Confederate values – Is that really what we’re fighting over these days?

The choice of entertainment for the Illinois State and DuQuoin State fairs is, strictly speaking, not a Chicago-area issue. Although I have no doubt that people exist who are going to somehow claim this is evidence of Chicago or urban values predominating over the way rural people want to live.

Cancelled in DuQuoin

Which is to say that a whole lot of nonsense is being spewed over the acts that have been hired, or not hired, to perform at the events taking place during August.

THE DUQUOIN FAIR in Southern Illinois is an alternative event to the Illinois State Fair that usually takes on a more rural character. More southern than the rest of Illinois. For those people who think of the Land of Lincoln as neighboring up against Kentucky, rather than Iowa or Wisconsin

Among the acts that had been scheduled to appear there was a band billing itself as Confederate Railroad. But it seems state government officials cancelled their contract with the band because there are those who take offense to someone using the symbolism of the old Confederate States of America.

Personally, I’ve never really heard the band. I had to use the Internet to do a search to find out anything about them, and from the snippets I heard, I don’t think there’s much of a loss.

But there are people who are prepared to think of this as some sort of snub to their idea of what a “real America” ought to be about.

PARTICULARLY WHEN THEY learned about the entertainment scheduled for the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. Where is seems that the rapper Snoop Dogg is scheduled to perform.

The same people who are prepared to think that Confederate Railroad is somehow worthy of our attention are offended – probably by the presence of any act that isn’t geared to a white, rural sensibility.

But Snoop Dogg particularly offends them because one of his many album covers includes the 2017 record “Make America Crip Again.”

Double-standard? Or over-reaction?

Which depicts the artist in a totally gangsta pose of standing over a flag-covered corpse, whose toe tag indicates it’s the body of none other than President Donald Trump.

ADMITTEDLY, THAT’S A tacky image to use. But it seems state officials have no problem with it, or with Snoop Dogg. As opposed to Confederate Railroad – whose own appearance in DuQuoin is no more for this year.

State Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, is trying to make an issue of this, and claims there will be a significant boycott of the DuQuoin Fair – which potentially is a blow to the Southern Illinois economy that considers the fair one of its most significant events each year.

She’s gone so far as to use a lengthy Facebook post to denounce state officials, particularly Gov. J.B. Pritzker, whom she says is “hypocritical” and “will own the resulting economic damage.”

With Pritzker aides telling the Capitol Fax newsletter that Bryant is distorting many facts, and also tossed out threats implying that Pritzker’s personal safety would be placed at risk because of all of this.

WITH BRYANT SUPPOSEDLY telling the governor “I love my people, but they’re crazy.” Crazy enough to do bodily harm to our state’s chief executive? That’s more of an indictment against them than their willingness to get all worked up over the music of Confederate Railroad.

Personally, it makes me think the Taste of Chicago is a much more sane event than either of the state fairs – even though I’ve never thought of any of these events as THE place to go for top-line entertainment.

The most rational event of all -- regardless of the oversized turkey legs

I’m inclined to think the state fair in Springfield is particularly weak in that it usually features musical acts whose artistic peak occurred some two decades ago. In that regard, the idea that Snoop Dogg is reduced to playing in Springfield somehow seems fitting.

While I find it ironic any band would take the “Confederate Railroad” imagery for their own identity – since anyone who really knows their history would understand that one of the Southern states’ biggest weaknesses in trying to become an independent nation was their system of trains to ship people and goods from place to place. It stunk!

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EXTRA: Is new Roots worth our time

The entertainer Snoop Dogg (or by whatever name he goes by these days) brings up an intriguing point – is the remake of “Roots” (that 1970s television sensation) harmful to the black experience in this country.

Should we be forcing people to focus on the modern-day reality of black people in successful roles, rather than remembering the days when black people were little more than livestock?

AS SNOOP DOGG put it, having a new version of “Roots” airing on television last week to great acclaim merely “show(ed) the abuse we took hundreds and hundreds of years ago” rather than “how we live and how we inspire people today.”

I might be inclined to agree with that sentiment, if not for the fact that one of the flaws of our society is that we have never truly acknowledged our past sins in trying to regard black people as less than people.

While I don’t doubt it possible for some twisted souls to view something like “Roots” and see it as a story of the way things used to be in the “good ol’ days” (the same people who think they’re making a profound statement wearing those “Make America Great Again” caps that Donald Trump spouts), perhaps we need an honest accounting of what once was before we can move forward as a society.

Even if it merely adds a perspective as to why many black people have grievances, complaints and concerns that they just can’t let go of.

AS FOR THE new “Roots,” I saw pieces of it – largely because I was engaged in a move that took up much of my week. Watching anything on television was a low priority.

And by the time the A&E channel got around to rerunning the episodes last weekend, I wasn’t in the mood to binge-watch anything.

Of the bits I did see, I can appreciate how additional facts were added (I didn’t realize ‘Kunta Kinte’ was an aspiring university student before being captured and turned into manual labor for life). Although I don’t expect this new version could ever have the emotional impact of the original.

Which I still remember airing back when I was in junior high school (and which I binge-watched about three months ago on one particularly dismal weekend when I had little else to do).

I STILL REMEMBER the sense of everybody I knew catching the latest episode the evening before – and the commentary from those people who complained about having to confront the horrors of slavery.

They’re the ones who claimed it was all so exaggerated. They’re probably the ones who would rant and rage the most these days – if they’re still alive (maybe it’s their kids who will complain the loudest).

Because I also have a “junior high” memory of people getting all worked up and excited over the network broadcast of the film “Car Wash.” Perhaps all that shuckin’ and jivin’ from black people (it was the mid-1970s) is what some would rather see.

Maybe we need the constant reminder of what once was, and which a few people may fantasize about someday becoming real yet again.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: One impression I gained from rewatching the old “Roots” a few months ago was amazement at how many black actors got work as a result – all of the cameo appearances. O.J. Simpson pre-criminal trial and Todd Bridges (pre Willis Jackson) are the two that particularly stand out in my mind.