how the storytelling needs to continue
to happen.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
Right, So, and that's what they started doing.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
They were selling magazines, you dude, that and and in
this magazine was the first movie advertisement for the first movie,
Birth of a Nation.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Right, So you they were printing magazines and they was
doing this.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
So look we got magazines, now we got movies, right,
and you know Birth of a Nation, right, obviously, that's
that's introduced the world to the Klan.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Right.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
You could buy merch, you could buy like oh Confederate
like like uniforms.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
Right.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
They promoted lynching events like and so like it's like, yo,
come on Sunday after church, we're finna hang somebody you
feel me brings brings some potatoes, you know, so like
you would you you're, you're, you're. It's essentially it's their
version of Twitter, right, it's their version of social media.
Like we when you can control the media, you make

(46:01):
it seem a little more fun because it's like, oh,
you know, I just bought a little uniform for my kids.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
You know what I'm saying. Now, it's just about Virginia.
You know what I'm saying. He's just honoring his grandpa,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
So so, yeah, you could they were going to see movies, right,
you could buy merch right and yeah, and this magazine
like started in eighteen ninety three, like it continued for decades. Right,
they continue to sell this magazine. Right, they would have
like essay contests and quizzes. Right they would. Now this
should also make a sound familiar to you too. They

(46:35):
wouldn't make sure that schools had the correct version of history.
And how would they do that? They would join the
school boards.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
Yeah, yeah, that's always the path to victory.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah, always, Yeah, so they you know, it's these magazines,
these essay contests like on some like Highlights magazine.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
You remember Highlights Magazine.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
You know what I'm saying, Like all these different things
that again, because it's about the kids, it's about getting
them involved. And then you make sure that your kids
at they school got the correct version of history, right,
which is.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Tried and true way to do.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Now, the question one would ask, which will cover the
next time, which we'll cover in the next episode, is
how to hell did this shit stick right, because you're like,
if you're the Union and you won, like why are
you not? Why are you not pushing back? Like why
are you not every time? Which again is something that

(47:33):
we could ask ourselves in these days.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Like why like.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
How is a man with ninety one felony charges? Like
why did y'all not shut this down? You know what
I'm saying? Like we talked about at the end of
the fourth episode with Robert E. Lee where it was like, Yo,
we actually should have executed these niggas, you know what
I'm saying, Like, had we have executed them, right, maybe

(47:59):
that would have been a thing, right, But but you're
I just it's hard to understand how they didn't shut
it down, and the fact is they actually tried to.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
They really did try, you know.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
And in then in in this next episode, we're going
to talk about how they tried.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
And why it didn't work. Yeah, yeah, so all I yeah,
I actually thought this was gonna be one episode. My bad. Anyways, Cool,
it's cool.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Zone Media.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
It is never just one It's never just one episode,
never just one.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
All right, So Behind the Bastards tell them where to
find them.

Speaker 5 (48:40):
Yeah, check us out on Behind the Bastards. Listen to
the episodes about Bobby Lee. Uh and about how the
Lost cos Mythology specifically talked about his life and uh yeah,
uh good a hell?

Speaker 4 (48:53):
I love you.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Politics with Pride right.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod.
You better listen to these credits. I need you to
finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
in East Lost boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If

(49:31):
you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got Terraform Coldbrew. You
can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed, edited,
and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski killing the Beast Softly.
Check out his website Matdowsowski dot com.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
I'm a speller for you because.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
I know m A T.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
T O S O W s Ki dot com Matdowsowski
dot com. He got more music and stuff like that
on there. So gonna check out the heat. Politics is
a member of Cool Zone Media. Executive produced by Sophie Lichterman,
part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and

(50:14):
scoring is also by the one and nobly mattaw Sowski.
Still killing the beats softly, so listen. Don't let nobody
lie to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all
next week.