Critics to the Left of Me. Critics to the Right of Me

When I first started blogging at Civil War Memory back in 2005 my critics came overwhelmingly from the political right. A large percentage interpreted my writing as anti-Southern—an assumption that reduces the history of the region to roughly five short years between 1860 and 1865 and a population that is overwhelmingly white.

I was accused of being a liberal and a communist and a short list of insults that I won’t bother repeating here. As long as my visitors remained respectful I allowed their comments through and did my best to engage.

Unfortunately, not all my detractors were satisfied with leaving a snide comment on my website. I will never forget the day when the school where I taught in Charlottesville, Virginia was forced to go on lockdown after local police were notified about a threat that had been made against me and that a small group was making their way to my school.

Fortunately, I’ve never had to deal with anything like that again. In fact, over the last ten years the pro-Confederate crowd has become much quieter, especially after I left Virginia for Massachusetts. I guess they thought the threat I posed had passed having left the state.

What I still find difficult to understand, however, is the rise of critics on the political left. In fact, the latter is now the most common source of criticism in response to my online writing. It was especially acute during my time on Twitter and became noticeable after 2015, in large part, in response to the Confederate monument debate and broader debate about Confederate memory.

I found myself defending my character from people who were simply unwilling to listen to anything other than the most simplistic statements that masqueraded as historical explanations of the Confederacy and the proliferation of Confederate monuments by the turn of the twentieth century. That’s just one of many examples.

Twitter was the worst place to come under the gaze of trolls on the left. It’s a place where one’s reputation can be dragged in the mud through a massive pile-on instigated by a respected influencer who, may or may not have misinterpreted a tweet.

It made me feel incredibly defensive and eventually worked to censor what I was willing to say in response to subjects that I care deeply about. It’s one of the main reasons why I left Twitter.

I am not sure what it says about me or the political climate that we live in that I’ve been the target of critics on both the left and right over the past two decades.

I’ve never considered myself to be an ideologue. If I had to place myself on a political spectrum it would have to be center-left. Throw in a healthy does of pragmatism and a belief in compromise and you have a fairly accurate picture of how I view the world.

Yesterday I wrote a post about the challenges of Juneteenth becoming a true American holiday that transcends the current political and cultural divide. I tried to call it as I see it. Both the political left and right have, I maintain, made it difficult to achieve this goal.

Though the few comments that were left following the post were positive, I received a number of emails that accused me of “both-sidesism.” I interpret this as an inability or unwillingness to engage in the argument. Regardless of whether both sides are equally to blame is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make, which is that both sides have made it difficult in their own way.

I have no problem admitting that I could be wrong about yesterday’s post. I rarely have an issue admitting that I may have been mistaken if it means that I will learn something new.

I will continue to do my best to share my thoughts on this site and I continue to look forward to your feedback, but please understand that I am not here to reinforce your political affiliation or ideological principles.

Push back when you believe it is justified, but please do so in good faith and I will do my best as well.

Thanks.