{"id":605,"date":"2025-07-30T19:12:38","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T19:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/?p=605"},"modified":"2025-07-30T19:12:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T19:12:38","slug":"winners-vs-losers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/?p=605","title":{"rendered":"Winners vs. Losers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackmanwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Gregg-AdamsPic.jpg?resize=640%2C360&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-606\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackmanwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Gregg-AdamsPic.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackmanwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Gregg-AdamsPic.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackmanwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Gregg-AdamsPic.jpg?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackmanwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Gregg-AdamsPic.jpg?w=1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This was prompted by listening to the Clay Cane Show on SiriusXM<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s get something straight, <strong>the Confederacy lost<\/strong>.<br>Not just on the battlefield, but morally, historically, and spiritually. They lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if you\u2019ve looked around at street signs, military bases, schools, statues, and state flags over the last 100 years, you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking otherwise. In fact, for over a century, America has let the losers write the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s not an accident. It was policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Bases That Never Made Sense<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why were U.S. military bases ever named after Confederate generals in the first place? Why did we honor men who took up arms <em>against<\/em> the United States?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer? <strong>Jim Crow<\/strong>.<br>During World War I and World War II, as the military scrambled to expand and train troops in the South, they needed land, labor, and political support. Southern white lawmakers gave it\u2014on one condition: <em>you name those bases after \u201cour boys.\u201d<\/em> The ones who fought for the Confederacy. The ones who defended slavery. The ones who believed the South had the right to own Black bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so, it was done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Fort Bragg<\/strong> for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general who couldn\u2019t even win most of his battles.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fort Hood<\/strong> for John Bell Hood, who left troops dead and disorganized.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fort Benning<\/strong>, <strong>Fort Lee<\/strong>, <strong>Fort Polk<\/strong>, and others\u2014all monuments to men who waged war to keep Black people enslaved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These weren\u2019t chosen for military excellence. They were chosen because they were white, Southern, and treasonous\u2014but more importantly, because they sent a message: <em>you may be free now, but we\u2019re still in charge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Lost Cause Was Always a Lie<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This lie\u2014the <em>Lost Cause<\/em>\u2014is America\u2019s original fan fiction. A fantasy version of the Civil War that paints Confederate generals as noble defenders of \u201cstates\u2019 rights\u201d and Southern honor. It shows up in schoolbooks, in monuments, in how they talk about the war as \u201cbrother against brother,\u201d as if one brother wasn\u2019t literally fighting for the right to own people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>Lost Cause<\/em> didn\u2019t just distort the past\u2014it weaponized it.<br>It was used to justify segregation, lynching, voter suppression, and every manner of anti-Black violence. And naming U.S. Army bases after Confederate generals was just another way to institutionalize white supremacy, with federal dollars and government stamps of approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Correcting the Record: The 2023 Renaming<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2021, Congress finally said enough.<br>A bipartisan commission was created to remove Confederate names from U.S. military property, and under the Biden administration, the changes were carried out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s talk about the <em>real<\/em> heroes who replaced them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Fort Liberty<\/strong> (formerly Fort Bragg) \u2013 Not a person, but a principle. A commitment to what we say we fight for.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fort Cavazos<\/strong> (formerly Fort Hood) \u2013 Named for Gen. Richard Cavazos, a Mexican American who earned the Distinguished Service Cross in both Korea and Vietnam.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fort Gregg-Adams<\/strong> (formerly Fort Lee) \u2013 Honors two Black pioneers: Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams. Adams led the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion\u2014the only all-Black female battalion deployed overseas in WWII, which I never knew anything about until watching Tyler Perry\u2019s, The Six Triple Eight.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fort Moore<\/strong> (formerly Fort Benning) \u2013 Named for Hal Moore and his wife Julia, a military family that fought not just in combat but for dignity, equity, and reform.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Fort Johnson<\/strong>, <strong>Fort Barfoot<\/strong>, <strong>Fort Walker<\/strong>, and others followed suit, each honoring soldiers who actually <em>served<\/em> this country with valor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These weren\u2019t names plucked from nowhere. They were names that had been <em>ignored<\/em>, <em>overlooked<\/em>, or <em>intentionally buried<\/em> beneath the weight of white nostalgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Here Come the Losers (Again)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, in a political climate soaked with white grievance and fake patriotism, the losers are trying to make a comeback. Not with Confederate flags, but with legal loopholes and semantic gymnastics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some lawmakers and pundits are readty to \u201crestore\u201d old base names under the guise of honoring <em>other<\/em> people with the same last names. For example, Private Roland Bragg, a World War II soldier with the same last name as Braxton Bragg, is now being floated as the \u201creal\u201d namesake of Fort Bragg\u2014when it\u2019s renamed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s be clear: this is a con job. A cultural bait-and-switch. They know damn well the original names honored Confederates. But they\u2019re betting the public won\u2019t care if they repackage the racism in cleaner wrapping paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This isn\u2019t about heritage\u2014it\u2019s about hegemony.<br>It\u2019s about white nationalism trying to reclaim sacred ground, about erasing Black contributions to history, and about reinstating Confederate ghosts with new IDs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ve seen the pattern before. Books banned. Curriculum whitewashed. Black history labeled \u201cdivisive.\u201d Slavery reframed as a job training program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And behind it all, the same whispered phrase: <strong><em>\u201cThe South will rise again.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Illusion of White Joy: Claiming Victory Through Holidays<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Alabama and a few other Southern states, Confederate Memorial Day is still a paid state holiday. Every April, state offices close in solemn tribute to those who took up arms to preserve slavery. And every January, Robert E. Lee Day is celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a deliberate contradiction written in the calendar. One man fought for freedom, the other fought to stop it. And yet, they share the same date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This isn\u2019t just historical confusion, it\u2019s cultural warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These holidays exist not to remember, but to reassert. They are part of a broader white nationalist strategy to center white pride, even in loss, and overshadow Black joy at every turn. They want the myth of Lee to match the legacy of King. They want the lie of Confederate valor to sit beside the truth of civil rights struggle. They want to claim victory\u2014even when they lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Confederate Memorial Day is not about honoring the dead. It\u2019s about reviving the lie. That the Confederacy stood for something noble. That the war was about heritage. That whiteness is always right\u2014even when it\u2019s defeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the only kind of \u201cwhite joy\u201d some folks know:<br>The kind built on someone else&#8217;s erasure.<br>The kind that tries to pass off defeat as legacy, grievance as glory, and lies as tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And when that doesn\u2019t work, they find new ways to spin the story\u2014like pretending Fort Bragg was named for a different Bragg, or gutting school curriculums that dare mention slavery, or banning books that say Black people have always fought back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because they know what we know:<br>Black joy is evidence of survival.<br>It is the loudest refutation of their defeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>But Here&#8217;s the Thing\u2014We Already Won<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not just the war, but the right to be called heroes.<br>They lost the moral high ground, the narrative, the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The winners of the Civil War weren\u2019t the generals in gold braid or the presidents making deals. The winners were the ones who believed this country could be more than a plantation. The ones who knew freedom wasn\u2019t just a word\u2014it was a fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The winners were the Black soldiers who fought for a flag that barely recognized them.<br>The immigrants who joined the cause, chasing the promise of liberty.<br>The freedom fighters, the women who marched, who nursed, who resisted.<br>The ones whose names were never meant to be etched into stone or sewn onto uniforms.<br>Until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you believe America is better than its past, then say their names:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Gregg.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Adams.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cavazos.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Tubman.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Milk.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Write them down.<br>Teach their stories.<br>Put their names in your children&#8217;s mouths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Removal is not erasure.<br><br>Let\u2019s choose to tell the truth out loud, even when the lie has had a 100-year head start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Confederacy does not deserve our honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It doesn\u2019t. It never did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the only people who need it remembered are the ones still trying to win a war they have already lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was prompted by listening to the Clay Cane Show on SiriusXM Let\u2019s get something straight, the Confederacy lost.Not just on the battlefield, but&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-race"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}