I live in the southern part of the United States and I really like it here. While I think it’s unfair to paint all southerners with a broad brush the truth of the matter is that the South has a legacy that will take a while to live down.
Do we have the most integrated population? I’d love to see a cite to back that up. When I go into rural towns I am sometimes surprised to find some that are totally white and others that are totally black. When I moved to a rural area I looked up the 2000 census and the county population was only .5% black and there was another .5% comprised of “other.” When I went to Memphis, Tennessee I was surprised when I realized that I was a white minority at the mall (forget which one). When I went to nearby Germantown the vast majority of people at those stores had pale faces like me.
I live in a mixed neighborhood but other than one neighbor who has since moved I don’t really associate with any of my black neighbors. Whenever one my neighbors has a group of people over it’s either whites going to white occupied houses or blacks going to black occupied houses. Rarely does there seem to be a mix.
Slightly off-topic, but no. You may be assuming, like many do, that New York City is the only metropolitan area in the state. Buffalo (despite being the home of Carl Paladino), Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Binghamton, Utica, Ithaca (especially Ithaca), and surrounding suburban areas lean Democratic. It’s a somewhat different form of liberalism; traditionally more labor-oriented than the fiscal-oriented liberalism more common downstate. Excepting Paladino, Republicans in New York, and the Northeast in general, tend to be more Rockefeller Republican-oriented, and far more more socially liberal than their fellow Republicans elsewhere. There’s a streak of mild social conservatism in some parts of upstate New York, but it’s mainly thanks to the very large old-school Catholic population.
Rural upstate New York and rural South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and so on have almost nothing in common, except that they’re rural, and they both have a more prevalent ourdoorsman culture than whats found in cities.
I hate the way Paladino is validating the old stereotype of “Upstate hicks” held by Downstaters.
This is utter bullshit. The only thing keeping the Civil War alive is the south won’t let it go. The rest of us long since “got over” it.
Get a clue guys. We don’t want to make you our whipping boys. You’re part of the United States just like we are. Lincoln and Grant and Sherman? Those were your guys and they won.
You’re not Confederates. So why do you insist on putting up Confederate flags and statues of Robert E. Lee? Why are you guys so eager to join the other side?
Brain Glutton: Thanks for the link to Albion’s Seed. I was not aware of this theory. The obvious conclusion is that people with a cultural orientation other than that which underpins Southern culture might be more likely to have a ‘prickly’ reaction to it, and possibly without even knowing why. Verrry interesting.
-I listened to the Radiolab episode on hookworms. Wow. Did not know that either. An anemic population certainly has ‘something wrong’ with it.
Sorry. My intent is just to eliminate things for which people shouldn’t be blamed. Like, say, Southern accents. Some people may not like 'em, but besides being harmless one can’t really blame anyone for having one. I don’t really approach this board as if I am a genius with all the answers- on the contrary, this is a great place to watch ideas get put through the wringer. It is very educational.
Thanks, I’ll check that out. Just think what a boon this public resource will be to the people of Louisiana once the profits from it are distributed to the public, or else invested in public works, fixing what is broke, etc etc.
I’m not sure what you mean by “let it go”. About the only people in the south who seem to have a hard time letting go are folks in the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. For the most part the rest of the folks in the south don’t seem to worry too much about the Civil War aside from history buffs and people who want to make money on tourism.
The Civil War is a bit more predominant here for a variety of reasons though. The first is that the majority of the war was fought in the south. You can’t swing a dead cat here without hitting something related to the civil war. The biggest reason is that the Civil War fundamentally changed southern society to an extent not matched in the north.
Yes you do. The smugness and self-satisfaction fairly drip from Northerners when they talk about racism in the South. (Yet see the census numbers above.)
The South is not the other side. The South is and always was every bit as American as any other section. Lee, et. al., were and are as much Americans as those you name.
I reiterate, the United States military itself considers Confederate commanders among its own history.
The state of Lousiana generates billions of dollars annually from the oil and natural gas industry. The Haynesville Shale is a boon to the people of Louisiana.
That Congress has named things after people who served in the Confederate forces says nothing about whether those traitors should be revered or ought to be considered members of the US military during their time as traitors.
Calling them “traitors” just seems like juvenile taunting. George Washington was a “traitor” too. Should we banish him from history?
The Confederates simply felt more loyalty to their state than to the nation as a whole. From their perspective they had the choice of either betraying their state or betraying the federal government.
Lee pushed very hard for reconciliation between the North and the South following the war. Even telling someone who badmouthed Grant to never do it again in his presence.
Well, isn’t it true that Lee was approached by both the North and the South to serve as general and that it was only after some time of presumably deep, reflective thought that he decided to serve the Confederacy?
No cite for that- it was told to me by one of my teachers.
Even that is putting it too much in modern terms. The states were the nations, the homelands, of their people, North and South. What we call the “nation as a whole” was an administration set up by the states. Northern states had considered secession before.
Supporting the federal government over one’s own state would be like supporting the United Nations over one’s national government. There might be circumstances that support such a position for some people, but those people should expect that they, not upholders of more local sovereignties, will be seen as the traitors in many quarters.
They were traitors. When discussing whether they should be considered part of the US military, that’s a pretty relevant fact. And the while dual loyalty thing is a smokescreen. Most Southerners voted to secede. If they voted against secessional then fought, that’s one thing. But most didn’t do that. The refusal to recognize that the South tried to cut and run when they didn’t get what they wanted electorally in order to protect slavery is among the problems with Southern Apologists. To some, perhaps including Lee, it was a question of misplaced loyalty, but people speak of that motivation as if it were the rule rather than the exception.
Unlike George Washington, they were traitors for a deeply evil cause. Many saw that, and chose to not fight, to rebel against the Confederacy, or to fight for the North.
