I would be willing to bet there isn't a Southerner on this board that has owned a slave.

[renie408]

EVER. In fact, I would be willing to bet there isn't a Southerner on this board who wants to go back to the days of slavery or Jim Crow, just as there are no Northerners here who would love to open a factory and employ small children and women in horrible conditions for little or no pay and no Westerners who want to go round up Native Americans or Asian Americans and do bad things to them.

Why don't we agree there is enough ick to go around and leave each other alone about where we live? For reasons I don't quite understand, I am a PROUD Southerner. I recognize that the South has a lot to answer for in the areas of slavery and race relations. That Bible Belt thing isn't all that awesome, either, come to think of it, but I still love where I live. I love the people I encounter every day. I don't get pissed off when I am driving down the road and there are two cars in front of me stopped in the road with the drivers having a conversation. I patiently pull over to the side of the road if a funeral passes. I love it when kids say "yes, ma'am" to me or call me Miss Renie. I love the fact that even buying groceries involves some sort of chat with the cashier and the bagger. I love it when they call for a 1/4 of an inch of snow and everybody sprints to the store to buy milk, bread and hot chocolate.

I love the South. That doesn't mean that I don't recognize that there are problems in its history. It means that this is my home and I am proud of many aspects of what it is NOW.

[hayrow1]

1. History is not the problem...Southerners do not need to answer for slavery or Jim Crow

Southerners need to answer for Jim DeMint, Haley Barbour, Marco Rubio, etc., etc., etc. The southern white population votes against the interests of the workers of the south constantly, and will almost certainly continue doing so. Why is that?

[renie408]

2. I imagine that happens for the same reasons

it happens in all of the OTHER places that people vote against their interests, but which are not singled out for ridicule. I haven't noticed anybody wanting to move progressives out of the Midwest on here recently. And I have seen a lot of snarky slavery comments.

[CTyankee]

20. well, there is one big difference that needs to be taken into account here:

the South raised an army to fight the government of the United States. Now, we can argue about whether the Southern states had a right to their own self determination by seceding, but that was settled by the outcome of the Civil War. Yet you have many Southerners who revere and brandish the rebel flag, which a lot of Northerners find offensive.

I say all this as a child of the South, some of whom were displaced persons because of Sherman's march to the sea (my great grandfather at age 8, his family displaced from their small farm in Griffin, GA, moved West to Texas where my grandparents and parents and I grew up). I left Texas because it didn't suit me and my temperament, but some members of my family never really got over it.

[renie408]

57. You have a lot of Northerners who hate ___________.

You have a lot of Mid-westerners who hate ____________. And westerners. Haters gonna hate, no matter where they live. I don't brandish the rebel flag and, in fact, live in upstate SC and see them rarely enough that I find it faintly startling when I do. Because SOME Southerners are ____________, why should the DU tolerate entire threads bashing this region of the country? I thought we were supposed to be the party that DIDN'T need to use the broad brush to paint entire groups of people because we are capable of more discernment than that.

[CTyankee]

65. My point was that the Confederacy was at war with the United States of America.

It was a distinction without a difference when compared to other regions "hating" each other but a distinction nonetheless.

I am not in favor of threads bashing whole regions of the country because I know that there are good people in every region and they struggle harder in the most racist and conservative areas (both in and out of the South). As I said I left Texas because it didn't suit me and the Northeast does. That doesn't mean that I am not very proud of my fellow Texans Ann Richards and Molly Ivins who stayed and fought.

You have every right to object and it sounds like you are fighting the good fight yourself.

[GoCubsGo]

4. And, Non-Southerners need to answer for Paul Ryan, Joe Walsh, Paul LePage...

...Rick Snyder, Chris Christie, etc., etc., etc. I'm seeing plenty of the northern population voting against their own self-interests, too. Exhibits A, B, and C: Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan. Indiana just allowed themselves to become a Right-to-Work-for-Less state, which is definitely not in their self interest, and they are not a Southern state. Why is that?

[csziggy]

69. +1000000

[The Genealogist]

70. Thank you!

Electing noxious conservatives is not restricted to any one region. In addition to the states you named, add Pennsylvania and its public school-destroying governor, and efforts there to change how electoral votes are counted in the state in order to benefit Republicans. Look at New Hampshire and its loonies in state government, attempting to overturn marriage equality, and legislation insisting that future legislation acknowledge the MAGNA CARTA (?) Look at that Republican caucus mess coming out of Maine. In Minnesota, the governor had to publicly call out legislators who were introducing laws right out of ALEC propaganda materials. What's these states' excuses?

No region has a monopoly on conservatives or stupidity, on teabaggers or hate, on corrupt corporate-sponsored legislators, on radical reactionaries.

[Kookaburra]

6. While I have to agree with you about DeMint, Barbour, et al,

I'd be willing to bet no southerner on this board voted for any of them -- or if they did they regret it.

[renie408]

8. Thank you. No votes for them and no regrets here on that score!!

[seabeyond]

9. Schwarzenegger, reagan, brewer, walker, Kasich, palin . i hear ya, south has a lot to answer for

[XemaSab]

22. Would you say that California needs to answer for

Wally Herger, Devin Nunes, Duncan Hunter, Ken Calvert, Richard Pombo, Dan Lungren, Tom McClintock, Dana Rohrabacher, Daryl Issa, and some of the other atrocities that we have visited on the house of representatives?

[spanone]

27. same reason northerners vote for assholes.

[csziggy]

68. Name a DUer from the South that voted for any of those people

I don't see people here asking Alaskans to answer for Sarah Palin, residents of Massachusetts to apologize for Mitt Romney, Arizonians to give their regrets for repeatedly electing Jon McCain or even once voting in Jan Brewer, or anywhere near the acrimony for any other state residents that have elected right wing POS into office that is given wholesale to "Southerners". That's a lot of states you are hitting with that broad brush.

I am a native Floridian and have never lived in any other state. I've also never voted for a Republican. SO ***I*** didn't vote for Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, or pRick Scott. But I am stuck living with them and the other people who refuse to even listen to my opinions, much less represent me.

In my lifetime, Florida has had some very good politicians - Bob Graham, for instance - but we've been stuck with some real pieces of crap starting with our first Republican governor since Reconstruction, Claude Kirk.

We do NOT need to add to the divisiveness by broadly characterizing entire regions of the country.

[leftofcool]

3. Very nice post

[Scootaloo]

5. Third post I've seen tonight

from a southerner thumping their chest about how mean everyone is to the south.

Still no threads on my radar about how terrible the south is. Not one. At all. There aren't any "Hey, fuck the south!" threads floating around here, nobody's ranting about how terrible all of you are, no accusations that southern DUers want to own slaves. Nothing.

You're not really countering arguments or responding to sweeping trends here. In fact it really looks like you guys are engaging in unneeded apologetics for yourselves, and making yourselves all defensive. Hell, I'll bet two of you are just posting these threads in response to the first person posting theirs.

[renie408]

7. I guess you missed the "all progressives should move out of the South"

thread and the South bashing answers it received. Or the "all Yankees should move out of the South" and the South bashing posts there.

Perhaps you should put your radar in the shop.

Have a nice day!!

[Scootaloo]

11. Ah, there it is, on page two of the latest page

Posted at 4:57 PM. yesterday.

So we need three threads to attack a thread posted twelve hours ago, a thread that none of you making new threads have posted on.

Christ, they make this stuff, it's called Preparation H. It's formulated specifically to relieve you of your butthurts.

[renie408]

17. Oh honey, I don't think I am the asshole needing the Preparation H here.

But thanks for the recommendation.

[Scootaloo]

19. Yes, you're just whining abouta twelve-hour old post

That you don't have the gumption to respond to directly.

Carry on

[renie408]

51. LOL...'gumption'...that is almost funny...

A) I responded on both of the posts about the South.

B) I am assuming that your wandering the internet anonymously patronizing people takes a lot more gumption than me writing this post??


What a funny little man you are!!

[former9thward]

78. You must not look at DU very often.

Thread bashing the South and various states are posted all of the time.

[LanternWaste]

29. I imagine we often trivialize or dismiss things

I imagine we often trivialize or dismiss things we ourselves do not see on a consistent basis-- it certainly allows us to rationalize our lack of knowledge regarding a persistent topic, and to disparage the opinions of those who actually have experienced it.

However, I have no doubt you posses an objective number which you will allow us, so that we too may see how many or how few times a topic may be posted before we may righteously respond to it in kind, yes...?

[Hosnon]

59. Look, you were wrong. Quit trying to justify failing to do a minimal amount of research.

I saw the thread and 12 hours is by no means "old".

[renie408]

61. Thanks. I mean, hell, people gotta sleep...

[Union Scribe]

60. How embarrassing.

Does it hurt, falling so hard on your face like that, in public?

[Sirveri]

83. why is that idea bad? Look at the Latino flight from GA.

That accomplished a heck of a lot more good than is occurring from progressives staying down south and getting repeatedly stomped on by the majority.

[RZM]

37. If you read DU a lot

And I do, you'll notice that south-bashing occurs quite often here. Frequently it's not flamebait OPs like we saw the other day. More often it's an OP about a topic that deals in some way with the south, which then draws a lot of nasty comments downthread.

[Hosnon]

58. I bet you feel pretty silly.

Did you even check to see if there were any such threads?

[Dreamer Tatum]

71. You REALLY need to read more.

The South gets savaged on DU all the time. ALL the time.

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. Curious ... What are you 'Proud' of what it is now?

Its laws, education system, labor opportunities, sports teams, transportation system?



BTW... I grew up in Virginia, went to the university of Fla and my son was born in Texas.

[renie408]

14. South Carolina

recently got an A- with only three or four other states for their math and science curriculum standards, I am proud of that. I am proud that so many people from so many OTHER places think that the labor opportunities here are so much better than where they came from and NO, I am not talking about illegal immigrants. I am proud of the Panthers because they are coming back and are going to be a GREAT team. I am proud of the North Carolina university system for being one of the best in the country. I am proud of my son going to Clemson because I consider it a very good school. I am proud that in our area they are working on establishing a light rail system (yeah, there is opposition, but are you going to try to tell me that NO other region has opposition to their mass transit projects??). And I am proud of the people here. Yep, I am proud of those people that the rest of you enjoy looking down on. Some of them have political and religious biases which I find problematic, but even with those the people I encounter on a daily basis are friendly, polite, helpful and care about their neighbors...even when their neighbors are very different from them.

[ananda]

12. I have direct ancestors..

.. who owned slaves. Sad to say... but there it is.

And my Texas-side family is still extremely racist and rightwing to this day.

[zipplewrath]

13. Recent history

The confederate flag use and laws
Missouri's? MLK AND Robert E Lee State Holiday
The race baiting and coded language of southern politicians
The strong anti-union bias that is now flowing north.
Forget slavery and Jim Crow, we'll find current issues to discuss.

I'm a Yankee that has lived in the south for 30 years. Southern hospitality is a joke. The strong social structures connected to religion is astounding. At home I could go years without knowing the religion of an aquaintance. Here, I know it within hours often ASKED within hours. The welcome wagon showed up at my home and it was the third question asked.

I was shopping for groceries for my new apartment in Tennessee, a lady comes around the corner at a bajillion miles an hour and rams into MY cart, tipping it over. She apologizes, and I respond by saying that it's okay. She hears my accent and pauses.

"You're a YANKEE aren't ya?"

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"Ya know, there are two kinda yankees doncha?"

"Only two?"

"Yankees come and visit, DAMN yankees STAY."


Don't be "proud" of where you're from. Be appreciative of its finer qualities, embarassed by its weaknesses, and recognize it isn't superior, nor inferior, to other places. I can get defensive of my hometown. But I'm under no illusions that it is the "best" place, but nor is it the worst. It is my hometown, and always will be.

I had a brother, a real screw up. But when he fell down, I picked him up. When he was a screw up and people would ask "Who's that?", my first answer was "My brother". When he died being a screw up, I buried him in a nice casket with a headstone. I visit the grave, because he's my brother. When the family gets together, we often talk of my brother, and his screw ups. But we talk about our brother, not a screw up.

It's your hometown, it is where you're from. It always will be. Don't deny it, don't apologize for it, and watch out about braggin' on it.

It's your hometown. 'Nuff said.

[renie408]

15. Thank you for explaining to me the proper way to think and feel about this subject.

[zipplewrath]

18. Touche'

Yup. Preachy no doubt. Be kind and call it "socratic".

I could edit it to start with "How about this?" Would that help?

[renie408]

52. LOL...probably not

Maybe it comes from my mother who is SO proud to be distantly related to so many prominent figures in history and in the South in particular. I grew up hearing stories about my many times great grandfather Oliver Hart who was a preacher during the Revolution and who helped out the cause of American freedom...blah blah blah. My mother is a card carrying Daughter of the American Revolution and we were raised to be proud of our heritage. Since we were the poor distant relatives, we don't have to worry about any icky slave ownership in our direct family history and as far as she is concerned, that absolves our family of any culpability there.

So maybe it is just too much lingering childhood programming, but I DO love the South. Sometimes I have a hard time explaining the feeling I get when we drive into Charleston and tide is out and you can smell the plough mud. Or the feeling I get when, to this day, my kids excitedly point out the first Spanish moss we see on the way home, cause they still get a quarter for being the first person to spot some. It's home. And I love it. Yeah, it has flaws, like my kids and my husband have flaws; but I love them, too.

[zipplewrath]

62. Great to be from

I often say my hometown is a great place to be FROM. It's hard seeing it through my wife's eyes, because she doesn't see what I see. And really, it ain't that purty, except to me. But I actually know what Romney means by "the trees are the right height". Everything is so darn familiar, right down to the dirt. I've never really gotten that feeling anywhere else, despite having lived elsewhere longer.

Home is home, and it's mine, and I'm good with that.

[dmallind]

42. What, precisely, was your OP telling others if not the proper way to think and feel?

[renie408]

50. Nowhere do I tell people what to think or feel.

I tell them that as all areas have issues, what is the point in posting threads denigrating one region over another. You can think the South is a total shithole for all I care, but posting that isn't conducive to anything productive.

This poster specifically told me 'not to be proud' of where I live. He actually IS telling me what to think and how to feel.

[joeglow3]

25. And leave it to others to ignore the brother and focus on the screw up?

That is what I see a lot of on here.

[zipplewrath]

30. He's not anyone elses brother

They focus upon who they know. That can be a wide range of folks judging from his funeral. But what he was not, was their brother.

[joeglow3]

49. You realize you just justified discrimination and prejudices, right?

[zipplewrath]

63. Yeah, that's what I did

Don't extrapolate a metaphor.

[renie408]

64. Sooo...

I know I am jumping in here, but I am trying to see your point and I just don't. How does remembering the best about his brother and not focusing on his screw ups at family reunions justify discrimination and prejudice? I thought it was a kind of nice story. I was having a little bit of a hard time figuring out what it had to do with laying off the region bashing, but it was a nice story nonetheless.

[joeglow3]

77. You need to read the next post

I agreed with him, but pointed out that others only see the screw up and judge the entire body of work on that. He justified why that is okay. I pointed out that is akin to only seeing the negative in certain groups and using that to judge the entire body of work.

[madokie]

16. My grand father, a Georgia boy, fought to free the slaves

Three months in he was wounded then got pneumonia and was discharged and sent home. Got well, reenlisted and stayed for the duration all as a Union Soldier. My great grand father, his father was a slave owner but they had already given their workers freedom and most all stayed on with him. I guess he was a good man, I know my grand father was so its fitting that his father was also. Being good or bad is a learned condition best I can tell. I know all I knew the day I was born was how to suckle. The rest I've learned

[divide_and_rule]

21. only 1.5% of all americans owned slaves in 1860, according to US Census

1.5 % is the rich, and yet somehow a certain element of politically aware americans continue to blame white people for the sins of slavery, when it was the rich people all along who owned slaves. In fact, the average slave in 1860 cost about 300-500 dollars or even more. In 1860, the median wage for white americans was maybe 300 dollars a year. So, because it was hard to buy slaves on credit unless you had collateral, only 1.5 percent of all americans, the rich, owned slaves.

In fact, most white americans can trace their ancestry to white slaves in america--the so called indentured servants, most of whom were actually slaves. Most of them, when they arrived in america, were sold at auction.

and yet a certain political element in america has been trained and programmed to put the onus of slavery on ordinary white people instead of on the rich, where it should be. I wonder why that is so.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. Later on, poor people had a different kind of "slave"--

Kids. Especially farm kids. That was one reason why farm families were so big in those days-- Ma and Pa needed all the free help they could get.

[In_The_Wind]

92. Hello ~ RupertNY

[Romulox]

31. For the same reason that race--rather than class--is the focus of all social analysis in the US:

Not only does a focus on race not threaten the PTB, it tends to reinforce their power by dividing working people based on racial lines.

[divide_and_rule]

33. ding ding ding--we have a weiner

if you really want to get close to the bone, research how the skin color caste was created in the late 1600s by the property owning elite in response to the mixed race riot that burned jamestown to the ground. The laws that the elite passed then created a skin color caste that formed the basis for the american culture. A culture created by the rich, but the Dems put the blame for that onto working class whites.

Is affirmative action the modern day equivalent of the skin color caste/miscegenation laws of the 1600s?

[ieoeja]

44. Actually, quite a number of non-wealthy people owned slaves occasionally.

Some Northern industrialists once setup a manufacturing plant in the South employing only free people. Typically, as each employee made enough to purchase a slave, they would show up to work with a slave to do their job. The plant owners tried explaining that if they wanted slave labor, they would buy their own slaves and cut out the middle man. When employees found that their slaves would not be allowed to do their work, they quit. Manual labor was viewed as demeaning to the warrior culture that permeated the South. The plant owners finally gave up.

My family was never what you would call rich. And they owned slaves off and on. Apparently, it was common for non-plantation owners to own slaves for brief periods during their lives. Of course, my family last owned slaves in the 1820s. As the South was heavily structured against upward mobility, I am not surprised that by 1860 the percentage wealthy enough to own a slave had dwindled.

The Confederacy did not believe in White supremacy. It believed in Norman supremacy. The political leaders and plantation owners were largely descended from Norman aristocracy with some Gaelic, an allied warrior culture, thrown in for good measure. A Southern columnist once wrote that Anglo-Saxons were no better than Negroes and should be enslaved themselves.

Plantations and slavery was an updated version of feudalism. Capitalism and the idea that one person should work for another person for money with the freedom to quit their job at any time, and the threat of losing their job at any time, was a new, progressive concept at the time. Indentured servant was a compromise.

Selling this new idea of capitalism to a lot of people at the time was akin to selling socialism today. Not only was this a threat to the old guard, it meant those in the new worker class would have to take more responsiblity for their own care where previously they just let the masters do all that for them.

It was new and scary. So a lot of poor people rejected it just as they reject economic progress today.

[Romulox]

24. The MODERN DAY South represents a "right to work", low education, low wage, race to the bottom

The history of racism is inextricably linked to this race to the bottom, and continues to this day.

[maxrandb]

26. And not only that

I never see these "southerners" protest forcefully when the entire "Repuke-Neocon-Wingnut" party demonize and smear entire states like California, New York, MA and CT.

I would be reluctant to criticize the "right-to-work, low education, low wage, race to the bottom" south, if they were more reluctant to smear "San Francisco Liberals"

[scheming daemons]

28. Those who fly the stars and bars are showing solidarity with

Their ancestors who DID own slaves.

[renie408]

53. Which would be why I don't do that.

And...what has that got to do with anything? I would be also be willing to bet that NOBODY on the DU so much as OWNS a Confederate flag.

[grahamhgreen]

32. Being from Georgia, I have to say the R's here would take us back to slavery in a heartbeat!

[Paladin]

34. Flagrant Region-Bashing Threads Like This One Used To Be Locked, As I Remember.... (n/t)

[rimce44]

35. RE 0. I would be willing to bet there isn't a Southerner on this board that has owned a slave.

I don't think this is like it should be

[Morning Dew]

47. Could you explain what you mean? n/m

[AlinPA]

36. I can agree with that. Hell, I've lived here and think PA is turning into a crummy place to live

because of the fracking taking over thanks to the teabagger asshole governor the stupid people in PA voted in along with the republican house and senate the same morons voted in. Bash the south? Why? When I look at what's going on in our backyard and the idiot teabaggers around me, I can start right at home.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

38. Or has not BENFITED PERSONALLY from legacies of slavery

Or has not BENFITED PERSONALLY from legacies of slavery if (s)he appears not to have Black or Brown skin.

From http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/whiteprivilege.htm :

"copyright Robert Jensen 1998. First appeared in the Baltimore Sun, July 19, 1998

Here's what white privilege sounds like:

I am sitting in my University of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he opposes and I support. The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he thinks that in the United States being white has advantages. Have either of us, I ask, ever benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people? Yes, he concedes, there is something real and tangible we could call white privilege. So, if we live in a world of white privilege--unearned white privilege--how does that affect your notion of a level playing field? I ask. He paused for a moment and said, "That really doesn't matter." That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the ultimate white privilege: the privilege to acknowledge you have unearned privilege but ignore what it means.

That exchange led me to rethink the way I talk about race and racism with students. It drove home to me the importance of confronting the dirty secret that we white people carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of what we have is unearned. I think much of both the fear and anger that comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in that secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly and honestly about white supremacy and white privilege. In a white supremacist culture, all white people have privilege, whether or not they are overtly racist themselves. ... I walk through the world with white privilege.

What does that mean? Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me--they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.... white privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.

Some people resist the assertions that the United States is still a bitterly racist society and that the racism has real effects on real people. But white folks have long cut other white folks a break. I know, because I am one of them. ..."

[renie408]

54. What has this to do with ANYTHING I wrote?

I am at a loss to find where I have ever written ANYWHERE that there is no racism in this country still.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

75. How many Confederate SWASTIKAS

did you see today? How many of your childhood friends are incarcerated? You live where white privilege and white contempt for minorities are at their height, even TODAY.

IMO you have some nerve trying to suppress this truth.

And OF COURSE you "LOVE" and are "PROUD OF" the South. You've hit the jackpot of white privilege!

[renie408]

89. This is pretty funny.

Do you even KNOW where I live? I live in LANCASTER COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA. That would be the same Lancaster County that was named by Forbes magazine as the most distressed community IN THE COUNTRY a few years back. And I see ZERO 'Confederate swastikas' on a daily basis. Zero. In fact, I see them so rarely that when I do, they are very noticeable. For YEARS I did taxes in some of the roughest neighborhoods in both Charlotte and Lancaster to help people who might not otherwise do so get their EIC refunds and helped some of them with their tax issues.

You have managed to inject your own agenda into a relatively innocent post asking people to not bash an entire region. How many black people are in prison relative to the white population in the northeast? Or in California? Or any other place?

Before you start gnashing your teeth and beating your breast in your outraged angst, you might want to make sure you have a CLUE about the person you are talking to. We live month to month and struggle and work harder than any ten people I know. For you to be so ignorant and hateful without ANY provocation is ridiculous and, just like with some others here, says more about YOU than it ever will about ME.

The jackpot of white privilege...yeah, that's me. What a joke.

[FarCenter]

39. Most white southerners did not own slaves

Rich white southerners who owned plantations owned lots of slaves. Which mathematically means that there weren't enough slaves for ordinary, non-propertied white southerners to each have their own slave.

Most white southerners were imported as convicts or indentured servants from the British Isles.

On the other hand, since the number of ancestors doubles for each generation you go back, it is likely that most white southerners have at least one slave-owning ancestor.

It is also likely that most black southerners have at least one slave-owning ancestor.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

40. How often did white slaveowners

scrimp and save to ransom their parents siblings and other loved ones from bondage?

Let's get real.

[FarCenter]

43. What percentage of white southerners do you think owned slaves in 1850? nt

[ProgressiveEconomist]

76. What percentage of Black Southerners were owned

by whites in 1850? What percentage of white Southerners in 2012 benefit from white privilege and other legacies of slavery?

[ieoeja]

45. My direct male ancestors (if their wives can be believed) came over as an indentured servant.

And ended up owning slaves.

My family never owned more than one or two slaves. And never for long periods. I suspect brief ownership of slaves was commonplace. While today you might *hire* an in-home caregiver to take care of a parent, in the old South you would *buy* a slave. When your parent dies, you *fire* the caregiver / *sell* the slave.

Building a home? Hire employees/buy slaves. Fire/sell them when finished.

And so forth. So while there may have never been a large percent owning slaves at any given time, most probably owned a slave at some point in their life.

As I wrote in an earlier post, capitalism was a new concept and not embraced by the South in part because of an upperclass descended from Norman aristocracy who opposed anything that provided for upward mobility: schools, railroads, canals, etc. And in larger part because of a warrior culture that considered manual labor demeaning. Anyone who had to work for a living was seen as little better than a slave anyway.

[FarCenter]

46. Thanks -- census records indicate that about 1/4 of households owned a slave

But you are probably right about owning slaves for limited times which increases the percentage of households ever owning slaves.

[Dreamer Tatum]

72. Or maybe, just maybe, some white people simply moved to the South.

I know that's hard for some to comprehend, but people do move.

[FarCenter]

73. Well, there is CARY, NC -- Containment Area for Relocated Yankees

[Dreamer Tatum]

74. And Florida, depository for every New Yorker over 60. nt

[libinnyandia]

41. That sounds like the midwest to me. Or it could be the northeast or the west .

[renie408]

56. EXACTLY!

Thanks. That is kind of my point. Everywhere has problems and everywhere has good things. What is the point in the region bashing that goes on here?

[LanternWaste]

48. The south will represent only what we want it to represent...

The south will represent only what we want it to represent on an individual basis in the here and now. For one person, their dogma may allow the south to represent only slavery, Jim Crow and Dixiecrats. For others, it may represent a vast, complex social dynamic which has been wrestling over the past fifty years with its own identity. To still others, it may represent nothing more than family, friends, and some really good chicken fried steak (I place myself in that last category...).


Provincialism is not a tool of the under-educated and over-biased alone. Even the modern progressive will often at times, engage in the wholly self-validating exercise of region-only directed dogmas while simultaneously either rationalizing or dismissing their own unyielding regional vernaculars.

And now I write myself a post-it to stop at Ms. Mary's Grill after work for a take-out order of some really good chicken-fried steak.

[renie408]

55. I make a KILLER country fried steak...

the key is using real butter to fry the cube steak. Naturally, you can feel your arteries hardening as you eat, but MAN, if you have to go, at least you are going with a smile on your face!!

[Ferretherder]

85. I will have to try frying my next cube steak in butter!

That sounds delicious! Although I would think you might have to add a little oil of some kind to raise the smoke point of the butter, no?

By tha' way, ahm from Loozyana, so ah know sumthin' 'bout fryin' some stuff.....or maybe just a lot 'bout eatin' a buncha fried stuff.

...and yeah, I'm with ya' on the whole 'region-bashing' thing.

[deaniac21]

66. I've had a slave

but he wasn't owned.

[barbtries]

79. when i first moved to NC

from CA, i got a flat tire. within five minutes three different passersby had stopped and offered to help. a complete stranger changed my tire using his jack (turned out i had driven across country without one). i offered him money and he refused. i promptly drove on to a main thoroughfare with my purse on top of the car and noticed my belongings spread out all over the road. i stopped, put on the hazard lights and ran into the street picking up crap. nobody honked, nobody yelled, nobody sped around me cursing.

this would not happen where i come from. yes, there are many good things and even lots and lots of really good people here. and it's beautiful, a great big forest. you can tell the seasons apart (not counting this winter). i have all my bumperstickers on my car and it's never been vandalized yet.

last but not least, there are assholes and right wing fanatics everywhere. everywhere.

[madinmaryland]

80. Well God Bless You! We are all so happy for you.

Proud is never a word I would use. Yes, I am an America, but describing anything as proud, seems like a wasted vanity to me.

I may have fond memories of where I have lived, but never would I use the word PROUD. Sounds way too much freeperish and jingoistic to me.

[renie408]

87. And what a superior person you are.

What would possess someone to get on the internet and call a total stranger 'freeperish and jingoistic' based on extremely minimal evidence? And what would make them think that making those comments says more about their subject than it does about them?

[cbrer]

81. Do imported Philipino "brides" count?

Just wondering. Indentureship, and servitude aren't necessarily slavery.

[kentauros]

82. Technically, I'm a "Southerner",

although I prefer to just call myself a Texan first and a Terran second

But I do own a slave. My computer has at least one drive that's a master and at least one drive that's a slave. So, I own at least one slave (maybe two; I haven't opened it up in a while.)

[Tsiyu]

84. "People, I just wanna say, you know

can we all get along?" RK

[Tom Ripley]

86. "Watergate does not bother me, does your conscience bother your?"

A very wise and pointed question from the very wise Mr VanZant

[pipi_k]

88. Some of what you describe...

I love the people I encounter every day. I don't get pissed off when I am driving down the road and there are two cars in front of me stopped in the road with the drivers having a conversation. I patiently pull over to the side of the road if a funeral passes. I love it when kids say "yes, ma'am" to me or call me Miss Renie. I love the fact that even buying groceries involves some sort of chat with the cashier and the bagger.

I run into that every day here in the hilltowns of Western Mass. Out here we wave "hello" to people we pass who are driving by in the other direction or working in their yards or out walking.

A trip to the town grocery store involves a friendly chat with the cashier and the guy behind the meat/deli counter. Maybe a chat with a neighbor we see in the fruit and vegies aisle.

Breakfast on Sunday mornings down at the town's family-owned restaurant...the same people show up week after week. During tourist season there are strangers, but we chat with them and they usually ask someone to take their photo with the owner.

We get the best of the south without having to move away

[pipi_k]

90. I was horrified years ago

when my father told me that while trying to get in touch with one of his cousins in a different state, he accidentally got an African American family with the same last name as ours.

Why?

Because I knew that often, freed slaves ended up taking the last names of their former "owners", and it was so embarrassing to me to think that MY family might have owned slaves at some point.

What I learned in the meantime (through Genealogy work) was that while my family did migrate from Canada to the US, it wasn't until at least 15 to 20 years after the Civil War, and so the likely explanation is that there was intermarriage. Which makes sense, since I presently have various cousins and one nephew who all married African American men and women, and had children with them.

phew!! Don't know if I could have dealt with family slavery even if I had nothing to do with it.