Again, the point deserves attention. But the limitations of the argument remain apparent.
The markers of Southern culture will most likely always reflect elements of racism. Elvis Presley,
for example, carries not only the marker of a Southern singer, but the "white voice in a
black body"
that Sam Phillips felt would be worth a million dollars. The way to deal with such markers, it seems
to me, is to indicate their existence (in cyberspace or elsewhere) but then to move towards
advocating the strategies of resistance and appropriation often dictated by
both cultural and media studies. The lesson was put forth by Stuart Hall who demonstrated that
iconic representations often seem natural because of social construction.
Iconic signs are, however, particularly
vulnerable to being 'read' as natural because visual codes of perception
are very widely distributed and because this type of sign is less
arbitrary than a linguistic sign. (Hall 96)
This is McPherson's problem with cyber-Confederacy; it assumes a "naturalness"
and therefore "innocence" inherent in its symbols of Southern heritage. The solution, McPherson
feels, is to highlight the ways Southern heritage websites hide racism
with "natural" iconic signs of the South (white plantations, Southern gentlemen)
in order call for new Southern representations on the Web. But that will
not change how these icons display Southern culture. Old or new, iconic markers will remain.
These markers, however, can be taken apart when set against their
ideological backgrounds.
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