Dying for Dixie is a chapter in the book confederates in the attic by Tony Horawitz. He traveled to Guthrie, Kentucky, a small town on the border of Tennessee to report on the murder of Michael Westerman. He interviews Westermans family to get their side of the story. “They say that the war ended a long time ago. But around here it’s like it’s still going on.” (pg 124) In some ways I think that this is explaining a very true assumption. Throughout the entire article it just seems like random shootings start because of their race, or if someone gets offended by the rebel flag being waved around, fights just seem to start. The war is still going on because they still have tons of racial problems, but it seems the issues revolve around the rebel flag.
When Freddy shot Michael Westerman, he did not know why he was doing so, “I thought it was just the Dukes of Hazard sign.” (pg 116) Freddy did not know anything else about the flag, he shot Michael because he thought it would get him attention and he would be seen as “cool.” I suppose that some of his friends in the car knew what the flag meant; they could have pressured him into shooting Michael because he had the flag waving on his car.
Freddy was deemed as “prone to violence and showing off.” (pg 116) I think Freddy only shot Michael because he wanted attention and that he was being pressured into following his old ways. Freddy moved to Guthrie because his mom got sick of his Chicago attitude. He was originally in a gang where they created violence where ever they went. He was falling back into his attitude and becoming violent.
The racial tension is not just affecting the blacks, there are whites being abused as well. “Yo, snow! What’s your name? Hey sugar, come up and get some sweet stuff.” (pg 114) “Any given black person…is about seventeen times more likely to kill a white person then the other way around.” (pg 112) Some people hear racism and automatically assume that black are being abused, but what some don’t realize is that whites are being abused or shot just for being white and announcing what they believe in.
“Slavery was not all that bad, a lot of people were quite happy to be living on large plantations…blacks need to get over slavery, you can’t live in the past” (pg 99) Chapman never had to go through that, but yet she still says that it was a good way to live “don’t put us there they used to be” (pg 99) and yet she does not want to be forced to live like that.
When faced with a racial problem I think you should at least try to face it. “As soon as the blacks got in [the pool], all the whites got out. Whites demanded that Eskridge tell the blacks to leave…Eskridge and her husband filled the pond with dirt rather than let it become the scene of racial strife”(pg 94) Eskridge seems to me like a cowardly person, she tries to hide and just dismiss things. If she stood up to the whites and told them a piece of her mind, then maybe there would be a little less racial problems that were over the pool. This was after the slaves had all been allowed to be free. Some people just need to get over the fact that we are all equal.
I think that the south still has racial problems. Most of the racial problems are caused from the rebel flag still being used as the mascot for the school. The war still seems to be going on in Guthrie, but I think people will stand up for what they believe in. Sometimes it gets out of hand when guns are drawn for no apparent reason, or just to have their time to fight back at the opposite race.
