Riddle: What is red and blue, but white all over? Clue: “Save your Confederate money boys, the South will rise again!” Got it? Well, let’s move on where the answer to this riddle will be clearly revealed. For starters, this clue or phrase was proclaimed after the Civil War by allegedly defeated White southerners. But, in reality or in great measure, the “defeated” South never fell to “rise again,” with the possible exception of a brief, so-called “Reconstruction” period (1865-1876) when federal troops occupied the South. In essence, the White South never has been “reconstructed” and, like the rest of the nation, has neither repented, apologized or made restitution for their sins, until this date – irrespective of alleged religious beliefs in this “Bible Belt.”

Additionally,  “The South Won The Civil War,” ideologically, as I narrated in a January 1997 essay, now included in my most recent book, The Scoundrel Syndrome (2004).  For the ideology of racism and its inexorable corollary, ignorance and greed, although often misperceived as a Southern sickness, was a nationwide phenomena, a major factor underlying the removal of federal troops from the “defeated” South, beginning with the disgraceful North-South political compromise of 1877 that awarded the disputed election and presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes. Dr. Rayford Logan, in The Betrayal of the Negro (1954), has aptly described this ignominious compromise. Indeed, during this era, as author Lerone Bennet has noted, the North was tired of “the eternal nigger,” for  “businessmen wanted to get back to business as usual; the violence or terrorism in the Southern states  was playing havoc with their profits.”  

Alas, in partial support of this nationwide racist reality, the Ku Klux Klan, founded in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1865, had more members in Indiana during the 1920s than any other state.  And even today, the Klan and other hate or terrorist groups – many with high sounding names or euphemisms, like the Council of Conservative Citizens – operate nationwide, with the same or similar basic mission of the Klan, as documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama.  

At the risk of being misperceived as a proverbial “wise guy,” I can affirm also that  “I told you so” in relation to the election of  President George W. Bush. For I predicted – publicly several  months ago, during a forum at the Unitarian Church of Columbia, SC – that George Bush would win this election, by means fair or foul, based upon my perception of The Scoundrel Syndrome. And the basic premise underlying this “syndrome,” a pervasive societal evil, is that the ideology-practice of White racism, based upon greed and/or ignorance, continues to thrive or remain operative among a plurality of Americans as reflected, in part, through their propensity to elect or to appoint scoundrels as their leaders - people, like themselves, who share similar values or viewpoints. Therefore, it is no accident that “leaders” like Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott and  Ronald Reagan were/are strongly supported in their states and/or nationwide.  And it is no accident that George Bush, following the same racist “southern strategy” of his “conservative” predecessors, “carried” the State of North Carolina, even with Senator John Edwards, a very decent and most worthy opponent, on the Democratic ticket.

Think about it!  America is essentially a White nation – run by, for and of White people – irrespective of voting patterns in either red or blue states. For neither political party has promoted an agenda for our/Black liberation or dignity, irrespective of such hypocritical rhetoric, like “liberty and justice for all.” Simultaneously, they brazenly misuse some individual “kneegroes,” like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who for personal gain or operating under the illusion of inclusion, permit themselves to be  projected “out front” as “fall guys,” often to promote a “national” or White agenda, generally in  a racist corrupt system. Got it? – “red, blue and white all over.” 

Indeed and tragically, Blacks as a group, while citizens of this country, both legally and geographically, are a population without a country, psycho-spiritually. For this latter psycho-spiritual concept of national “belonging” or identity is the highest connotation of nationhood that reflects an essential, fundamental reality for understanding the real America.  Of course, we/Blacks or, my preference, Africans in America, are entitled to all national rights or privileges “appertaining thereto.” But – and a big BUT – our entitlement to civic rights and obtaining these rights or ethnic dignity, in the context of The Scoundrel Syndrome, is a deathly struggle that we must continue, although apparently it is one that we may not win before America, like other so-called “great nations,” has been assigned to the dung heap of history.  Indeed, the odds are against us, but “what else is new?”  We/Blacks in America always, metaphorically, have been forced to “swim upstream without a paddle.”

As further support of the idea that “The South Won the Civil War,” the reader is encouraged to check out the maps at The Blogging of the President: 2004 web site.

Here the reader will find, initially, two maps of the United States – one a Pre-Civil War map showing Free vs. Slave States and a second map depicting in red and blue the 2004 Presidential Election Results. Indeed, the correlation between these maps is very revealing and interesting. Moreover, in one link to this site, the reader may find information comparing the average IQ and Politics between people in states that voted for Bush and Kerry respectively. And, surprise, surprise! In those states that voted for Kerry, the average IQ was above 100 – for example Connecticut 113, Massachusetts and New Jersey, 111 – while in states that voted for Bush, the average IQ was below 100, e.g., North Carolina 93 and Mississippi 85.  Again, these are very interesting correlations, not necessarily definitive “proof” of superior intelligence among all Kerry supporters or gross ignorance among all Bush supporters, especially in the context of documented deficiencies in measuring intelligence through standardized testing. Nonetheless, I am inclined to embrace some of these correlations only as statistical indicators that may relate to the White majority population, as defined in The Scoundrel Syndrome, especially those underlying factors of ignorance and greed – while adding a third factor, fear.

Finally, the reader also may find on this web site yet another correlation, revealing higher divorce rates in states that voted for Bush, with lower divorce rates in states that voted for Kerry.  Of course, such data, irrespective of interpretation, cast serious doubts on that “moral values” gang of Bush supporters that have claimed the moral high ground on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage – obviously ignoring, as usual, the gross immorality of racial injustice and all of the horrific, terrorist acts that have been/are perpetrated against Black people.  Indeed, such hypocrisy is by no means new in America – down South and “up South” – for truly, “The South Won the Civil War.”  However, let us be reminded, once again, of the wisdom of  Dr. Martin L. King Jr., to wit: "The arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Amen!

Gyasi A. Foluke, MA, DD, a non-traditional Minister, is CEO of The Kushite Institute for Wholistic Development and author of The Real-Holocaust: A Wholistic Analysis of the African American Experience, 1441-1994, The “Old Time Religion”: A Wholistic Challenge to the Black Church, The Crisis and Challenge of Black Mis-education in America and The Scoundrel Syndrome: Essays on the African American Experience, 1996-2003. Phone 704 391 8505; e-mail [email protected].