I just don't get Southern Pride

I don't mean this as flamebait, but I just don't understand. Southerners have much more to offer to our country. I respect your pride in what you have given to our country. But why honor the rebel cause? Most supported their homeland, but they also supported slavery. Why honor it today?

Why would anyone want to support an armed rebellion against the federal government? Say something like that today and it's called treason.

Why do you people persist? Does it give you joy to stereotype southerners? What is your evidence that "...but they also supported slavery." How many stories do you know about poor southern farmers and what they thought about the minority of rich plantation owners that had slaves?

Pretty rude to tell an entire geographical area to forget honoring their relatives you know nothing about.

My own heritage has Southern ancestors. I have many ties to the South.


I know more than you might think. It's a legitimate question. I don't dishonor Southerners.

Because you are equating "southern pride" with "supporting the rebel cause."

I'm really trying to understand the lock politically on Southern Pride. I know that there are differences but they seem to be swept away with the Southern Pride ideal. I'm trying to understand. I'm sorry if I offended you.

unless you're a secret Republican hoping to discourage and disparage the few courageous Southerners who are still proud liberal Democrats.
On the other hand, I guess we're safe targets for your venom, so go right ahead and bash. As a gay man and a Vietnam veteran, I'm used to it. What's one more?

I live in liberalville. I don't understand your post from a cultural perspective. I have no way to understand it without much more information and personal information. No venom from me but a true asking for more information.

And yes, I tried to stir up a hornets nest. I don't deny that. I do not like the the southern divide. It's dumb. I want to look at politics differently. Let's get the liberals to vote

& why the south LOST!

eom

It offers an interesting take.

Thank you for the recommendation. I love that DBT album. "Ronnie and Neil", "Let There Be Rock"... they recall my youth circa 1980-81.

Going to put on some Skynyrd and Hatchet while I am at it.

Hell yeah.

Grandpa pissed his pants again
He don't give a damn
Brother Billy has both guns drawn
He ain't been right since Viet Nam
"Sweet Home Alabama"
Play that dead band's song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
Daddy's doing Sister Sally
Grandma's dying of cancer now
The cattle all have brucellosis
We'll get through somehow
"Sweet Home Alabama"
Play that dead band's song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long
I'm going down to the Dew Drop Inn
See if I can drink enough
There ain't much to country living
Sweat, piss, jizz and blood
"Sweet Home Alabama"
Play that dead band's song
Turn those speakers up full blast
Play it all night long

Was Warren Zevon mad at Lynard Skynard or what?

WZ laid out the socio-economic and cultural conditions of the "modern" south. He wasn't tweaking Skynyrd, for he knew that they were not reactionary rednecks (although some of their listeners may have been so)

It's not *nearly* as, um, direct as that, but I like Dave Matthews' subtle change in that song.

Skynard's line is "Watergate does not bother me," and Matthews changes it to, "Watergate really pisses me off."

Interestingly, that version, at the moment that line is sung, gets huge ovations in Southern venues.

His exposure to the south comes from hanging out in frat houses at the UVA in Charlottesville. He misses the point of the song (not suprising, he is a no-talent idiot) by not knowing it was a JOKE.

A better rewrite would have been "Whitewater does not bother me".

But, a lot of Southerners miss the point of the song as well...I mean REALLY miss the point.

I'll just agree to disagree on the musical talent thing. :-)

But I get the analysis of the song straight from the writers themselves, one of which said, "We supported Wallace about as much as your average American supported Hitler." It was a message to northern hypocrites who were just as responsible for Nixon's ascent as any southerner. That is why the following line says "Does your conscience bother you?" Southerners like them were tired, TIRED, of being scapegoated as pawns in Nixon or Wallace's race games. You try being liberal and white in the south (like I was). You too will use irony as a defense mecahanism, and see the flaws of hypocrites easier.

Skynyrd hated Nixon, and in fact campaigned for Carter in 1976. How 'bout them apples?

And I didn't mean to indicate that I didn't. I also am one who understands the point of the song.

I offered that comment mostly as a balance to other comments on the same sort of subject, noting that a the insertion of a phrase that was less ironic, and thus better understood, got a receptive response among Southerners who enjoy Matthews' music.

As a fan of both, I saw it as Zevon being wryly misanthropic, and that time, the south was his target. But he did country music from time to time, and even collaborated with Dwight Yoakam at one time.

is a reaction against the way we've been portrayed in the media ever since the signing of the Appomatox treaty thingy whatever it was:

"Hee-Haw", "The Dukes of Hazzard", "Deliverance", "The Beverly Hillbillies." People with rope belts swigging moonshine and marrying their cousins (hey, if your cousin looked like Ellie Mae, you'd go for it, too!). Andy Griffith probably gave us the only positive media portrayal we've ever gotten.

Sort of like how African-Americans decry their portrayal as muggers and hookers, Southerners have to make an extra effort to assure the other 3/4 of the nation that we don't have rusted cars on blocks in our front yards. The fact is we have some great things to hold up: eggs, biscuits, sausage and pepper gravy most notably. Elvis gave you rock n' roll. The Allman Brothers. Ray Charles, Little Richard, B.B. King. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Flannery O'Connor. Bert Parks, DeForrest Kelly, Julia Roberts, the guy who wrote "American Beauty" and Ryan Seacrest (okay maybe scratch that last one).

That's my explanation.

And don't forget Tennessee Williams. Or "Gone With The Wind". I love the "educated" or "upper class" Southern drawl -- just melts the ear. And our colorful politicians like Huey Long and Big Jim Folsom . . . Or how about the movie, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" with its wonderful traditional Southern folk music? And the Mississippi Delta Blues?

Of course I'm not proud of slavery and prejudice -- I'm not proud of the Civil War or the KKK -- I'm not particularly big on redneck and Nascar -- but there's a lot to Southern culture that is worth preserving.

jingoism by any other name is still jingoism. Reactionary and mindless.

I am by no means an expert, but I am from Virginia, and I have taken many, many American history courses over the years...

On that note, it is true that only about 10%-15% of the southern population were slaveowners in the south.

BUT...and this is a big but...the southern politicians (most of whom were slaveowners) and businessmen (most of whom were slaveowners) created a system where by virtue of being WHITE meant that you were better than anyone who wasn't white--even if they weren't slaves (there were many free blacks living in the south in the 1850's-1860's).

So...if you were poor and white and didn't have a pot to piss in, you were still better than ANY black in the South; because you could vote, you could serve on a jury, you could have any black do your bidding.

This attitude carried over through Reconstruction, through the Jim Crow era, and even up until today. This attitude is what I think accounts for what you call "Southern Pride."

This is why I can still talk to people from southwest Virgina who will INSIST that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery...and will insist that slaves had it better under the plantation system...and will insist that the "War of Northern Aggression" was started because the North was jealous of the south's money...and will insist that Abraham Lincoln was a dictator who started the war to further his own political ends.

I wish I was making this up, but I am not.

Afterall, it's the home of the Holocaust. How can you love a place that built concentration camps, gas chambers, and mass graves? Then capped it all off with cheerful slogans like, "Arbeit macht frei!" to remember on the way to your death.

Why should the Tutsis and the Hutus love Rwanda? 800,000 people were murdered inside of 100 days in 1994. Families still live right beside their loved ones' killers. And more are returning every day.

Why should Serbs, Croats, and Muslims try to live peacebly together in that eternal vortex of ethnic hatred otherwise known as Bosnia-Herzegovenia?

Answer: Because it's home. We love it because it's home. And because we don't dare give up hope that tomorrow can be better than yesterday.

As you can see the South has a lot in common with the rest of the planet. And when you love your home as with any dear person close to you, of course you are mindful of faults. But you love unconditionally. That's the only love that survives and provides hope of change.

God and General Longstreet by Thomas Connelly and then follow that up with Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by David Blight. I would also suggest pretty much anything written by Comer Vann Woodward, the patriarch of Southern history as a discipline. He has a collection of essays called The Burden of Southern History that will outline a great deal of information about how the Southern mind works, how it deals with its own history.

I'm not saying they will answer your question, but they'll give some insight into the Southern psyche, to borrow a phrase, and the Southern and National reaction to the aftermath of the Civil War and the mythical aura that surrounds it.

I'm willing to discuss this, by the way, but I'm not sure this forum is the place I'd be willing to do it. I don't react well to uninformed, stereotypical commentary coming from anyone, but when it comes from those that would be the first to assault such commentary coming from anyone else, it's especially irritating. I'm not saying anyone in this thread has expressed such sentiments yet, but in the few other threads I've read since joining DU on subjects like this, I have seen it. I had to hide the threads so I wouldn't be tempted.

George Washington Vickers, 15 years old, was with his two brothers clearing a woodlot in S. Georgia (Willacoochie) when the local constable rode up and told them the right wing of Sherman's Army was coming and they were burning all the houses and crops and to come with him to help. They rode north in a buckboard, and joined other boys and formed a line in front of a fence, just as the Union soldiers walked out in front of them and formed a battle line. The "rebels" knelt down to fire, and just then the Union soldiers fired. My GW Vickers two brothers fell dead and he was shot through the shoulder. The Union soldiers ran up and when they found they'd killed what amounted to a whole school of kids, the started weeping. So ended George Washington Vickers military career, and that of his brothers.

Flame on . . .

He was a friend and one of the best professors I ever had. A wonderful man. RIP, Tom.

That man is one of my favorite historians. I've read everything he's ever published...excepting maybe some essays I haven't found yet.

And, he inspired, and taught, another of my favorite historians, William G. Piston.

Just one example: He spent almost every summer riding on the tour bus of his best friend singer/songwriter Tom T. Hall
Tom was a raconteur AND scholar.

Do some homework before inciting something here with a stereotypical assessment about Southerners.

nt

...that if you explore this on the Internet without the guidance of a little background from some scholarly books, you're going to run straight into a massive problem of bias, from all sides.

Southern-pride, so-called, on the Internet has this horrible tendency to boil down to arguments about League of the South (not so affectionately known as LOSers) and to some extent an internal battle between and about the organization called the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The former is a modern political organization with a far-right agenda that adds to the mix the expressed desire to secede from the United States and establish an ethnically pure, Protestant nation. The latter is a remnant of Lost Cause ideology that has recently experienced a split between those who are more interested in influencing historical memory, battlefield and other historical site preservation, etc. and those who are wanting to ally themselves, if not with the League of the South, then with something very much like it.

I was serious when I suggested the books in a previous message. I think they would be most helpful. I can also suggest some websites, but I'm reluctant to do so unless you understand the background that leads to certain issues raised in them.

I can also write out my thoughts, if you'll be patient. I can't do it with a "sound bite," and I tend to write rather slowly.

passion around this issue. I fully admit I was trying to raise a ruckus.

You say "I fully admit I was trying to raise a ruckus," yet you begin by claiming "I don't mean this as flamebait."

Okay.

www.google.com/

Check the library, as well. Talk to some people. Consider travel.

Ignorance & laziness are not the exclusive property of one part of the country.

but I have no pride over the rebel cause.

I was born in Georgia, Brunswick, Georgia but have grown up in Texas as this is where my family is from dating back to the 1800's. Heck, part of my family skipped Texas and lived in Mexico for about 30 years. Anyhow, I don't carry or even display the rebel/confederate flag. It is just too polarizing to do so and I certainly do not want to offend anyone as well I could by doing it so I don't. Having said that there is much about old southern culture I enjoy. There was a sense of family and honor in southern culture. Yes, I know, the first thing someone will say is, "Yeah, if you were white." This unfortunately is true. And slavery and oppression were unfortunately part of the mindset in those times. It was disgusting how they treated African-Americans. Just recently, my family undertook a geneological search and we found my great, great, great, great grandfather who founded a town here in Texas. We found a some tax info on him where he listed his income and property. Interestingly, and at the same time pathetically, he listed under his property his slaves, which was simply one family, a husband and wife and his three kids.

But nonetheless, southern culture is not just about this. If we are going to hold southern pride hostage because of this, then we all need to dismiss any pride we have in being Americans as we as Americans completely destroyed the indigenous peoples of North America as well. My point is there are good points to celebrate in all cultures and sub-cultures and we can celebrate those good points without dismissing the ugly parts of our past and present.

Being from the south and being proud of that is not bad. We are a friendly folk for the most part with great food, family spirit and honor. Now if I could just get the political party in power in my state I'd be happy. Where is Sam Rayburn, Lloyd Betsen, Ann Richards, or Jim Wright when I need them?

nt

Honestly I think of it as another country. It's the only part of the US I haven't been through at least in passing -- I remember going on a cross country trip as a kid and my dad saying we couldn't go through the South because some cop would pull us over (CA plates) and and all these awful stories, and from when I was a kid my whole view of the South was shaped by those films of Beatle records being burned and all that. Then with that Dixie Chick thing last year, all that is just so bizarre to me. I'm an L.A. native and can't imagine such a thing, as people burning Beatle or Dixie Chick records!!

My positive images are all about MUSIC...Memphis & New Orleans specifically, those are two places I would like to go.

FL...ugh....this seems like a Banana Republic.

(which is not even close to the same thing as being a redneck asshole who wears a Rebel flag) would be something like trying to explain sex to a virgin. I could give you a pretty good mental picture, but you'll never understand how it *feels* until you experience it.

If you have the money to take two weeks off work and get here (sorry, I'm broke) you can come stay with me. I'm serious. (I'll want to do a background check first, sorry.)

Spend two weeks with the scenery, the hospitality, the history, the arts communities, the warmth (of most people), the diversity of lifestyles, neighborhoods, people to see and meet, and eat some real food.

Then you'll understand both Southern pride and why equating that term to Rebel-flag wearers is sort of like Limbaugh taking the most far-out post on DU and saying that it represents rank-and-file Democrats.

I am confident of this because my best friend grew up in the North and moved here a few years ago. He sounded just like you -- thought of the South as a foreign country, almost, and only knew what he'd heard and seen about the place. Now he loves it here.

I really didn't mean to be offensive, this is one of those touchy subjects! I don't think you are a redneck at all or that everyone that lives there is. Although it would seems strange for me, the thought of living somewhere where most people voted for GWB.

Does Austin, TX count as the South?? South West, is still south, right? Because I am staying with a friend who moved down there for a week this summer...he lives on the lake and he likes it very much. Apparently Austin is the liberal HQ for TX! Huge music scene there that I can't wait to check out.

I totally understand your feelings about stereotyping; I myself get tired of the constant bashing of "Hollywood types" because that's where I'm from and I think it's one of the friendliest, most welcoming and accepting places in the world, man, if not, why the heck does everybody keep MOVING HERE?? LOL...

I do wonder why our party continues to chase away Southerners and Christians, though. Southern Christians have votes, just like everyone else.

This part of the country has high levels of poverty and is ripe for a Dem with a solid plan for economic growth to steal a state or two. If Gore had won just one Southern state outright, think of how different history would be. There's an unsettling thought (unsettling because, so far, the South is still getting ignored for the most part.)

Question: When was the last time the Democrats won the White House without a Southerner on the ticket?

Even the rebel flag, in the suburban 70's/early 80's south, was a generic symbol of some kind of vague rebellion or nonconformity - ideals which appealed to me and other youth - as they have through the ages. Not much different than the punks of the UK in the same era - working class kids with anger to spare and used provocative imagery to convey it. Race had NOTHING to do with the flag. It may have been naive to see the flag in that generic sense of rebellion (marketing took advantage of this), but I can assure many here (even though they won't believe it because ideological dogma trumps real knowledge) we had that flag on our walls, our tshirts, and stickers, and never considered slavery, the Civil War, the Klan, or the horrible Jim Crow era to have any direct or hateful connection to it. Times have changed, the flag is widely condemned as hateful, and that may be for the better, but blanket statements about bearers of that flag, in that context, are precarious.

I have plenty to love (music, food, literature, scenery) and hate (religion, guns, conservatism) about the south, but the bashers can kiss my ass. :-)

I didn't even touch what the Rebel flag used to mean before dogma and hysteria and the PC politics of the last decade-and-a-half or so took it over, because I was afraid of the poor mods' eyeballs burning from the speed of the alerts.

Now you explained it for me, like the gentleman you are. Thanks. :hug:

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

I remember the tide was turning when Tom Petty caught unholy hell for using the flag onstage during his "Southern Accents" tour in 1985 or so. Any historian can tell you, context is everything. He brought 1978 to 1985 and found out the hard way. It would have been justifiable outrage if her were bringing 1878 to 1985 instead. Same goes for us in 1978.

If that flag was interpreted as a hate symbol back when we all had one, we would have had our asses kicked. Schools and neighborhoods were WELL integrated, and my black friends would have scorned me for good. They did not, and it all seems silly in hindsight now that we thought we were 'rebelling'. I laughed at punk rockers the same way, as I did at the countless body piercers and tattooed black-wearing goths of the 90's, lol. Ah, suburban angst! :eyes:

Do you remember his "Born a Rebel" song?

I've found it impossible to find it anywhere now.

And on the note of music, does anyone involved in this remember The Band and a certain song called "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"? Look up the history of why that song was even written. It explains some things, I think.

And as you say, context is everything.

I once wrote an in-depth analysis of that great Band song in the Lounge. It went into the class aspect and how poor southerners were exploited, as in all wars, by the ruling classes - and the song got into the HUMANITY of being from the voiceless, or shall I say, the previously overlooked or ignored.

In the classic film, "The Last Waltz", you can see that flag hanging on the wall in their house, where they recorded lots of those wonderful songs.

True! The working class did NOT benefit from slave labor, obviously....it made opportunities for them much more scarce.

OMG!! I'm the orig TP&HB fanatic. Of course I have Born A Rebel...hey hey heeeey!!

Funny I always thought of him as a hometown Valley guy rather than a Southerner-- he lived in Encino when I was in High School which I thought was very cool,in the flats with us normal folks, of course, he ended up getting divorced and now lives in Malibu, young wife & rock star life but I love him still.

:-) I love Petty too.

On edit: His publishing company was (don't know now) called "Gone Gator Music" in honor of his northern FLA origins.

I too was thankful for that comment. My post count simply would not allow it.

I had much the same experience growing up. To be perfectly honest, when I had my rebel flag emblazoned across everything I owned, I had very little understanding of the history of it at all.

I used to SEETHE when seeing contemporary Klansmen or Nazis waving it, because I thought they were abusing and desecrating its true meaning. It sickened me to see it bear HATE. So I fully understand how it reviles people. I was reviled equally, but from the other end. Odd, huh?

As it stands, I don't get emotional about ANY flag now, but despise KKKers and Nazis as much as ever. :-)

At some point, and I really don't remember when, I tossed the very idea of holding reverence for a symbol. That seemed to me to be the origin of far too many of the world's problems, and I wanted no part of it. I also pretty much tossed the notion of being offended by symbols also.

But, I still know people who regularly go to CW battlefields and graveyards that hold the remains of CW soldiers, these people habitually place flags, Confederate or Union depending on who is buried there, and I understand why they do what they do.

Visiting CW battlefields can be a very powerful and emotional experience if you're attuned to it...no matter which side your ancestors fought for. I took my mother and daughter to visit one recently, and my mom actually broke down in tears when I described to her what had happened in this particular spot that, in to the modern eye, seemed so beautiful and calm. But, I digress...

I lived in the deep south for 6 years.

While I did find the rebel flag waving types, for the most part I was welcomed warmly, and with genuine feeling.

The people I met were incredibly open, and would give you the shirt off their backs.

And the food!

I developed a love for grits and greens, and though I spent years as a chef, I still cannot match the food that the man everyone in the neiborhood called 'Uncle' made.

As for racism, sure it exists.

It does in the North too.

I would move back in a heartbeat.

Many times. Let's have this debate. I doubt any of us can deny that southern voters are a different voting bloc. WhY??

that many people around here flock to the party that doesn't treat them like second-class citizens because they prefer to live where they don't need snow tires.

...slave owners, nor did they support slavery. If you do a quick revew of the battles fought during the Civil War, you'll discover that just about all of them were fought in states belonging to the Confederacy. Two major exceptions were Gettysburg, fought in Pennsylvania, and Antietam, fought in Maryland. That means that Southerners were literally fighting for their own homes and farms during the Civil War, and not for the political reasons waved around by the leaders on both sides.

Now, that is not to say that the Confederate political leadership did not have a stake in preserving slavery, because they most certainly did. Slavery was indeed the human engine that drove the great cotton plantations of the South, and therefore created much of the economy of the South...the plantation owners were basically a landed aristocracy for lack of a better descriptive phrase. Part of the Union strategy for beating the South involved destroying that landed aristocracy. Following the Battle of Antietam in 1862, Lincoln freed the slaves...but it was a political move only, IMHO. Only the slaves in the Confederate-controlled South were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation...none were freed in the states controlled by the Union, nor those in Union-controlled Confederate territory at that time.

I would venture to state that "Southern Pride" is really no different from the pride exhibited by people living in all of the other regions of the country. New England has their peculiarities as does the West Coast, Southwest, and Midwest. Southerners have the added twist of having had ancestors/relatives that fought in the Civil War...I have quite a few myself. How can one turn their back on a family member who lived during those times and pretend that they never existed?

actually had the votes in the NC legislature not to seceed. But before the final count, the rebels fired on Ft. Sumter. Being that NC was stuck between Va., Tenn, GA, and SC, that action turned the vote against the unionists (and thus my ancester Dr. John Carr Monk). The CSA later drafted him to take care of the wounded.

...you may already have this, but if not, enjoy the reading!

<http://kofccouncil7259.catholicweb.com/index.cfm/about>

I have the North Carolina Historical Review on him as well as old photographs passed down along with the Church he helped build.

;-)

voters actually voted narrowly not to call a secession convention.

Then Lincoln stupidly demanded troops from Tennessee to invade the Confederacy. That changed the opinion, and within a month, Tennessee voters voted overwhelmingly to leave the Union.

I blame Lincoln's bungling for N Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, three of the four largest Confederate states leaving the Union. They were not at all lost causes, until Lincoln chopped the feet out from his Unionist allies in those states by calling for troops to invade their neighboring states.

Up until the first battle of Bull Run, Lincoln's advisers were telling him that there was a large Southern contingency that was still pro-Union, and that given enough time, the states that had seceded would return to the Union. It wasn't until Lincoln sent an emissary to the South that he learned the truth: the presumed pro-Union contingent was virtually non-existent.

in the 50's & 60's?

...as their Black brethren...those groups tended to get along fine. The extremists among both the whites and Blacks tended to intimidate those among their own race that dared to socialize or try to get along. You can count the Klan among the white extremists.

Now the other 10% of the whites had all of the political and economic power in the South. What they said was pretty much the law of the land. Most of those folks were racists and did not want civil rights to come to the South in any way, shape, or form. That is a group that still operates behind the scenes in the South to keep Blacks from achieving the kind of wealth and power that they have. That group is being eroded over time, but it is a very slow process.

Do you have any additional insinuations that you would like to add to the discussion?

I would say it was just a tad more than 10%.

BTW your numbers are laughable enough!

ON EDIT: also what I leaned in school which by the way was a southern school.

...really laughable, IMHO. The worst part is the fact that you evidently failed to learn very much when you were in college. For instance, of the total number of people you saw in the news reels, what percentage did they really represent of both the white and Black races? 1%? 2%?

Just so you know, I was born in Virginia, and went to college in that state where I studied Political Science and History, earning BA degrees in both majors. My concentration was in Civil War History taught by a very well-known Civil War historian and author by the name of Dr. James Robertson, Jr. Since 1990 I have lived in the state of Alabama and currently live near the city of Huntsville. I can tell you that this part of the country is a beautiful place to live.

By the way, I didn't need news reels to educate me on what was happening during the 1950s and 1960s, because I actually saw it for myself.

You seem to know it all!

:shrug:

BTW When you finally get done patting yourself on the back, some statistics would be nice to back up your numbers.

Rove Rove calling Mr. Rove!

ON EDIT: I would like to know the percentage of the National Guardsman that was in Littlerock during you know what.

I've never had the opportunity to speak with him at length, but a close friend of mine is the treasurer of a Civil War Round Table of which he is a lifetime member. Scariest moment of my academic life was when my friend invited me to speak at his RT, and I, an undergraduate at the time, was stuck between talks given by James Robertson and William Piston, the latter of which is also a noted CW historian.

Dr. Robertson seemed like a nice guy, although we had some disagreements on certain interpretations of historical issues. He was nice enough not to trash me too much. :-)

There's a study out now about the run-up to secession and how the process in many states circumvented the popular will. That is, the arguement goes, secession was accomplished largely without popular support, but when the conflict boiled down to one of military invasion, Southerners reluctantly took up arms to defend themselves, as they saw it.

I've also seen a summary of an study put forth by a sociologist whose name is escaping me at the moment that points out the South is the only region of the country to have truly experienced fully what it feels like to be invaded and have battles destroy the country and that this in turn leads to a sort of collective bonding that passes down through generations. He compares it to French and Russian experiences and how they, too, developed a mythology of their war(s) and sought ways to deal with defeat that didn't break their collective spirit.

In that sense, Southern Pride is a result of all this.

tion.

The "south", whatever it really amounts to these days, is for obvious reasons distinctive from the rest of the nation and not only because of the Civil War.* The phrase "southern pride" actually occupies a place in our lexicon - nobody that I know of has ever commented on 'northern', 'western' or 'eastern' pride.

From my fairly significant exposure to the phenomenon, it seemss much more cultural than political. Probably an even more ubiquitious notation is that of "southern hospitality" which contains a lot of truth. I've been the recipient of quite a lot of it. To the degree it was extended to me as a white male is not something I care to delve into for the nonce.

* But that is probably the essence of it - the collective rememberance of having 'stood up to' the mid 1800s' sociopolitical realities and the perceived subjugation of their value systems. There are parallels in Iraq as we debate.

Yes, there are, striking ones.

I've been arguing with myself over whether I really feel like getting into this deeply. I've noticed some very knee-jerk responses to this question; the notion of Southern "traitors" being the catch-all that supposedly ends the question of whether Southern Pride has any valuable meaning is particularly notable in light of other discussions in this forum.

It makes me question certain individuals' value system. How one decries so-called treason on the one hand and openly, and loudly, supports it on another is a bit beyond my tolerance levels. For my part, the word "treason" is so hot with contested connotations that I find it less than useful even to use it except when dealing with individual acts of individuals in a clearly defined context. The Civil War as a context for such a discussion is not clearly defined by any reasonable measure.

What I mean here is that the word "traitor" has no inherent moral component. Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, et al were traitors and fully admitted it, and we celebrate them. I guess one major difference with the southern traitors of 1861 is that they, with a few exceptions, refused to admit it. The other major difference was that they fought for a bad cause. But, that still doesn't end the discussion, unless by "end" we simply mean staking out some sort of manufactured moral high ground and daring anyone to try to knock us off of it. I won't bother to play that schoolyard game.

I have to suppose that while we suffer the angst of imagining there's an unbridgable dichotomy between "black and white", "right and wrong" while
insisting on a solution somewhere in between, the answer really does reside in that nebulous realm. Binary probably works only at the bottom of the food chain of discourse - far below the level of sublimation that addresses "good" and "not good" (which becomes subjective as it approaches higher levels of complexity.)

I do like your colorful (!) username though...:D

....about "pride" lacks it, imo. The South was humiliated during the civil war, and they still aren't over it. So they have to make a big deal about their "Southern Pride".


screw "southern pride" -- they were the traitors!

2. Your state secedes.
3. You're a traitor.
4. Your children are traitors.
5. Your grandchildren are traitors.
6. Your great-grandchildren are traitors
7. People who never met you or your descendants deserve the right to spit on your grave and memory.

...I'm just referring to the people who are obsessed with their 'southern pride'. there are plenty of good people in the south.

Psycho is more like it!!

It's statements like that insanity they make me less than motivated to offer serious thoughts on the subject.

And the irony of it occuring on this forum in light of certain other discussions is almost painful to behold.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

The truth is complex, has many layers, and is not so easily understood in the black and white that we (enlightened socially aware, free thinking, forgiving, love everyone Democrats) are so quick to bash the other party for using. But when it comes to this issue, there's no rhyme or reason, all the same stereotypes that are otherwise abhorred come right out to the forefront and are used on an entire region of people. As someone else pointed out, where were the major riots against integration? In the North. Who was the last to integrate (and is not fully today)? The North. Bigotry and racism is worldwide, not contained to one class of people, one region, one race, or one party. Remember that.

eom

...well he said it. Must be true.

Geographic location only! As A Gay Southerner I am all to familiar with Southern pride!

I've seen the cross burnings I've seen the places where people joyfully commented about what use to swing from that tree & yes I have Klansman in my family! I also have bigots. But I give them credit for one thing, they will admit to why they have southern pride! I am a southerner But I am an American first I am proud of my Country, not my southern heritage.

On edit: I am not saying all southerners are klansman or bigots, what I am saying when I hear the term "southern pride" a flag pops up to mind & it's one that should never fly again!

...ALL Southerners by the tone of your previous posts.

Here's a clue for you...every person's family tree has good branches and bad branches. The key is being able to accept the good with the bad. You're not quite there, IMHO.

I know alot of families just like mine! Spread out in Kentucky Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia & yes even Florida.

But we Yanks aren't proud of people being bigots or racists. HA!! Take that!

nt.

In agreement with Malcolm X here:

"The Northern Freedom Riders could light some fires under Northern city halls, unions, and major industries to give more jobs to Negroes… Yes, I will pull off that liberal's halo that he spends such efforts cultivating. The North's liberals have so long been pointing accusing fingers at the South and getting away with it that they have fits when they are exposed as the world's worst hypocrites."

And if a racially oppressive past makes Southern pride a bad thing, then all patriotism is a bad thing, given what we did to the people who were here before we declared the land "ours."

I'm PROUD to be a MISSOURIAN/MIDWESTERNER/WHITE/IRISH!!!<--anything sound stupider than those?

...and I'm a southerner. Outside of Asia, I've never lived anywhere but the south and southwest. I like the south just fine, but I've never understood the regional boosterism or prickly defensiveness.

I will never say I am proud of something I did not do, nor to take what others have done and boost myself or my homeland up from that. I'm neither proud to be an American nor ashamed of it. I'm not even proud to be Human, it sounds just as ridiculous.

Compassionate conservative. :puke:

So you're ok by me. :-)

so you definitely okay by me. And that is coming from a guy who got his MA in Spanish Lit.

A well-chosen MA, in my opinion. I love so many things about Spanish culture - a thread for another time.

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.

The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

No civilization can be perfect until exact equality between man and woman is included.

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people’s countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for ‘the universal brotherhood of man’- with his mouth.

and curmudgeon (And I do agree, he's an exceptional writer too).

I think people develop a pride in where they're from when they are forced to defend from where they come. For example, I grew up for the most part in Texas except my father was transferred to Chicago for three years during my Jr. High years. It was horrible. The kids made fun of the way I talked, asked me where my boot, hat and horse was; all that stereotypical bs. Plus I didn't get all the ethnic food that was available there in Chicago and they didn't understand grits. Anyhow, when you are forced to defend your home state and geographical area, you tend to develop more pride for it. At least, it was that way for me.

Of course the people making fun of you are displaying the same thing in an obtuse and aggressive manner. Me personally, would not deride someone for where they are born or raised, and I don't see a need to defend myself for actions that occured in the past. Ancestrial Pride makes no sense, neither does Ancestrial Shame.

You've got it!

Well, except in the summer way too hot.

The south has made progress, albeit slowly.

Thats Rosa Parks for you who don't know, her crime not riding in the back of the bus!

And how can we forget Ms Jane Pittman, alive during the Civil War & her last act of defiance was in 1962 at the age of 100 drank from a white persons water fountain! Theres your southern pride theres your southern heritage. It belongs to people like this. God bless you & watch over you.

As a southern white man I am truly sorry.

To dismiss one's pride because of what is undoubtedly heinous chapter in the culture of the south it is but one part and I repeat, if you are to dismiss southern culture for this one heinous act, then let's dismiss the whole of American culture since we raped and pillaged the indigenous people's lands and peoples. There will always be ugly pieces in one's history and culture. Recognizing them and correcting them is what needs to be done while at the same celebrating what is good.

This will be my last post of the evening in this thread as well.

You really don't understand a thing about the South. You understand, or think you do, a part of it, and you've taken in a manufactured vision and accepted it wholesale, much like those in Freeper-land manufacture a version of unreality for you today on a daily basis and which you purport to disdain. Get it in your head that just because what you see on the TeeVee happens to coincide with your biases doesn't make it any more of a full accounting of the truth than if it did not.

What happened to Ms. Parks was truly sad, albeit manufactured for media consumption. It was for a good cause, so I have no problem with that, but let's please lose the drama for a moment and face reality. Ms. Parks was the victim of Jim Crow, as were millions before her who faced far worse fates. Her being arrested was a crime against liberty; it was not the crime that other blacks faced at the hands the lynch mobs that WEB Dubois and other valiant crusaders faced on a daily basis.

There are more stories that you have never heard, stories that your seemingly closed mind will not care to hear because you appear to have adopted your own scapegoats and refuse to rid yourself of the hype. For whatever reason, you have found your enemies and refuse to see past the picture you have painted of them.

There's James Longstreet, the person whose quote I display in my signature line. Longstreet was a Confederate general, the highest ranking lieutenant-general in the entire Confederate army, and Robert E. Lee's second in command from October of 1862 onward. His family were slave owners. His uncle, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, was friends with and a political ally of John C. Calhoun, the person sometimes credited with establishing the argument in favor slavery as a positive good. And after the war, Longstreet moved to New Orleans, renewed his old friendship with a certain man named Ulysses S. Grant, and received appointments to government jobs, notably one as the leader of the Metropolitan Police Force. In the late 1860's, as leader of this force, composed entirely of black men, Longstreet and his soldiers faced down a mob of white southerners attempting to storm the Louisiana state house in order to remove the Reconstruction governor. He was wounded and captured and only set free due to the shock some felt at seeing such a highly regarded former Confederate in such a position. At about the same time, Mr. Longstreet was asked his opinion, as a person "of the most noble character," on the topic of black suffrage and what should be done to resist the 14th amendment. Mr. Longstreet responded by saying that the Civil War had been fought over questions very much like these, that the South had lost, and that the South must learn the price of rebellion and defeat. His own experiences, he said, led him to believe that black suffrage was due, that this great "experiment" should be tried, and that the legal equalities of the 14th amendment should be accepted.

And then there is George Washington Cable, a former Confederate soldier and author, who after the war admitted and publicly declared how bad the South's cause had been. He wrote for decades, and his work is seen as a part of the height of Southern literature in the period.

There's Helen Dortch Longstreet, James Longstreet's second wife, whom he married late in his life. She was born the same year the battle of Gettysburg was fought and lived almost 100 years. When she wasn't defending her husband's military record, she was championing women's and minority rights, marching, and desiring nothing but seeing that her husband's pronouncement of the eternal nature of truth would win out.

There's Helen Keller, a woman whose name you may have heard from her tragic, but uplifting story of blindness and deafness turned into success through the work of her teacher, the so-called Miracle Worker. What you may not have heard was of her socialist views, her ardent protests in favor of the rights of workers and the poor, of the death threats directed toward her by the controlling class from the north, south, east, and west, and how she battled them all and refused to give. You may not have known that her journey from a small girl in Alabama supposedly destined to a dire fate, she rose up and brought out the best that the South had to offer.

You don't know the South, and you don't seem to care to know it. You've been the victim of abuse, and that is horrible, but it is not a region or a people that have done it to you. The abuse came from individuals and mindset that knows no regional bounds. The South is both more and less than what people make it. Perhaps the notion of regional pride is silly to some, but as was said by someone else in another part of this thread, when those of us who identify with the South and Southern culture are attacked as we have been by you, it brings out something that helps define a collective identity.

There is much in the South's history that is shameful. There is much today that is not to be applauded. There is also much more to the story and then much to appreciate. Discount everything Southern if you like, but if you do so, you are no better than those who discount you for what you are.

"What happened to Ms. Parks was truly sad, albeit manufactured for media consumption" that pretty much says it all.

your own predjudices made and set in stone. I do feel sorry for you. So much hate, so broad a brush to paint with, so little understanding.

and see what you think of your statement.

I do think the southern pride thing is mostly a protective mechanism born of the natural tendency of many to stereotype southerners as "Uncle Cousins"

There are just as many accounts of bigotry from the north and the country's most egregious examples of red lining (in banking) came from northern states (since the northern yankee states are home to the banking industry)

except in the pages of Ernest Gaines, a NOVELIST, and the TV series based on his NOVEL.

get in the way of blind hate.

Someone spilled an econodrum of Flamebait!