Sunday, October 14, 2007
Racism doesn't belong at a crafts festival
Christian Trejbal
Recent columns
Tension simmered at last weekend's Floyd County Arts and Crafts Festival, and anyone paying attention saw both glorious free speech and the deplorable racism that still infects the South.
The Floyd County Woman's Club has sponsored the festival for more than 20 years. It's the group's big fundraiser, generating about $9,000 annually from booth fees. The women put that money back into the community, funding a number of laudable philanthropic efforts including scholarships, the library and the fire and rescue squads.
Gary Walker has been a regular vendor for years. He's an amateur historian who self-publishes books about the Civil War and sells them at the event.
He's also a racist.
His revisionist history warms the hearts of some modern Confederates. After wading through his book, "The Truth about Slavery," I only felt dirty.
"Like any way of life [slavery] had its negatives and its positives," Walker writes. "On the negative side, there was a lack of freedom of choice, lack of opportunity to succeed or fail, and lack of personal responsibility. On the positive side, there was no fear of unemployment, no lack of food, clothing, shelter [and] medical care, no need for long-term planning, no need to save for a daughter's wedding or one's retirement, no need for agonizing over business decisions and less accountability for the errors that all humans make."
There are at least two kinds of racists.
There are the Nazi types -- call them hateful racists. They spew venom and hate at minorities and think blacks are irredeemable scum.
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Then there are the Walkers -- call them paternalistic racists. They see blacks as child-like creatures who need white nurturing and guidance. Slave owners were loving, surrogate fathers and mothers. Slaves were lucky to have them, and all that talk about whippings is a misunderstanding.
Any black who struggled against his chains fares poorly in Walker's accounting:
"While white youngsters get inspiration from white heroes of the period like the honesty of George Washington, the courage of Patrick Henry, the integrity of Robert E. Lee; blacks are told to get their inspiration from those who resisted slavery. Their true heroes were liars, deceivers, murderers and slackers!"
During the weeks leading up to this year's crafts festival, some Floyd residents questioned Walker's inclusion. They rightly said the Woman's Club had legitimized his views. They also suggested his message might not be the best thing to attract visitors to the community.
Yet his is one of the faces of Southwest Virginia.
He's a pleasant guy. Wearing a gray soldier's hat and an "I support Confederate history month" sticker, he politely answered my questions. But sometimes the veneer would slip and an odious view that should have died with the Civil War surfaced.
Many of his supporters at the festival signed a petition endorsing his books and urging the Woman's Club to let him stay.
They milled around his booth and rallied to his defense when Rob Neukirch, who until recently owned Oddfellas Cantina in downtown Floyd, showed up with his own allies.
The confrontation was swift and harmless. It did not come to blows amid the crafters' wreaths, photos and jams. The two groups talked past each other. The Woman's Club asked Neukirch and friends to leave. They did.
It was a fascinating exercise in free speech.
Walker is entitled to write his books, self-publish them and spread his message, no matter how historically inaccurate and repugnant. He doesn't threaten anyone, urge violence or commit anything resembling a hate crime.
Neukirch and his friends can and should challenge him. Fostering public scrutiny and truth is the best antidote to Walker's poison.
The Woman's Club had consulted an attorney who said the group's bylaws do not allow it to single out a vendor based on his views.
Then change the bylaws. The club is a private group that has no obligation to give Walker a forum. If the women choose to exclude certain terrible messages, they do not censor, rather they exercise their right of free association.
The final player is the school division. Some argue it should ban Walker and the Woman's Club as long as they welcome him. That would be a terrible mistake.
The schools are the only public agent in this tragedy. They must uphold Walker's and the Woman's Club's First Amendment rights. They cannot throw them out just because Walker writes appalling things, including a coloring book to indoctrinate young people.
But as long as people like Walker go unchallenged, we all share his shame, and his racism will taint the rest of the nation's view of Southwest Virginia.
Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
