Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, probably best known for being the governor of a state with a name that ends up being the first “long” word any of us learn to spell, signed a proclamation declaring the month of April “Confederate Heritage Month.”
On Bryant's gubernatorial letterhead, the proclamation starts out by explaining that April is the appropriate month to honor Confederate heritage because it "is the month in which the Confederate States began and ended a four-year struggle." It adds that the state celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on April 25 to "recognize those who served in the Confederacy."
It then explains that it is "important for all Americans to reflect upon our nation's past" and "to gain insight from our mistakes and successes," adding that we must "earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us."
The proclamation is not viewable alongside other Mississippi proclamations online. In order to see it one must go to The Sons of Confederate Veterans homepage. Did your grandpapi fight to keep the racist, systematic dehumanization of another group of people in order to benefit from cheap labor going? Well, come on down to the Sons of Confederate Veterans where we pretend that things used to be better before we got our asses handed to us in a war where even our own God did not support us.
None of this is surprising, of course. Mississippi has a long heritage of being wicked racist and electing dumb racist blowhards like Haley Barbour and now, Phil Bryant. Back in 2010 Barbour tried to minimize the failure of then Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, when he proclaimed the same Confederate History Month but forgot slavery as well.
Then Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour defended McDonnell on CNN's "State of the Union," saying the outcry was "just a nit." He added: "It's trying to make a big deal out of something that doesn't matter for diddly." He also told Candy Crowley that he didn't think it mattered that the proclamation hadn't mentioned slavery. Barbour, the former head of the Republican National Committee, also said that Democratic Legislatures in Mississippi had also signed on to honoring Confederate heritage.
Other things that don’t matter “for diddly”: Haley Barbour’s integrity as a person. Governor Phil Bryant is a racist and he wants the racist votes in his state because hey, it’s working for Donald Trump and that guy is more popular than the entire Republican Party.