Disjointed Thoughts about HBO's Confederate

HBO's announcement of the new series Confederate seemed to be an attempt to preempt Amazon's announcement of Black America, a show that will be co-created by Aaron McGruder, creator of both the comic strip and TV series Boondocks. While both are alternative histories, a stark contrast remains: Confederate envisions black Americans as modern-day slaves; Black America does not. Given this difference, no matter when it was announced, Confederate was sure to draw fire. Why would the creators of Confederate want to see black Americans as slaves? That the creators have yet to build the world described in the press release made it more difficult for them to assuage the concerns of those who find the concept troubling.

So…Confederate will take place on the eve of the Third Civil War, where the sides, same as they ever were, are "The North" and "The South". But if the Civil War ended such that the Confederacy became its own country, then wouldn't a 'Second Civil War' and 'Third Civil War' simply be wars between two neighboring countries? Or has the definition of a civil war – a war within a country – changed?

Hopefully, this will not be the case, but I'm concerned about the potential framing of "The North" as 'good' – because it's racially tolerant and accepting, and the "The South" as 'evil' – because slavery. That narrative needs to be buried. There's little doubt that racist practices such as Redlining would've existed in "The North" regardless whether the Confederacy won. To pretend otherwise would be    tiresome and unfortunate.

Shout out to Black Nerd Problems for providing a list of 7 Black Alt-History Projects that would be better than Confederate.

Per the above mentioned list:

To the folks who can - will you please make Vigilance?

Pretty please?