Semi-Slavery

There are more African-American men in prisons today than were enslaved in 1850, someone wrote.  It's hard to admit what happened after the Civil War. What happened is that black people were semi-enslaved in the South, as the price for reunification of the country. A slave-whipping losing general became a symbol of  brilliance, nobility and gravitas. Nazi punks, his intellectual heirs, now drive down the main street of my California town with Confederate flags waving from their pickups.