General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSouth-bashing
Feel free to correct me rigorously if I'm over-assuming my responsibility, but I fear my thread noting the anniversary of Appomattox helped lead to yet another eruption of South-bashing threads, and to the destructive bullshit that inevitably follows.
I've been on DU since May of 2001. I have been a Democrat since 9am on my 18th birthday. I have worked on more Dem campaigns than I care to remember.
My father was born and raised in Decatur, Alabama, just across the river from Huntsville. I spent many a happy hour with my grandmother at the Space & Rocket Center.
My grandfather was a pediatrician. My grandmother was a schoolteacher for more than 30 years. My father worked every Democratic presidential campaign from Bobby Kennedy to John Kerry, and led the Alabama Democratic Party for a time. He shared the phone that was tapped at the Watergate, so the tapes include my father and pregnant mother talking about unborn me. While my mom was pregnant, they called me "Benny" for whatever reasons. It's all on the tapes.
I wrote the article below after the tornadoes ripped through the state. It will tell you all you need to know about why this Boston boy loves Alabama, and the South.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet
Or, put more bluntly in my own Boston/Bama way: Regional stereotypes can kiss my ass.
My Alabama
Monday, 02 May 2011 09:54
By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/853:my-alabama#
monmouth4
(9,708 posts)to shrug them off and consider the source. If this is all anyone has to worry about consider yourself very fortunate...Jersey rules!!!!
Hoppy
(3,595 posts)KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)line from SNL
TheBlackAdder
(28,209 posts)For such a tiny state.. a lot of hate.
ex. Texas has 36 SPLC-identified hate groups... NJ has 40.
Hate groups by state:
CA - 57
FL -50
NY - 44
NJ - 40
PA - 38
TX - 36
TN - 29
.
.
http://www.splcenter.org/hate-map
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)and I always try to get out with our Commie and Socialist comrades to protest against the Klan and MinuteMen, at least when the skirmishes are happening within reasonable driving distance of our rainbow coalition abode (Inglewood, CA).
Mariana
(14,858 posts)in that listing. California isn't anywhere near the top of the list in number of hate groups per capita. Neither is New Jersey.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)for describing N. WI.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)whereof you speak!
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)as interns & whatnot, I would always tell them that the first thing they needed to learn was how to distinguish between a jackpine savage and a woods hippie. And to beware the hybrid form that was arising, the Hippie Comitatus.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Recently learned, in the course of posting on DU, that one of Oprah's homes is in Lavallette. (Hope I spelled that correctly.) None in the Hamptons, though.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Exurban snowbillies here in progressive Minnesota are as dumb as the dumbest you can find anywhere.
merrily
(45,251 posts)discouraging more visitors and/or settlers is stupid. Selfish, perhaps, but not necessarily stupid.
I've come to love Boston proper. It's pretty densely populated and, in warm weather, I can barely crawl over the tourists to get to the drug store or wherever I have to go in my neighborhood. And don't ask about the lines at the bakeries and restaurants and tourist attractions.
So, while I recommend Boston, both to visit and to move to, you won't hurt my feelings if you ignore that.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)monmouth4
(9,708 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)roguevalley
(40,656 posts)his father's funeral from Shelby's Calvary. He fled that and hid out in southern Illinois. Given that, my mother thought her family was union, so silent were they on the civil war. She was MORTIFIED to find out she wasn't. I don't care about 'bashing'. The war was about slavery, it was southern treason and it belongs to the states that seceded. If they would put it to rest and join the rest of us in the new paradigm bought by the blood of thousands it would be different. But too many haven't. There will always be those who do and those who deplore the south's cretinous clinging to the past. They deserve respect and I feel for them. I live in alaska. Sarah Palin anyone? but the region hasn't faced up to the fact that this past is poison and its over. Racism is everywhere but the history of the south is their burning tire. Until they address and repudiate it, they own it. Sympathies to those caught in the cross fire. My mom's family was in it and their fire died in that generation because my great grandpa killed it. Thank you, Robert Alonzo Paxton for being a man.
calimary
(81,320 posts)"California's like a bowl o' granola: fulla fruits and nuts and flakes" - I could own a cereal factory.
And even the city name "San Francisco" is used, among CONS, as a pejorative. Code words for the gay community. Just as quips about "New York" become similar code - for all things anti-Semitic.
It's not just the South that takes it in the shorts.
yuiyoshida
(41,832 posts)A sign that actually said.. Don't Californacate UTAH... someone paid to put that up. It made me angry...because it was many Californians who came to Utah to Skii, and brought tourist money. I really hated that sign.
RandiFan1290
(6,237 posts)How come so many stay quiet when there is a nice Florida bash going on?
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)Top of Florida = pretty much right wing
Middle and lower East and West coast=more Lib
I live in Sarasota and love it.
TBA
(825 posts)Leon county is very democratic and proud of it. Very educated population.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)Lochloosa
(16,066 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)Fla Dem
(23,691 posts)even vote out Governor Skeletor in the last election.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)liberalmike27
(2,479 posts)Has its own idiot problems. But it's more of an amalgam of "snow-birds," who go South for the Winters of their lives. So there is far more than southern influence in Florida, which is good, and is why elections tend to be very close, at least nationally. You seem to elect a lot of dumb-asses statewide.
Atman
(31,464 posts)It's absolutely crazy-ville. I love the place, have many fond memories and return often, but I can't imagine living there again. My old beach-front town has a FB page, and every someone is posting about the latest murder, a body found in someone's yard, entire neighborhoods of cars broken into. When your broke with no place to go, you head someplace warm. Sorry...that's just the way it is. Florida attracts the crazies. Spoken from a Floridian.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I hope it's not because you were conceived there
In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)Unfortunately one cannot always go home again.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6489094
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)It is a form of bigotry to belittle a large population of a country.
DamnYankeeInHouston
(1,365 posts)I come from a New England family. I grew up in a New York suburb in New Jersey. I have lived in Houston for 35 years. I can remember the troubles when northern communities finally had to integrate their schools long after the south did. My Yankee family is very snotty about me living here. Houston is a great town. It's the most diverse city in the country, even beating New York. It has been very good to me. The people here are much friendlier and willing to help. I moved here in the middle of the school year with a contract, but no car and no place to live. Five teachers offered to put me up. Being from the northeast, that scared the shit out of me. I had never seen such generosity so was sure they must want to do something terrible to me. I have since learned to be more trusting and have helped many others along the way. When I'm in Boston I love to say hi to people on the street just to see their terror. I'm sorry. I can't help it.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)HA!
I'd get back to Boston after weeks in Alabama, where everyone says hi to everyone, and people in town would look at me like I was about to go for their wallet, or their throat. Too funny, too true.
DamnYankeeInHouston
(1,365 posts)KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)replace the word "kill" with the word "fuck" in all the old movie Westerns:
"OK, Sheriff, we're going to fuck you now. But we're going to fuck you slow."
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)I came as an introvert and evolved into an extrovert. The people are friendly speaking or acknowledges all as you pass. Not all southern places are as friendly. My opinion is as long as you are Democrat I don't give a damn where you live or where you was born, Democrat to the death.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)That's me.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)"Would the last one in Michigan please turn out the lights".
merrily
(45,251 posts)a tall, strapping younger man started walking alongside me singing "Good morning, good morning." I smile and reply, terror free. And I can't beat up a newly-hatched chick. Being non-violent, I would not even try.
Maybe what you're seeing as terror is that they assume they know you, but have forgotten, not only what your name is, but that they every clapped eyes on you before? Or, maybe you are mistaking some of Boston's millions of tourists for residents?
PDittie
(8,322 posts)We're usually at the forefront of the bashing. Not that it isn't well-earned, mind you, it just seems that DU is one of the few safe places for Democrats in Texas, and it's always crappy to see other DUers lumping us in with our majority morons.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)obxhead
(8,434 posts)I love the knuckle draggers that bash the south from their bastions of liberal heaven in the north. It shows me bigotry is alive and well right here in the Democratic party too.
mercuryblues
(14,532 posts)raised in the North. My family when I was growing up were all republicans. The 1st time I got drunk was at a republican convention at the age of 14. By 18 Reagan was running for his 2nd term. Knowing that I was going to be able to vote, I paid attention to his 1st term. I didn't even bother to register to vote. I did not vote for Poppy, I left that blank. I was republican born and bred, so I could not vote for a Dem and my conscious would not let me vote for the republican.
I had moved to the south and was exposed to southern republicans and that turned my stomach. Then a funny thing happened called Clinton. What I had noticed during the Reagan years and the Xtians shoving their foot in the door was amplified with the Christian coalition. For the 1st time in my life I voted for a Democrat. When I went down the list selecting each one of my candidates, I had chosen only 1 republican. Next election I noticed that all my choices were Dems. When Clinton ran for re-election I went to select my candidates and said to myself, "who are you kidding, save yourself some time" and pulled the straight Dem ticket.
So now I get to hear on DU that broad brush smear about the south. What gets me is my family members that still live in the North are still staunch republicans and avid faux newz viewers. Those of us that moved south are quite liberal and only watch faux for the shits and giggles.
Thespian2
(2,741 posts)Born and raised outside Atlanta myself. I have lived through segregation and its attendant horrors. The first national campaign I worked very diligently on was in support of Jimmy Carter.
No person should ever heap criticism on an entire population...painting with a broad brush is never completely accurate or useful in discussions. Most often, we try to confront those who hate, but if their environment, including family, taught them to hate, our words or deeds will have little effect on them.
In the last few days, here in Florida, I have heard people who are wealthy denigrate the poor, blacks, and, especially, poor blacks. I have heard all the RWNS coming from the mouths of the ill-informed. These same people, by the way, deny climate change and think only the rich should hold political office. Change their minds? I don't think so.
Martin Eden
(12,870 posts)It's a form of bigotry which the DU community should never embrace.
BlueMTexpat
(15,369 posts)K&R your response!
Martin Eden
(12,870 posts)I have to admit that I have slipped into broad-brush put-downs on occasions. It's very easy to do, especially with the state of politics in this country and the millions of people who've been manipulated into voting against their own interests.
For example, I have a very low regard for the state of Texas when I think of GW Bush, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, and how irritatingly proud so many Texans are in their embrace of RW bullshit. Then I have to remind myself that Texas also has many good progressives and produced the likes of Milly Ivins and Jim Hightower.
BlueMTexpat
(15,369 posts)The one positive thing that the universal military draft produced was to remove people from their cloistered communities - wherever they were - and force them to get to know people from other regions of the US, with different practices, microcultures, dialects, faiths, colors, backgrounds, etc. and to discover that the old prejudices encouraged and taught within their cloistered communities just were not accurate.
Most discovered that those "others" - however different - were people just like themselves and in befriending them, their own lives were enriched as a result. We lost that sense of community (sort of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater) and now have become a nation of "enclaves" in too many ways, whether those enclaves are states or regions. Good people are and can be found everywhere in the US, as indeed they can be found throughout the world.
This is why I would love to see a mandatory national service for all US citizens, of which the military is only one option, that would get ALL Americans out of their parochial local settings so that they can truly experience what it means to be part of a nation. I dream and ask why not.
Martin Eden
(12,870 posts)I think that could be a very good thing, as long as it didn't primarily serve to provide more cannon fodder for military misadventures. We do indeed need to venture out of our myopic enclaves, be exposed to new people & experiences, and gain a better sense of our common interests.
Then after the service, those who need or want it would receive a quality education (including trades & technical) without going into debt.
BlueMTexpat
(15,369 posts)I myself was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the 1960s. It was an experience that truly enriched my life and hopefully helped the community I served in, even if only in small ways. Most of those with whom I served - from all corners of the US - are still friends and we try to get together when we can. We all still have friends in the communities where we served. PC has always prided itself on being nonpartisan and some of my former colleagues are Republicans (or at least were, most are much too sane to have anything to do with today's iteration of the GOP). Such bonds are truly important in making one feel a part of something bigger.
At that time, the military draft was compulsory. Some of my male colleagues also had to serve militarily after their PC experience. Others were exempted for various reasons. A few fled to Canada. In my view, we all served our country.
In some moments, our lives were likely as much on the line as those in the military, even though we were never as obviously targets and the US was not as hated then as we are today in some areas of the world, due especially to policies from the Reagan and Bush eras. We were never armed, nor were we generally grouped together, often assigned to separate locations some distance apart, having to live much as those in the communities where we served. There were moments when things could have gone very badly.
But yes, there are so many things that need to be done in and for the US and so many ways to give us all opportunities to participate meaningfully, especially when we are still young and trying to learn about ourselves. But it's never too late.
mmonk
(52,589 posts)secondvariety
(1,245 posts)After 50+ years, I'm hoping to make my escape soon.
fleur-de-lisa
(14,627 posts)I moved back to the south (New Orleans) after my father died so I could be closer to my aging mother in case she needed me. It was a very difficult decision. Although I was born here, it was hard to come back after living in a heavily Democratic area in the mid-Atlantic for 25 years.
Although the City of New Orleans is very blue, the outlying areas are filled mostly with repuke morons. I make fun of the redneck Boudreauxs here all the time. It's my coping mechanism.
mitch96
(13,912 posts)Keeps the damn yankees out of my town. Been living down here for 39 years and love it. Most of my old friends are kind of afraid of the south, hence the bashing
Even the ones in the military stationed down here did not really mingle. They never got the flavor and understand the "patois".
M
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)To keep us out of 'your town'? Because in reality, the 'bashing' is in those laws and cultural practices which treat minorities unfairly, not in the criticism of those laws and cultural practices.
mitch96
(13,912 posts)We are just screwed up like the rest of us
But our BBQ is better!!
m
liberalmike27
(2,479 posts)These days, save a few actual liberal bastions, all of the things that make the South laughable, have spread to nearly all of the States. Prejudice is everywhere, ignorance runs rampant, and Republicans are making footholds in many middle to northern States, that were once solid liberal bastions. White cops shoot black children for relatively lame offenses all over the U.S., so no different there, as little Klansmen seem to be being raised up everywhere.
Like Pitt, I was born in Mississippi, lived in Alabama most of my life, and I'm about as liberal as anyone. It has more to do with being smart, and doing this thing called "thinking," about whether I agreed with convention, with traditions--believe me, there are plenty of stupid traditions everywhere. Stupidity runs rampant--just clips of "Housewives of New Jersey," or wherever, will tell you that.
So understand, there are good people, and bad people everywhere. I'm from here, so I know a lot of us end up being stupid. But wherever you are, look around you, because it seems to be spreading.
B2G
(9,766 posts)that were perpetrated by the western states.
That would really throw our DU friends west of the Mississippi for a loop, wouldn't it?
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)must admit that your observation cuts pretty close to home.
To wit, one of my Civil War heroes, General William T. Sherman, has a rather less illustrious record with Native Americans in the West in the years following 1865, a fact I have had to reluctantly learn and acknowledge.
Yours is a damned good point. See also the Boston school busing fights of the early 70s for examples of racism that makes the South look positively benign by comparison.
B2G
(9,766 posts)Every state in this country has perpetrated injustices and atrocities against various groups at various times.
Why the South is singled out for derision is beyond me
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)The same immoral and bankrupt philosophy that led to a bloody civil war still permeates southern culture. There is a reason the south is for the most part solidly red and in government displays the worst of our nature. The south deserves to be singled out on that.
Of course not all southerners are that retrograde, but most are. Sure they can be friendly on a one on one basis, but their kindness usually doesn't extend beyond that. And southerners also take their shots at the other states, particularly New York and California.
The major cities are blue.
Most southerners are retrograde. Where exactly do you hale from?
appalachiablue
(41,145 posts)WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)You won't make it to the train.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Although some of us do quietly celebrate the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
B2G
(9,766 posts)My point isn't that hard to follow.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)It's a good thing that people west of the Rockies don't celebrate massacres of Native Americans, and the majority of people here would never condone the celebration of the slaughter of Native Americans. A few would, it is true.
The large population of Native Americans that still lives west of the Rockies, who make up 2% of the population west of the Rockies, would be righteously offended.
And historically speaking, most massacres of Native Americans were committed by the bluecoat soldiers of the federal government who were from east of the Mississippi, not settlers.
Native tribes, especially the Comanche and Lakota, would have exterminated the settlers moving west if federal soldiers did not do their best to genocide the Native population.
Many people in the south commemorate and honor those who went to war to preserve the legal rights of slaveholders to "own" human beings, primarily human beings of African ancestry with dark skin. It's a fact. I've traveled all over the south, lived in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Florida for short periods of time, and I've seen it. I got thrown out of town by a really scary cop in Forrest City, Arkansas, because, and this is a verbatim quote, "we don't like your kind around here". I was very afraid that he was going to hurt or kill me.
Forrest City, by the way, is named for confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest.
My point is, don't try to put this shit off on someone else. No one is blaming you personally, and no one is blaming anyone in the south who wants to see all this antebellum glorification bullshit eliminated.
Please don't get defensive about those who wish to see all vestiges of the glorification of slavery eliminated, stand up to the people who glorify slavery and those who glorify the people who sought to perpetuate slavery.
Here in the southwest, we've got our own brand of ignorant shithead fuckstick backwards racist sexist homophobes to deal with.
I'm not gonna defend it, I'm gonna end it.
HelenWheels
(2,284 posts)I live in Wisconsin, born and bred here. What was once a beautiful proud state is no more. We have quickly become the laughing stock of the midWest. Now our "beloved" governor has issued gag rules on speaking the words "climate change." If I were younger and had the means I would leave here in a flash. The best I can do is encourage my grandkids to leave. So sad.
KingCharlemagne
(7,908 posts)'McCarthyism' fame). Thanks a lot, Wisconsin!
Wisconsin is positively schizo, I think. On the one hand, Joseph McCarthy. On the other hand, Russ Feingold. Go figure!
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)Wisconsin was a great and beautiful state. I am from Michigan I stayed in Wisconsin for a while though before moving to Minnesota. Anyway, I have an idea about how it's going to go downhill in a hurry. Unemployment is going to go up, underemployment is going to go up, wages are going to stagnate, the safety net is going to grow bigger holes and become harder to get, resentment for poor people is going to become more blatant. Property values will be going down since people can't afford to make improvements or fix things, or even paint or reside there homes. It's gonna get ugly. I hope when Walker is gone that he can be replaced with a Democrat in time to bring Wisconsin back. I want to live there again someday.
old guy
(3,283 posts)We deserve it. I don't bash the South, I just rarely open a thread that deals with a southern state thereby avoiding the tendency to be judgmental which, knowing my shifting moods, I could be.
MaggieD
(7,393 posts)I used to live in some of them and I am much, much happier living under blue state politics. However, I'm also grateful for my red state liberal friends that fight the good fight, even if they might only influence a few people.
treestar
(82,383 posts)which is so boring, nobody bothers to bash it, so I never have this problem; thus it is hard to get the idea of being offended about it through to me.
Right wingers like to bash California (the left coast, etc.).
IMO Southerners can get overly defensive out of a feeling of inferiority. White ones, that is. OK you lost the war over 150 years ago. Why is this still a thing?
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)Because being a conquered territory carries its own emotional scars that are passed down through the generations with mother's milk.
Because Abraham Lincoln was murdered, and the process of Reconstruction fell to a bunch of vengeful bitter-enders in Congress who wanted to hang every last man, woman and child in the South for treason.
They couldn't do that, so they settled for a policy that deliberately impoverished and under-educated the Confederate states, leading to religious radicalism (as poverty and an absence of education always does) for several generations.
You find Southern people backwards, uninformed and overly religious? A fair portion of them are. That didn't happen by accident. Lincoln wanted to "Let 'em up easy." Booth stole that chance at Ford's Theater, and we have all been living in the aftermath ever since.
Because history matters.
treestar
(82,383 posts)the South kept it up in the racism department pretty much. Though the North had its Jim Crow types laws too. But it didn't take the National Guard to enforce the take down. It's just part of being in some huge group. We get judged negatively abroad for being Americans.
I know individual Germans can be great people, but to be a German carries a burden. Like being white. But it doesn't kill anybody.
As to the South, it was a great war to lose. Carpetbaggers and Scalliwags may have sucked, but it's been over a hundred years.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)No. It hasn't. That's the point.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Or they still exist?
B2G
(9,766 posts)get over it already to blacks.
You obviously aren't aware of the devastation that was done to the south...the infrastructure, economy...everything. 25% of men of military age were killed.
They were left impoverished, destitute and without hope. Infrastructure took decades to repair.
That gets passed on for generations. Just like the legacy of slavery did.
treestar
(82,383 posts)none of that was slavery or anywhere near it. And the next hundred years they spent trying to keep the black people down. (Which yes happened in the North, Midwest, and West, too, but not with the same zeal). As a group, they can take it - I can take America-bashing, or Yankee - bashing (which yes, I did hear in the South, we are rude and impolite and the North is polluted).
B2G
(9,766 posts)Farms burned to the ground, their men dead, no jobs, no infrastructure to speak of...it was pretty brutal and it went on for decades. The major cities were eventually rebuilt but many smaller towns just disappeared off the map. As Will pointed out, this resulted in extreme poverty which led to many of the conditions you find there today. Mostly in small communities as many of the larger cities have more Northern transplants than natives who were born there. One would think they would have imported their superior ideals along with them, wouldn't one?
You really need to educate yourself on the history of it all.
treestar
(82,383 posts)but you can see how hard it is to flog the sufferings of white southerners, when there were also slaves/former slaves?
B2G
(9,766 posts)It just sounds to me like you haven't read a lot on what conditions were like after the war ended. You're in good company there.
The intent of a great many folks up North was to punish the South after the war for their transgressions. And punished they were. The thing is, the newly freed slaves were punished right along with them. Poverty and misery is the great equalizer. And there's no doubt that a lot of the whites blamed the newly freed slaves for their miserable conditions...after all, that was what the war was fought over and they lost.
Old feelings die hard. It allowed for ill-will between the races to become entrenched more firmly than in other areas of the country. Is it right? Hell no, but it's human nature and doesn't surprise me.
treestar
(82,383 posts)and is very, extremely, ineffective.
We all have different levels of knowledge about many subjects. Claiming to be more knowledgeable on a message board = 0 points, IMO.
There are things I may know a lot more than you do about. There are people who know more than you about this subject that may disagree with you. Experts disagree. No doubt there are professors who've written books on the post civil war south who can get into big arguments on it.
None of us knows everything, so "I'm smarter than you on this" makes little impression. As an American with an advanced degree, the idea I am totally ignorant of some major part of American history is pretty lame.
Reminds me of a right winger who continually assigns me reading material, namely "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman. Apparently after reading that I will understand and agree with him. I read a lot, but have other things I want to read more. Nobody can read everything. So I just try to make it informative, rather than saying, "you are ignorant" I would have just had the rest of the post as a reminder on that part of history.
B2G
(9,766 posts)about how I'm condescending rather than address my comments? Being smarter than someone has nothing to do with this. I'm sure there are a thousand topics about which you are more educated than I am. I'm fine with that. I've never pretended to know everything...I actually learn a lot here.
Rex
(65,616 posts)sure is a familiar narrative from a few posters here. I think it has to do with their mindset and that they don't comprehend how relaying information to another person works.
And I do not think it is one person and a lot of socks either, it is their particular mindset and seems alien to the ones that like carrying on a discussion.
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)Unfortunately it did here in Philly. In 1944.
My mother was 14 and was starting high school at the time and used to talk about it - the troops on the trolley. The transit company (PTC) went on a wildcat strike because... OH THE HORROR...they were told to hire black bus and trolley drivers.
And so since Philly was a major war-machine entity (with the Naval Shipyard and a giant Quartermaster shop - i.e., the Defense Personnel Supply Center), Roosevelt had the army running the transit.
The white trolley drivers decided to strike when the PTC promoted eight African American employees to driving positions, to start on Tuesday, August 1st. A committee headed by the former president of the PRTEU Union, Frank Carney, trolley operator James Dixon, bus driver Frank Thompson, and El operator James McMenamin convinced the trolley drivers to participate in a work stoppage and that morning a large contingent of white PTC workers called out sick.
Philadelphia was not alone in white resistance to fair employment practices in the 1940s. Racist attitudes toward transit integration led to similar hate strikes in Mobile and Detroit, and transit systems from Boston to Portland had similar policies of racial discrimination.
President Roosevelt accused the striking white workers of violating the Smith-Connally Act (an act he had opposed), which made it illegal for workers involved in the war effort to strike, however since the PRTEU was no longer the official representative of the PTC workers, the committee representing the workers claimed they were not violating the law.
On the third day of the strike, Roosevelt authorized the Army to take over the transit system, and Major General Phillip Hayes threatened to conscript any workers who remained on strike. Despite this, over 6,000 of the white PTC workers voted to continue the strike. On August 5th, the President upped the ante and ordered the military to break the strike by force. Five thousand troops were ordered into the city, setting up camp in Fairmount Park. The same day, the leaders of the strike committee were arrested and charged with violating the Smith-Connally Act. After spending a night in jail, McMenamin told the workers to return to work and leave the matter to the courts. He and the other committee leaders were summarily fired when they tried to return to work themselves. The military intervention ended the strike before a week passed, and by September all 8 of the African American workers had begun their new jobs as trolley drivers. By the end of 1945, nearly 1,000 African Americans were employed as drivers with the PTC.
<...>
http://hiddencityphila.org/2014/08/an-anniversary-to-forget-august-1-1944/
This is just sad but we are just barely above the Mason-Dixon line.
BeanMusical
(4,389 posts)Thanks for the info.
BB_Smoke
(62 posts)One of their worst exports.
BB_Smoke
(62 posts)A succinct summation of Reconstruction's glaring failure. Not unlike France taking it to Germany with the Versailles treaty. What the south needed was a Marshall Plan instead, without the carpetbaggers taking all their gains back home.
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)by us Fluffians to your north.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Never heard that term, lol.
I'd love to hear Wilmington bashed! Other than being boring, is there anything?
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)and one of my co-workers was a Fluffian who believed Delaware was part of Pennsylvania. It was, once. She was just off by 100 years!
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)that includes "South Jersey" too.
treestar
(82,383 posts)And northern Delaware is part of Philadelphia too, in that it is where the airport is, and where the major government offices are, where the major networks beam from, where you can see a symphony or major play (OK there's a Delaware Orchestra, but then there is a real orchestra in Philadelphia) - and where the professional sports teams are. Go Phillies! Delaware feels it owns the Phillies too.
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)Which is why we merged with you (having an 8% sales tax here in the city, so we have to buy our stuff somewhere).
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)It's okay to acknowledge the history of the south without assuming that people there all hold the same views.
pecwae
(8,021 posts)even encouraged. A reason I don't visit much any more.
Sedona
(3,769 posts)As a Boston native, raised in Blue Broward County South Florida, who raised my family in bright red Northern Arizona and now a resident of happy clappy liberal West LA, thank you sincerely for your post and the column from 2011 which I never saw until now.
I see a glimmer of a future for myself in Metro Atlanta and it terrifies me to go back to another red state.
I'm still terrified but a little less so now. Keep trying to convince me I can be happy in the South.
stonecutter357
(12,697 posts)I would not trade Birmingham for any other place i have ever been.
Strat54
(58 posts)Yes! North Florida (Jacksonville area), not the REAL Florida, but very much the REAL South. (North Florida is more like Alabama than Miami or Tampa or even Orlando.)
Never in my life have I experienced such willful ignorance and open racism! Our Congress-slug WAS Rabid Gingrich Republican, Dog-whistling, Birther, Cliff Stearns. But guess what??? Turns out that Attila Stearns was too much of a RINO for THAT (grotesquely Gerrymandered) district, so they primarried him and now the rep is an over-the-top, full blown "Bagger".
I am white, originally from the Great Lakes region. I have recognized my "White Privilege" in action many times. (shit! more like ALL the time.) There are plenty of backwards, racists in the Rust Belt, but they are truly on the fringes of society. In the South, those fringes are seen as "just another equally, valid viewpoint" or "just upholding tradition" or some other euphemism. I can't tell you how many times a full grown adult attempted to start a conversation with me with: "Why do these N$@@&^% think they can just let their kids play anywhere?"; or "Man, if that @#$% wins the Whitehouse, there's gonna be a new Civil War!"
I believe, North Florida was one of the first places where the TEA Party became a thing. T.E.A. = Taxed Enough Already. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!! There is no State or Municipal income tax by Constitutional Article. Sales taxes are moderate (6%-8%). Property taxes in Florida are less than 1/3 of what they were in Ohio, even though Florida property values were far higher. These people should really start paying taxes before they are allowed to complain about paying taxes!!
And THAT pretty much describes every encounter I have had with the South. A constant whine of "Victimhood" or fading "White-Christian Priviledge" mixed with a truckload of over-the-top bravado and veiled threats.
Southern Hospitality??? HA!! The Dixie Chicks describe it best.
Southern Hospitality is the first 10 minutes when you meet a "Southerner" and they are trying to size you up for where to stick the knife in your back.
The funniest thing is that the actual "White Southerners" that actually have roots in the old South are actually a small percentage of the population. The vast majority are Northerners that moved south over the last 2 generations. So it is not the biological lineage that is the factor, but the attraction to the "Legend of the South" that attracts that kind of person.
Man! I kissed the Rocky-ass Ground when I crossed the border back into Ohio! Never again in my life will I move to a former Confederate state!
Yes! Of course, not every White Southerner is like that, but the people in charge of everything are. We often look at places like Syria or Israel or Nigeria and think, "Why don't all the good people rise up and resist all of the evil people?"
Well....
I ask the same question of the South.
The Dixie Chicks stood up. The South pretty much shit on them for it.
You don't like "South Bashing"??
Then change the fucking South, because to me it sounds like a bunch of whining and an expectation that the South can criticize others without fear of retribution!
BB_Smoke
(62 posts)Appreciates your open-hearted, tolerant, progressive, inclusive, warm, loving liberal humanitarian ways. <3
trof
(54,256 posts)Comes with the territory.
I'm a Liberal Democrat.
I live in the reddest county, in a deep red state.
That's cold hard statistics, not rhetoric.
People here and other places ask me how I can stand to make my home here.
The answer is simple: There's a hell of a lot more to life than politics.
I have family here, and some very close friends (most of them Republicans).
We generally agree to stay off the subject of politics.
I know their views and they know mine and we leave it at that.
But if one of us is laid up, or has a death in the family, they can count on a steady stream of delicious foodstuffs showing up at the front door.
I enjoy watching the sun rise over Wolf Bay at my back doorstep.
And the Great Blue Heron who hangs out and fishes from my dock.
The mullet jumping and the porpoises who bring their young up the bay to teach them how to hunt in waters teeming with all manner of sea life.
The ospreys and cormorants put on a good show too, and the pelicans.
And don't get me started on the food.
Shrimp, oysters, crab, and fish straight off the boat and onto the grill or pan.
The fresh local produce (strawberries damn near the size of tennis balls).
Pecans and blueberries from the orchard a half mile away.
I could go on and on, but I think y'all get the idea.
All the best.
Try not to hurt each other.
trof
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)...to leave politics in the other room. Sarasota is a mixed bag and have some damn nice people here. I live out from the city lights and it's just wonderful to go out at night and see the stars in all their glory.
One other thing. I lived in Minneapolis for awhile and the "Rush" you feel during the winter while sliding down a street on 2 inches of ice is/was enough to bring me back to Florida/Home.
vkkv
(3,384 posts)Okay, so home will always be home even if you choose NOT to live there because home is:
Back-wards
Racist
KKK
Redder than a Red State
Too many religious Fundies
Too many ignorant conservatives
The majority of voters in that state care not about progress and equal rights.
So.. lot's of reasons to leave and go where there are some forward thinkers. Good move!
"" Regional stereotypes can kiss my ass. "" Then why even have election result maps??
I'm still waiting for TX, MO, OK, KS, AZ and the ENTIRE South to secede so we Northerners can finally get going on that BORDER FENCE.
mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)south is "misunderstood." I don't buy it. While Americans can be nostalgic about idyllic southern childhoods, it was bought and paid for with a level of racial and cultural terror that has never been punished and is only recently even being addressed. I think part of the southern superiority complex comes from never paying a price: for slavery, for the treason of secession, for Jim Crow, for thousands of lynchings and acts of terror.
So when it comes to the daily hate, racism and general stupidity that comes out of southern legislators on a daily basis, is there any wonder why? The south has never willingly accepted equality and literally fought a war against it. They do it "their way" until they are forced to change.
There's something deeply wrong and immoral in the south and it's tainted the whole country. Most of the congressional radicals are southern and they are shoving their radical Christian agenda down our throats, finding allies in fundie churches all over the country, and I'm sick of it.
Until southern states pay reparations to the families of thousands of human beings they have harmed and take responsibility for their history, the legacy will not change.
When it comes to the south and America, the tail has always wagged the dog, right from the very beginning when the constitution codified slavery.
B2G
(9,766 posts)That's hilarious.
mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)Leaders were not tried for treason, and the little bit of help extended to freed slaves was stolen. Blacks paid a horrible price for their freedom.
vkkv
(3,384 posts)by receiving the greatest share of Federal assistance.
Red States are sucking U.S. taxpayers' money for everything they can.
Don't forget to stay ignorant and vote GOP!
mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)BB_Smoke
(62 posts)Beautiful article.
No matter where we're from, we should be united by our common humanity.
vkkv
(3,384 posts)BB_Smoke
(62 posts)So your point wafts away like so much as a wasted fart.
vkkv
(3,384 posts)MO government:
Gov: A weak, right of center Dem
Senate: 1 Dem / 1 GOP
Reps: 2 Dem / 7 GOP
State Reps: less than 20% Dem.
And your language is so... advanced!
( for a fifth grader)
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Criticize policies, not an entire culture.
vkkv
(3,384 posts)PEOPLE.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)or even voted for it, just as not everybody supports US Policy. Certainly, most of the PEOPLE at DU do not support all the policy positions of the Republican House and Republican Senate, or even of the Democatic President.
vkkv
(3,384 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)That is what makes it uggly.
People should be treated as individuals.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)telling Blacks they could not enter state supported universities. I can't forget that. Nor, can I forget White Only restrooms, "N_______ need not apply" job ads, a 1970s governor coming to fame by chasing Blacks out of his restaurant with a gun and axe handle, and worse.
Accepting the Southern brand of racism, is just not an option for me. Grew up with too many racists, and they are still that way.
Yeah, there's a lot of good here, and a lot of liberals, but fact it that the good ole boy racists elect our government officials that pass the crappy laws and budgets we live under. There's a reason these racist, ignorant fools don't expand Medicaid . . . . . . .
By the way, I lived in Huntsville for awhile, not far from Decatur. It's different from most of Alabama because of the educated populace. But, there's still a lot of racism there and not a comfortable place for people who don't like hate talk.
Yes, I know racism exists everywhere, but there's a special brand in the South that is especially vile.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Frankly I am tired of thin skinned DU'ers crying 'south bashing' every time a post describing a racist incident in the South comes up. They are trying to silence criticism of the South, in my opinion.
Yes there are racists in all states. But there is only one region where racism is defended as a 'tradition' and 'heritage'.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)The bankrupt, ante-bellum philosophy still holds in the south.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)After winning the War "to Free the Black Man",
the Union Army of the North turned West and waged a horrific War of Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing to exterminate the Red Man, and make the West safe for White Settlers.
Some of the Native Americans are STILL in internment camps from that horror.
That would be ironic....if it wasn't so tragic.
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)Only one state that was first to issue a formal apology for slavery. A southern state that has elected two Democratic senators, and voted twice for Obama. Only one state with the highest rate of black/white intermarriage. Our income and education statistics compare quite well with the rest of the country. But no matter what, the default here for Virginians is either "you don't exist because you don't fit our stereotypes" or "there is nothing you can do as a state to escape our relentless condemnation because you are in the wrong neighborhood."
For Virginia Democrats, "Democratic Underground" equals Democratic HELL, in terms of non-stop demoralizing rhetoric from people we would like to believe are on our side.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)http://wtvr.com/2014/06/02/virginia-flaggers-erect-second-confederate-flag/
I don't think anyone is saying that the people in the south are all bigots and racists. But you in turn cannot sit there and whine about how unfairly maligned you are, when there is ample evidence to show the continued worship of the Confederacy among a significant proportion of people in Southern States.
It has been 150 years since the end of the Civil War. You might expect some folks to note that event, and some folks to note the continued bigotry. If that is 'non-stop', well, too bad.
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)Last edited Sat Apr 11, 2015, 07:12 PM - Edit history (1)
Re the Civil War, until I attended a reenactment, I shared the general perception that it was all about good ole boys wishing for the return of slavery. Since all but one of my southern Civil War ancestors fought for the Union, I figured that was the LAST thing I'd want to witness. But I did attend one NC reenactment-- of a battle in which 22 Unionists from my ancestral county were captured by Confederates and ended up imprisoned at Andersonville. Only one came home alive. The atmosphere was hardly pro-Confederate. For every reenactor playing a Confederate, there is at least one playing a Unionist. And I was quite surprised by how many of the latter were black. Virginia was literally rent asunder by the Civil War, the only state to suffer that fate. This week at Appomattox the reenactment is very much 50/50, Union and Confederate. But a lesson I should have learned a thousand times over at DU and elsewhere online: People who study history with a deep desire to appreciate all the nuances can NEVER "win" against people who want to use history selectively to justify their antagonisms.
Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)mountain grammy
(26,624 posts)About cries of "south bashing." The criticism is necessary. For too long the violence and terror were hidden under the silence of the good ole boy network.
walkingman
(7,628 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 12, 2015, 10:06 AM - Edit history (1)
and grew up in the heart of the civil rights movement. Saw several KKK crosses burned in my youth (born 1950). Graduated from University of Alabama in '72, lived in Birmingham for a while then Marietta, Ga. with my first real job and then was transferred to Houston in '74 and now live in Austin. My point being is I have lived in the South my entire life.
After the Civil Rights Act I witnessed the entire South turn GOP simply because of the prejudice of most citizens. I despise racism and although things are better it is still a big problem in this country. I personally think we are much further to the right these days (especially in Texas) and the South plays a big role in that factor. I think I would enjoy living in a more progressive area but there is much that I love about the South. The weather being a big factor.
Maybe it's a Utopian dream but I hope before I die I see a shift away from the mean-spirited right wing ideology that tries to dehumanize anyone and everyone that does not look, talk, or think like them and towards supporting people over business interests. Greed has not served us well.
I am hoping that the youth of this nation do a much better job than my generation in that regard but only time will tell.
Peace
steve2470
(37,457 posts)on my mother's side, since 1883. They came from Canada. My dad's family came from Baltimore. I think my family qualifies as "old southern", definitely old Floridian.
NOT ONCE growing up or as an adult, did I hear about the Civil War, "The South shall rise again", "war of northern aggression", etc. I never heard open racism in my family. Of course, it helps that everyone in my immediate family had a college degree, and that lawyers abound in my family.
I didn't even know about the phrase "war of northern aggression" until I read about it somewhere on the internet. I'm from Orlando, which has always been a hybrid of Northern and Southern, with a good dash of international and other regions of the country.
This is one of your best OP's WilliamPitt, bar none. Yes, the south has plenty of problems that need to be corrected, but the broad-brushing is not helpful.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)Pooka Fey
(3,496 posts)Last edited Sat Apr 11, 2015, 06:51 PM - Edit history (4)
From my vantage point of having lived for the last 10 years in Normandy in France, where many public buildings are still scarred by mortar shells that exploded 70 years ago, (logistics and costs of replacing valuable quarried stones on 15-16th Century palaces), I have never seen any lingering hatred or bitterness about WWII expressed towards the Germans by the French either in person or in print. There is lots of discussion and inquiry, but it is philosophical or historical in nature.
In 2010, historians determined French military losses in the Battle of France (May 10th - June 22, 1940) to be 59,000 French soldiers killed, this figure doesn't include French naval deaths. Before 2010, the number was estimated to be between 55,000 and 123,000 French soldiers killed.
In 6 weeks, 59,000 French soldiers died fighting the Nazis - approximately 1,372 every day, noting of course that this not does include the wounded (120K to 250K), nor French soldiers who died after being captured (39K), nor the missing (5K). These are the "Surrender Monkeys" Americans like to joke about when discussing France in WWII.
Add to this number the French Norman civilian deaths incurred during WWII - many by the Allied bombings in 1944 - add 80,000 to 160,000 French Normand civilians killed before D-Day, and 20,000 during. I didn't look for the figure of Parisians and Bretons killed. All of this death in a country about the size of Texas, with about one quarter of the population density of Germany.
Just to put that in perspective, 29,000 American soldiers died, (including my uncle) in Operation Overlord (June 6 - mid July, 1944) the Normandy D-Day invasions. (This number doesn't include other Allied forces deaths) - 829 American soldiers died daily during this operation.
All these numbers are my attempt to quantify these losses, to paint a picture of what the French endured - not counting cities bombed to ruins, livestock killed, economies destroyed, famine during and after the war, etc. which I can't do in a DU post.
People here (the French) say, "you need to know how to turn the page". This is the attitude of the overwhelming majority and I've met several old people who lived through the Occupation. I think the experience after WWI and the Treaty of Versailles must play a part in this - the French having historical knowledge of what punishing and exacting reparations from the Germans after WWI brought about. I just wanted to add another perspective to this discussion.
If only Lincoln hadn't been assassinated...
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)but I wouldn't want to ever live there again. Seven years in Houston was quite enough.
tazkcmo
(7,300 posts)Dyedinthewoolliberal
(15,577 posts)bvar22
(39,909 posts)The South is beautiful,
and belongs to all of us.
In 2006, my Wife & I moved from Big Blue Northern Minneapolis
to a deep red Southern State in a very rural area.
Bigotry, poverty, and fundamentalism are still big problems,
but the kids are on-line and have Sat TV, and that has broken the monopoly of the Preachers and Parents.
The South is changing....and is ripe for the picking for the Democrats
if they ever let go of Wall Street and start working for The People again.
We found our little piece of heaven here,
and haven't regretted a single day.
If you are open minded and strong in your beliefs,
the South has much to offer from abundant clean water, to pristine and inexpensive land,
not to mention easy Winters, low Property taxes, and LOW CoL.
If you have decided you hate the South,
please don't come here.
We already have enough people like that.
nolabear
(41,986 posts)Just like the accents, the cultures and belief systems in The South are widely varied and in many instances deeply beUtiful. You think Southern Baptists freak out over atheists; you ought to get in on some of the opining about voodoo, snake handling and speaking in tongues. I love the hell out of all that juiciness.