I don't understand the South.

[cali]

I know that racism exists across the nation. But I don't get the form it takes in the south which seems to be rooted in something older and deeper and intimately connected with both pride in heritage and the Civil War, and a resentment about losing that war that still simmers after over 150 years.

Even if you look at the confederate flag with pride, how hard is it to understand that it strikes fear and pain into the hearts of African Americans?

Another thing I don't get about the South is Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindahl. They're both minorities, PoC, first generation Americans and they seem to have no understanding of issues of concern to AAs and other minorities or to issues of concern to immigrants.

[cwydro]

1. No. You sure don't.

Here we go with a new south-hating thread.

[Blue_Adept]

2. So educate instead of one liners.

[cwydro]

8. I was in the first forced busing

for integration in the 70's.

Two cities were involved. Mine (Charlotte, NC) and Boston.

We here in the hated south had no problems. In Boston, they screamed at little black kids on buses and tried to turn the buses over.

I remember asking my mother why those people were so horrible. She had no answer.

Trashing this thread because all south bashing threads are the same.

Racists are everywhere in this country. Hide your head in the sand if you want, but they are in YOUR state too.

[OneGrassRoot]

33. I hear you...

I grew up in Pittsburgh, where my dad's family lived. My mom's family is in deep, deep southern Alabama...still are.

Racism is definitely everywhere, but my dad (very racist) always said:

"I love the South. They know their place there, not like up here where they cause trouble."

[LordGlenconner]

4. Well deserved in some cases

Last edited Fri Jun 19, 2015, 01:15 PM - Edit history (1)

If my heritage included traitors and fools I don't think it would be something I'd want to celebrate. They were also losers, too. So there's that. Scoreboard y'all.

If Lincoln had one flaw it was that he was too conciliatory toward the end of the war when reconstruction was being discussed. That entire culture should have been eradicated.

[B2G]

6. What is your heritage?

[LordGlenconner]

7. Scotch-Irish

My people weren't here during the civil war.

How about you?

[B2G]

9. Good to know nothing bad was ever done by the Scotch or the Irish.

German, mostly.

Guess I have penance to do for that whole Hitler debacle.

[LordGlenconner]

12. Depends

Do you celebrate what he did like the Confederate heritage folks do with their past?

[B2G]

13. What do you think?

Do you think the South is celebrating Dylann Root right now?

[LordGlenconner]

17. I'm sure bigots and racists everywhere are celebrating

Some of those people happen to be in the south.

And I'm sure in the inner recesses of that Confederate Heritage culture he is being celebrated.

Unless you're foolish enough to believe that kind of thinking exists in a vacuum.

[onenote]

77. Which establishes that this isn't a uniquely "Southern" problem

[DanTex]

47. And if Germany was still proudly flying swastikas, that would be somewhat problematic,

don't you think?

If they still named their streets after Hitler and Goebbels, that would strike me as a little weird.

[CTyankee]

99. Exactly. My point entirely...I've been thinking...do the Germans have special sections

of their cemeteries set aside just for those soldiers who fought in the German army during WW11 and flying the German flag of that era?

[npk]

68. Who are your people.

The Scotch-Irish most certainly were apart of the civil war. Many on both sides of the fence. A large number of the people from the south are scotch-Irish. Just because your immediate family ancestors may not have been in this country at the time of the civil war doesn't mean that your ancestors played no part in it. Even though I was born in the south both of my parents ancestors fought for the Union.

[LondonReign2]

74. Exactly. The Scots-Irish migrated heavily to the south and played a large

part in the Civil War, as well as currently Southern culture.

[okasha]

78. Interesting.

The English did their best to eradicate your ancestors' culture. Does that have any meaning for you?

[LordGlenconner]

116. Yes

The meaning is you haven't a clue of history.

Maybe you missed it, but they are part of the UK, at least for the time being.

Northern Ireland too.

[betterdemsonly]

10. Lincoln can't help it if he got shot by a white supremacists.

I am not going to claim I understand it. What I do know is that they are still a low wage economy, despite not having slavery anymore, and that businesses have rewarded this behavior by outsourcing from their native north east, and west to the south, where workers have few rights and where the environmental laws, and the schools are bad This has made the rich richer down there. So the businesses have rewarded their vices. Capitalism is a great friend of this attitude. It pays to be an asshole and their leaders are just that.

As for Jindal and Haley. It is the contemporary version of Nixon's ethnic democrats. Many immigrant groups have taken advantage of honorary whiteness to race past blacks.

[KitSileya]

29. How could Lincoln have been too conciliatory after the war if he was killed before it was over?

I don't disagree with your point, but lack of historical knowledge detracts from it.

[LordGlenconner]

32. Plans for reconstruction were well underway at the time of his assasination

Lincoln's "Let 'em up easy" quote is well known.

But I did clarify my above post to better reflect my point.

[linuxman]

94. The war was over before he was shot.

[Pooka Fey]

57. You must dig ISIS. In the ME, they're doing what you advocate for in this post.

Nice one. You are advocating for "extremism".

That entire culture should have been eradicated.

says Lord Glenconner

The destruction of cultural heritage has been conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) since 2014 in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The premeditated destruction targets various places of worship, particularly those in Mosul, and ancient historical artifacts. In Iraq, between the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and February 2015, ISIL has plundered and destroyed at least 28 historical religious buildings.[1] The valuable items from some buildings were looted in order to smuggle and sell them to finance ISIL activities.[1] ISIL uses a unit called the Kata'ib Taswiyya (settlement battalions), who are ordered to choose targets for demolition.[2] UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova branded the ISIL activities in this respect as "a form of cultural cleansing"[2] and launched the Unite4Heritage campaign to protect heritage sites threatened by extremists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_ISIL

[cali]

70. this was in no way a "south-hating" or south bashing op

a) the title itself is an admission that I don't understand the south, and b) I say in the first sentence that racism exist throughout the country.

[Major Nikon]

72. It's just not that hard to understand

Some racists in the South have racist symbolism and historical apologia they can hide behind while overtly displaying their racism. The reality is they aren't even the majority of racists in the South. Most racists in the South could care less about the Civil War. They just hate everyone who isn't like them, which is also the case for most racists in the North. If anything those are the worst sort because unless you hear them talk when they aren't around POC, you wouldn't know they are racists.

[cali]

75. I was referring to the culture

overall, and others seem to think that the loss of the civil war is a major cultural factor in the South, even for many who don't laud the Confederacy. Symbols of the confederacy seem to be everywhere in the South. One doesn't have to be conscious of the cultural impact some pervasive cultural factors have, to be influenced by them.

[Major Nikon]

88. There is no Confederate culture

It's a faux culture which is what I described. Confederate bullshit is just a thin veil for hate. That's all it is. The actual culture of the South is very rich and diverse, much more so than the North.

[ladjf]

3. They are simply raw political opportunists who have advanced up

the political ladder by playing to their unenlightened constituencies.

[MineralMan]

5. In some ways, many in the former

CSA never really rejoined the USA. They're still fighting the "War of Northern Aggression" all these years later.

[onehandle]

11. Native Southerner here. Haley and Jindal are about nothing but lining their pockets.

So that's that.

Other than that, Southerners that worship that flag and have pride over their traitorous past are louder than most Southerners. And are easy to manipulate by Republicans. They are the minority, but get their asses to the polls for elections. Their days are numbered.

They are outnumbered by people who hate the Democrats, taxes, the social safety net, and what they think liberalism is. These are the people who financially support the GOP in the South.

Demographics will change the results of elections over time.

Nothing will change fakes like Haley and Jindal from taking advantage of racism.

[cali]

14. thanks I've spent some time in the deep South, but confess to feeling uncomfortable

first time was in the early seventies with my long haired boyfriend who was a southerner. Had a not great experience in Alabama.

[virtualobserver]

34. I grew up in the Houston suburbs, and still live in Texas

One neighbor family was looking forward to moving to the country for the upcoming war with black (they used a different word) people (I was invited), and another neighbor would talk about going into the gay Montrose area to beat up gay people with baseball bats.

They also loved the stars and bars.

In the early 90's I moved into the Texas hill country which seemed like paradise. The 2008 Obama campaign revealed the scary racist underbelly of this area as well.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Some are in my back country

and yup, loud, very.

Cali's question is not bad, but the south is not just physically in the south. Politics in my county are kind of ahem special since in some ways it has some (dying) yank versus reb flavor to them. The yanks settled the coast, Johnny reb inland. In some ways they are still fighting the war and over traditions and yes, to a point flags.

[betterdemsonly]

18. The basin/mountain back country was settled by mormons

They didn't want to be part of the USA either. They hoped to establish a new country in the unsettled West called Deseret. They aren't Southern. Most were from New England and upstate New York, but they have a similar cultural history minus slavery.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Good analogy as well.

[DURHAM D]

15. When I moved to the south in the mid-80s I was

flummoxed as well. Fortunately another mid-westerner took me aside and explained that I had moved to the only part of the US where the citizens had lost a war and the enduring shame is why their descendants will never stop trying to rationalize their choice to fight it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. You were given good advise

this will endure.

Some places of Europe this has gone on for hundreds of years.

[jwirr]

35. Yes, that is so true but they are not the only Americans who lost wars. Native Americans did also

and believe me it is not forgotten. However in their case it is totally justified anger. There is no shame of lost here because they were not holding slaves their land was stolen from them while they were imprisoned on reservations by the military for over 100 years and they will never forget.

How one feels after losing a war is a very powerful feeling and can last a long time.

[EX500rider]

91. "There is no shame of lost here because they were not holding slaves"

"Many Native American tribes practiced some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America. Native American groups often enslaved war captives whom they primarily used for small-scale labor. Some, however, were used in ritual sacrifice."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans_in_the_United_States

[jwirr]

93. The operative word is "before the European" They did not lose a war because they wanted to

keep their slaves. The war they lost was with Europeans. They just wanted to keep the land they lived on. I am talking about what happened between Europeans and the tribes. As to slavery in the Native tribes - it was not based on color. Slaves were captured from other tribes. And if I am not mistaken the ritual sacrifices were mostly in Central and South America.

[mythology]

113. They lost wars to each other often

The shame was often in leaving the other Indian nation alive knowing that they were beaten.

But if it's violence you'd like, there's this where 90% of the skeletons found showed signs of being the victims of violence.

http://www.livescience.com/47181-ancient-southwest-had-ultraviolent-period.html

But in large part the native nations only had oral histories and when those nations either died out or melded into other nations, those histories faded away. So we don't have records of the pre-Columbian Americas.

[redgreenandblue]

19. Most people that I see obsessing about the civil war are northerners. nt

[jwirr]

36. Define obsessing.

[marions ghost]

20. Most southerners these days

do NOT look at the confederate flag with pride. Not since it has become the primary symbol of racist hate. Most Southerners are not full of racist hate.

MOST Southerners do not embrace the flag or want to fly it. It does help identify those you don't want to spend time with however.

You seem to be full of bad stereotyping/prejudicial tendencies without much knowledge. Hmmmmm......

[Jamastiene]

27. Most southerners are not loud mouthed racists.

The ones who are, unfortunately, are the loudest and most in charge. So the rest of us have to quietly fight an uphill battle. All the while, we get told by northerners, who if in our same situation, would probably not know what to do either, other than keep trying, that somehow we should all be lumped in together with the racist hatemongers that we don't understand either. It's really messed up, if you stop and think about it. We are literally on our own to figure out how to fight a power structure that has been in charge of this area for not only our entire lives, but our parents' lives too. We can vote and try to do right, but we are still southerners, and therefore MUST ALL be racists too. It's depressing. I get it double. I'm hated in my hometown for being gay and hated by many northerners for being from the south. It's a shitty situation to be in, but poverty keeps people here and the north/south civil war after the civil war continues.

[Behind the Aegis]

31. Very good points.

Threads like this are a reminder it isn't just the South still "fighting" the Civil War. There certainly weren't threads about "not understanding the North" after Sandy Hook or "not understanding the Mountain (Colorado) region" after Aurora (or Columbine). It's regionalism at it's "finest."

[jwirr]

39. You may be right but this kid said it was about racism and wanting to start a new race war. That

opens the door to ask this.

[Behind the Aegis]

44. Not really. There are similar movements in Idaho and Montana, hardly the South.

It is nothing but an excuse to utilize regionalism, which is usually frowned upon (attacks on Kerry as a Latte Liberal of Massachusetts, attacks on Californians as "hippy-dippy" scatter-brains), but when it comes to the South and Southerners, it's a no-holds barred exercise in "acceptable" bigotry.

[marions ghost]

50. I think people stereotype Southerners as racist

--so they can pretend it exists "over there"...let's contain that bad racist thing to one quarter of the country, so it won't infect us.

Actually there are plenty of racists in California & the west. All over the country really--the rural /urban divide. But let's keep it a southern thing. Let's "otherize" southerners. Never mind that today it is no longer applicable to the region as a whole. Illogical prejudice.

[marions ghost]

54. More and more

people just put others in a box these days out of expediency. Nice fantasy to think all the racists are down South.

Yes I get it and it's very messed up. Speaks to the insecurity that Americans feel in general, more than anything. Everyone's trying to make sense out of the nightmare, because we don't know how to fix anything politically (are not allowed to fix) the problems we face as a society. It is a state of paralysis that has people, even liberals, looking for convenient scapegoats.

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. "Most"? Would you agree that democracy tends to reflect collective attitudes?

I think that the reasons that the confederate flag flies at the SC state house undermine your belief.

It flies because most people in SC approve of it. That's not a stereotype, that's an observation.

[marions ghost]

53. You can target SC if you want

--because the diehards there have won a compromise on the flag issue (ie a bone to throw at their extreme winger constituents). SC is certainly a stronghold of backward thinking. But I don't think we have a functioning democracy there --nor in many parts of the US. Democracy exists in many people's imaginations but not in reality.

This is not a "belief" of mine. This is the present-day truth about the South. Bigot for bigot, you have to include the rest of the country in your thinking about the extent of racism in America. I stick with my statement that Southerners these days are not more racist than people of other regions. That's all I'm saying. The OP wants to conveniently isolate the whole region as a racist backwater when this is a national problem. And a problem being exploited by the corporates to their own ends.

Look around.

[npk]

71. That is actually incorrect

That flag flies in South Carolina because only the state house can vote to remove it. Most people who live in South Carolina do not support that flag. A small vocal minority that unfortunately have a lot of influence are what keeps the flag flying.

[snpsmom]

21. I live part of the year in rural MI

and part in New Orleans. MI is more openly racist, despite what you might think.

[jeff47]

22. It's romanticism and searching for someone to look down on.

IMO, it's a combination of romanticising the pre-civil-war South, and searching for someone worse than you.

The romanticism angle is similar to how we romanticise European middle ages. Everyone thinks they'd be the king/queen or a prince/princess. They ignore that most likely they'd be a peasant living in miserable squalor.

It's similar about romanticising the South - everyone would be in the upper class, own a giant house where people all said "sir" or "ma'am" and you wore fancy clothes to galas. An 1800's equivalent to the royalty of Europe. They ignore that most likely, they'd be in the lower classes, living in miserable squalor.

But that's just the "positive" imagery. There's also the negative.

Having someone "below" you on the socioeconomic ladder means "At least I'm not _______". There is very little effort to uplift in the South, because the people running the show are really not interested in doing that. But that alone would be unstable - the people not at the top of the ladder would realize they're getting screwed.

So society is set up to emphasize that there is someone worse than you. Sure, you've got a lousy administrative job that doesn't pay well, but at least you're not working at Wal-Mart. Sure, you're working at Wal-Mart, but at least you're not getting paid to hold up a sign by the side of the road in the heat and humidity. Sure, you're getting paid to hold up that sign in the sun, but at least you're not one of those people.

And they work very hard to make sure there is always someone to look down on. Because if the downtrodden actually started working together, the people at the top would be screwed.

Btw, this "look down on" system is not unique to the South. It's the SOP for conservative areas of the country.

[magical thyme]

37. this, exactly ^^^^

Especially that it's not unique to the South. People are always looking for somebody to look down on, to reassure themselves that they're not one of "those" people. It is endemic to the US, as far as I can see.

[hifiguy]

48. LBJ explained it perfectly more than 50 years ago

[okasha]

82. And it's exactly the same mechanism

involved in demonizing the South. "I may be only a ______, but at least I'm not a descendant of 'foolsand traitors.'"

[Blue_In_AK]

25. I spent my junior and senior year of high school

in Houston, Texas. I was taught the Civil War from the perspective of the South by a very effective history teacher who believed what he was teaching. Thankfully I learned enough history from my previous years as a Yankee that I didn't fall for it. The Confederacy, at least in my experience, was deeply romanticized.

[Lurker Deluxe]

38. What year was that?

I was in school from 7th to 12th in Houston. I came from upstate NY. I have my history books from high school on my bookshelf. American History, World History, and Government. I do not recall any teaching about the civil war that was slanted toward the south.

Curriculum was pretty much straight out of the book.

I went to Spring Branch Senior High, graduated in '85.

[Blue_In_AK]

56. Oh, Spring Branch, our great rivals.

I went to Pasadena High School for a semester in 1962 and then two years at South Houston, graduating in 1964. My history teacher was Mr. Baker, who was a very good teacher, but completely up front about the fact that he was teaching from the Confederate perspective. Maybe his motive was to get us to look at both sides of that historical event, but he never got around to discussing the Union point of view.

By 1985 did you still have to start out the day with a prayer over the PA system? We did. Our a Capella choir trip was to go sing religious songs in a bunch of East Texas Southern Baptist churches. I doubt that they could get away with that these days, although I left Texas in 1968 and never looked back.

[Lurker Deluxe]

60. dunno

I was a athlete (swimmer) and was never in a classroom in the morning. We were running or at the natatorium doing laps.

I don't remember much religion in school, but Spring Branch was an independent district.

I'm sure the curriculum was way different than '62.

[Blue_In_AK]

61. South Houston is part of the Pasadena Independent School District,

along with Pasadena HS, Dobie, Sam Rayburn and probably a couple more by now. When I was down there, it was just SHHS and PHS.

[oneshooter]

86. I graduated from Spring Branch High in 1970. n/t

[CK_John]

26. IMO, the South believes it should still be part of Britain.

[okasha]

83. Eh?

[ieoeja]

117. Points

North was founded by Anglo-Saxons seeking to flee the British Empire. South was founded by Normans seeking to expand the Empire.

Northern Colonies:
o New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York - english names
o Massachusettes, Delaware, Connecticut - native names
o Pennsylvania - William Penn often argued for the people against the crown

Southern Colonies:
o The Virgin(ia) Queen Elizabeth
o Queen Mary(land)
o Lord Rhode's (Island and Plantation)
o King Georg(ia)
o King Charles I and II (Carolina comes from Carolus which is Latin for Charles)

The pre-war troubles were largely limited to the North. The war started in the North.

While Virginia was the leader in the Revolutionary War, the rest of the South was pretty quiet. South Carolina had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Revolution, then surrendered to the British a few months into the war and spent the remainder of the war supplying the British.

To this date the South remains authoritarian.


Related note: with the African Slave trade out of existence the South was killing slaves faster than they could breed them. During the Civil War there was at least one serious proposal that, if the South wins they should tear down the northern cities, parce out the land using Anglo-Saxon slaves to work the land, and if the war should end in a stalemate the South could at least raid northern land to replace African slaves with Anglo-Saxons. "We beat them before, we can beat them again," the saying went.

Anglo-Saxon versus Norman was still "a thing" when the American Civil War took place. It might explain some of Britain's reluctance to side with the Confederates early on. Anglo-Saxons in Britian might have seen it as siding with Normans against Anglo-Saxons. The American Civil War could have become a British Civil War.

[DCBob]

28. I lived in the deep south for several years.

I believe its a strong pride in their culture and way of life which they believe has been taken from them by the Yankees and black folk. They want "their country" back but they know its probably "gone with the wind".. which is why many are so resentful and angry.

[0rganism]

40. my wife worked for a southern "aristocrat" back in the '80s

he was one of the people behind the "Hee Haw" show, which was popular for a while.

anyway, he lived on what was basically a plantation in Tennessee complete with a castle imported from Europe piece by piece, and had a lot of black ... help. many of them were elderly, and probably had some clear memories of Jim Crow. they basically lived in cabins on-site and worked around the place as if emancipation never happened. my wife, a white woman, was repeatedly advised by both employers and fellow staff (including the black people) not to associate with them other than to boss them around. there remained a very significant differentiation between how people of different races were treated. the black employees accepted it as the way things were.

i don't know how much that's changed in the last 30 years.

i don't understand it either.

[ileus]

41. You don't understand it because you buy into the silly South bashing we partake in here on DU.

The civil war to 99% of the folks in the south was a week maybe 2 weeks of "study" in history class.

[McCamy Taylor]

43. What South do you live in? I live in a South that is still seething with anger

at losing its white privilege.

[ileus]

45. Va / WV

[McCamy Taylor]

42. Read "The Mind of the South."

[hifiguy]

46. I discussed this in a post yesterday responding to lovemydog

and repost it here..

Like Richard Feynman, I am not afraid to say I don't know. But I think there are some clues. Racism is the metaphorical original sin of the United States. Lincoln's "forgive and reunite" policy was profoundly misguided and laughably inept and Reconstruction was ended decades too soon after a tepid and half-hearted effort at changing the social structure of the defeated south. The south should have remained occupied for at least 50 years and the Confederate leadership should have been hanged or jailed for treason depending on their degree of responsibility for beginning and continuing the Civil War.

The only examples in history that are even vaguely relevant are offered by the post-WW II era. Germany and Japan were made to face the evil and the consequences of their actions. Societal attitudes were changed - albeit at the point of a howitzer - during the occupation, but the change took root. Japan and Germany have been respectable members of the "family of nations" for more than 65 years now and show no signs of being anything else in the years to come. The lessons were internalized in a way that was never even tried in the US. The most rabid racists in this country might have been given the same treatment and seen the light but that horse left the barn 150 years ago. Their untrustworthiness and underlying evil were illustrated by the south's imposition of Jim Crow as soon as the Union troops left. They were never made to face and own their evil, unlike the Germans and the Japanese.

It is very hard, if not impossible, to uproot deep-seated antipathies in large number of people, particularly when those people are often possessed of fairly low-level critical thinking skills if they have them at all. Racism in the US seems now to be a tribal thing, and its most virulent form is no longer confined to one area of the country as it was in the Civil War and antebellum eras. Possibly expressions of racist thought can be more vigorously condemned in public, yet how does that address the "between the lines" racism spouted by the right-wing media? Tribal hatreds are nearly impossible to squelch. See the Shi'a v. Sunni example. They have kept it going for a thousand years.

There are no easy answers, and there may be no answers at all. New laws aren't the answer, because the enactment of a law does nothing to change the deep-seated, tribal animosities passed from generation to generation. The passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts surely prove that.

So I wind up back with Feynman. I don't know.

[Nay]

62. Thank you. That's one of the best explanations of the phenomenon I have ever read.

As a white person who was born and raised in Florida and has lived out West, in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia, I can say that the Western racism is a bit different -- it's a more fascist/Nazi/master race type of racism, rather than a back-to-the-old-South culture type of racism. Western racists include pretty much all POC in their hatred, while many southerners don't hate American Indians, India Indians, Chinese, etc. Southerners really reserve their intense hatred for blacks. Only 15 years ago in VA, I started a new job at a large corporation where many nationalities worked. I put up an Amnesty International calendar for myself and was horrified one day by an older white woman who stood at my desk, pointing at the picture of two African women who'd been released from prison. She had a disgusted look on her face. I told her who the women were ('they're 2 African women released from prison by Amnesty Int; they were teaching kids to read and got arrested.') She just didn't know what to say, and I figured out that I was probably expected to apologize for having the gall to have a pic of Africans on my calendar. They weren't birds, kittens, or pretty white women, you know?

I soon found out that many of the local white people who worked there were quite caught up in the everyday racism of the deep South, even though it was the year 2000. As a white person I was expected to laugh at racist jokes, for example. I gave people the evil eye instead, so they stopped.

As you said, racism (and gun love) is now a tribal thing in the South and will be nearly impossible to eradicate. Joe Bageant's books are valuable reads, as is the book by Jim Webb, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, which gives you an idea of how the tribal/fighting/stubbornness thing started. Webb has a much more benign view of that development; I don't. I think it means that reason, discussion, facts, etc., will never get through to people like that. And we should have occupied the South for 50 years after the Civil War.

[hifiguy]

63. Joe's Deer Hunting With Jesus is a must-read.

That's where I got most of my insights that underlie my little essay. He was as astute and sharp a social critic as I have ever read. Joe is much missed.

[Nay]

65. Yeah, I miss that guy so much. If you haven't read his essays, I think his blog is still

on line. A lot of it will echo stuff in his books, but there is still material that is not in the books.

[Pooka Fey]

67. Japan's revisionism re WWII and denial of WWII crimes is well known

From May 14, 2013 article, U.S. News & World Report: Japan's Dangerous World War II Attitude - Japan's World War II revisionism is distracting from urgent economic reforms.

So it does not help the nation's standing when Japanese politicians make revisionist comments about Japan's actions during World War II, and deny the aggressive actions of the war-era government.

Japan has had a difficult time reckoning with the crimes it committed during World War II. Historians have suggested numerous reasons for this: some argue that Cold War-era politics meant there was less pressure from America to get Japan to face up to its ugly past. Others argue that since Shintoism (the dominant Japanese faith) eschews making moral judgements of the dead, it is harder for the Japanese to condemn their ancestors.

On a televised policy debate on May 12, the Liberal Democratic Party's own policy chief argued that the prime minister did not agree with the findings of the Tokyo War Crimes tribunal, forcing Japan's top spokesman to issue another round of pushback arguing that this was not the government's official view.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/noah-kristula-green/2013/05/14/japans-dangerous-revisionist-world-war-ii-attitude

Germany faced the evil of its actions in WWII. Japan has not yet done so, and 70 years have passed.

[hifiguy]

69. But Japanese militarism/imperialism is a thing of the past.

Future tensions with China may change that, however.

[angel823]

49. Joe Bageant

If you haven't read his work, do so. It's a wealth of information on the "southern mindset" of the mid-Atlantic area of this country.

Angel in Texasperated

[hifiguy]

64. +1

Only someone who lived it and transcended it, as Joe did, can really explain it to outsiders like this Minnesota boy. I miss him and Molly Ivins so much. They had so much common sense wisdom.

[angel823]

118. I know what you mean

Molly was a gem.

I was born and raised in Texas. For a long time I didn't have any hope for the south. Then I discovered there were many, many folks in the south who had somehow transcended the "indoctrination" as I had managed to do.

It helps to live in a big city.

Angel in Texasperated

[arcane1]

51. I grew up exposed to that whole rebel pride thing, but luckily wasn't raised by it.

It seemed totally apolitical at the time, though being a kid I probably missed a lot of undertones.

But 100 years of "The South Will Rise Again" slogans does have an effect.

[CTBlueboy]

52. Not only in the south

All buildings , roads, statues, memorials named after anyone from the Confederacy needs to be removed or renamed
say way I feel about the FBI building which is named after that racist J Edgar hoover

There's nothing honorable about the Confederate flag anyone that raises that flag is spitting on the faces of African Americans.

I think schools both in the north and south need to spend more time on Civil war/Civil rights movement not just breeze past by it.

[oneshooter]

87. Do you also want to bulldoze confederate cemetaries?

Maybe build a mall on them?

[CTBlueboy]

96. my honest answer ?

Yes they should have never been there in the first place

why honor racist treasonous rebels

Do we have cemeteries for rebels/ terrorists we kill today ? Imagine a headstone in Manhattan that reads " Here lies Osama bin laden lived fighting the western imperialists "

Confederate generals, soldiers fought to keep slaves and deserve no honor

I really hope you are not a confederate sympathizer

[oneshooter]

98. My family at that time were farmers and merchants, they owned no slaves.

That being said , when the Union Army assaulted Vicksburg, Mississippi my Great Grandfather and all five of his brothers joined the local militia and went into battle. Of the six only four survived the war. I have five of their diaries and all agree that slavery was not the reason that they joined. It was because the enemy was in Mississippi, and they were going to defend their state. State loyalty was far more common than the idea of country. This is shown in both northern and southern writings of the time. And is shown by the military units being recognized by their state rather than by a Army designation.

These diaries are currently on loan to the Museum at the Vicksburg Battle Ground National Park. You would have them destroyed merely because they do not agree with your view of history?

The battleship USS Texas (BB35) is a museum ship, and served at Veracruz Mexico in 1914. Would you have her scrapped because of that?

[CTBlueboy]

100. My views of history?

So your telling an African American that your Great grandfather only joined to defend "his state" and should be honored for defending a treasonous cause his state supported ?

So do you refer to the civil war as the war of northern aggression ?

[HooptieWagon]

101. The point that was being made...

...and apparently you missed, was that not all southern soldiers during the Civil War were fighting to keep slavery. Most in fact, didn't own any slaves. Many were simply taking up arms to defend their homes, farms, and families.
As an analogy, let's take WW2. FDR was probably the most hated man in America (similar to Pres Obama today). Prescott Bush was even involved in a plot to overthrow him in a Coup d'Etat. Yet, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, millions rushed to enlist, including REPUBLICANS. And yes, including George HW Bush, Prescotts son.
It's a response to a threat to kin and community, whether right or wrong. I suppose it's part of Human DNA, where the tribal bonds were essential to preservation of the species.

[oneshooter]

103. In my family is refered, when it is discussed, as the"War between the States".

Your view of history seems to be one sided. Too bad, there is much you need to learn.

[CTBlueboy]

107. Have a nice day

There is nothing I need to learn

You have family members in your lineage who fought for the Confederacy defending their home state.


And like I have stated there should be no memorials. Cemeteries or anything of that nature honoring rebels just my opinion.

[oneshooter]

111. Sure will.

but a closed mind, no matter the subject, is still a closed mind.

[raging moderate]

119. Your ancestors were played for patsies.

If your Southern ancestors owned no slaves, then they were played for patsies by the rich slave-owners. Ulysses S. Grant's Personal Memoirs are very educational. He fell in love with a daughter of a plantation owner and lived down south for awhile when he was young. He described how the rich slave owners demeaned anybody who did actual labor, worked hard to depress wages among poor white people, and cheated them at every opportunity, while viciously oppressing Black people. Grant was from Ohio and Northern Illinois, where, he said, everybody did physical labor all the time, and physical labor was something to be proud of, not ashamed of. Grant felt that the tool culture skill and pride of his northern soldiers was a big reason why the north won. The southern slave owners somehow convinced the poor whites that they should feel honored to be included in the august body of the great white race, and that they should help in the horrendous oppression of the black people. Slave owners in the north also tried to do this, of course, but luckily they were not the dominant force. The Political Economy of Slavery is a book by Eugene D. Genovese that tells how the "aristocratic" slave owners dominated the banking system, warping it to suit their twisted interests. Although they were deliberately slothful and ignorant about physical labor and practical technology, the slave owners dominated the selection of the tools that were sent to slavery-dominated states, choosing the cheapest and cruddiest tools over the more effective tools, so that it became more difficult to find decent tools in that region, with more time spent on repairing defective tools.

[Hoyt]

55. +1. Jindahl and Haley are easy, racism is what it usually takes to get elected statewide there..

I've lived in the South all my life. Grew up with people who are still racist asses. I have theories why they are like that, but it really doesn't matter why they hate, they just do and I want nothing to do with them.

[Zorra]

58. There's lots of icky racists in the north, too. But there's more of them per capita in the south.

Racism is socially acceptable in many areas of the south.

In too many places in the south, racism is enculturated. It is the unspoken, but generally understood, norm among the majority of conservatives in the south.

Ignorant conservatives everywhere fear and hate most everything that is different from them, and they don't think logically. The racist traditions of southern conservatives may even partly stem from misdirected anger at African Americans because the south lost the civil war.

Southern whites became a subjugated, impoverished, and brutalized people after the Civil War. The lingering irrational racism of the southern conservative may partly stem from the years immediately following the civil war, when they found themselves made forcibly made equal to their former slaves by the northerners who defeated them.

I'm sure there are several other reasons why ignorant southern conservatives in the south enculturated racism and carried on the tradition of racism to the present day.

And, try as we may, we can't fix teh stupid of the dysfunctional. irrational, non-empathic conservative consciousness.

[JI7]

59. Jindal and Haley certainly DO understand it, they just care about their own political ambitions more

in the case of Jindal though i think there is some personal issues and he really does wish he was white.

Haley is actually open about her own background and embraces it. but she isn't going to change anything in the state that will offend white racists . she is more comparable to gay republicans who have anti gay constituents that look the other way as long as they continue voting anti gay.

they would not have gotten elected in those states otherwise.

[MoonRiver]

66. I don't either and I was born and raised there.

Fortunately I escaped 24 years ago. Never did relate to the racism and good-old-boy mentality. But there are so many there who fit right in. And yeah they are very proud of being the descendants of "confederate heroes."

Regarding Haley and Jindal, I don't think either one has AA blood in them. Isn't their heritage from India? I know Jindal's is, but not sure about Haley.

[frustrated_lefty]

73. Interesting read

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/18/5-charts-show-the-stubborn-persistence-of-american-hate-crime/

"Not so fast, say economists Matt Ryan and Peter Leeson. In 2010 they examined the links between hate groups and hate crime in the United States. Perhaps surprisingly, they find no relationship between the number of hate groups in a state and the number of hate crimes that occur within that state in a given year. Instead, the primary determinants seem to be economic. "Our results suggest that unemployment and, to a lesser extent, poverty, are strongly associated with more hate crime, particularly crimes that are sexually, racially and religiously motivated," they conclude."

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

[okasha]

84. See the LBJ quote upthread.

This evidence corroborates.

[peacebird]

76. I was born in NC and do not understand the south. my folks were adamant about everyone being equal

Period.
They had no patience with racists or people who hated folks based on religion.
Dad was a Marine, mom a southern woman.
They married after WWII in the early 50's, and remained a loving couple til dad passed in the late 1980s.

I remember moma having to explain Jim Crow signs and KKK billboards when we left Parris Island to go to my orthadontist.
I was born in the South, and raised there, but my parents hated the racists, and refused to play along.

[CrispyQ]

79. As a white woman of moderate means, when I see the confederate flag,

I see a celebration of the division of our nation. I see an anger that the old Southern ways were deemed uncivil, unacceptable, undemocratic. I think some of this is derived from hate, but there is also a lot that is derived from ignorance. If this wasn't true, why are repubs so intent on destroying the public education system? (And now dems, too. )

Today I learned that there are states in the south whose state flags have the confederate flag embedded into the design. I had no idea & it sickens me. The confederate flag needs to go.

[onenote]

80. So what do you think racism in other parts of the country is rooted in?

You seem to think that the roots of racism in the South are different from those elsewhere. So what is the root of racism elsewhere and why isn't that really the root of racism in the South as well, albeit with different symbolism accompanying it?

[BeyondGeography]

81. It's change resistant for sure, but they get some things right, IMO

For one thing, whether it's because there's less of an opportunity to get rich than in the north or it's just wiring, they don't kill themselves for corporations the way people do in wealthier parts of the country. Things do move slower and I like that. And most people aren't getting rich anyway so what's the point? They spend much less time chasing their tail than people in higher cost environments. Smaller businesses can hang in there longer and communities have a certain stability that's lacking up north. Their housing prices never went through the roof so they stay put. Things are very relationship-driven. Kind of a lower-stakes version of the George Carlin joke about the club but you'll never be a member in.

The food is very often phenomenal, and so is the music. I won't be moving there anytime soon but I do like the country lifestyle. As you know, it's available up north so I can grow old up there like Levon Helm did. Go to his barn and hear some good southern music, too.

None of this speaks to the politics. Since this thread needs music anyway, here's a good song about that:

[lovemydog]

104. Thanks for that Drive-By Truckers song.

I'd never heard it before. Duality.

Yeah, music!

Another great one is the album Good Old Boys by Randy Newman.

[BeyondGeography]

115. Great album

Birmingham is another good one. Early Newman...time capsule material for America.

[dawg]

85. Our racists just have more of a backstory, that's all.

They like the symbolism of the Confederacy and the flag. It makes their petty hatred seem like part of something much bigger. But it really isn't.

It's still just the petty bigotry of racists. Same as in the North. Same as in the West. Same as in the Middle.

Most ordinary people down here almost never think about the Civil War. It's ancient history.

[KoKo]

89. The "Civil War." The Poverty that happened after Reconstruction when Lincoln was Assassinated.

Lincoln would have done better to bring the South forward and not been so austere with Reconstruction.

It's like the countries we have invaded... The people who suffered who were innocent (they didn't hold slaves and were just plain farmers or businessmen) were caught up in the Planter's War's and the Planters in the South were the equivalent to our Corporate Owners today. The countries we have invaded in the past 12 years will not forget the hardships suffered by the Innocents. I'm drawing an analogy that you might think wouldn't fit...but I grew up in the South...so this is why I'm putting this out. Limited as it is because I don't want to re-fight the Civil War and all the causes and effects here....because it is too complicated for a short post on DU.

The Civil War left scars that were much more remembered with the generation that has just died......but lingers on for many reasons too complicated to get into here.

Southern writer Joe Bageant wrote about this extensively and "The Mind of the South" by another author a scholarly book written in the late 50's or 60's that explains more about why the South became a Renegade as the North Prospered after the Civil War. The larger cities like Atlanta prospered to an extent but Sherman's Army of Destruction on the Poor in the South left long memories...just as it does in any war where those who had nothing to do with it were punished for the Misdeeds of the Ruling Class.

Its complicated....but Joe Bageant does well with explaining it..as a modern writer.

[Texasgal]

90. Am I mistaken or don't you live

in lilly white Vermont?

[MicaelS]

92. I think I can explain it to you.

The South flat out lost the Civil War, period. No, ifs ands, or buts. And Southerners refuse to accept that. I’m from Texas, so you can't call me a Southern or Texas basher.

This was, and still is, one of the most religious portions of the US. By Religious I mean Protestant, mainly Southern Baptist. Southerners are people who believe in a “Personal God” who take an active interest in the affairs of the individual people who worship Him.

Since their view of God is that he is All Powerful, and All Knowing, and "Has a Plan" for them. These people alive at the time fervently believed they were correct in their views of The Civil War. They used the Bible to defend Slavery. They truly thought God was “on their side”, because he worshiped him fervently. Yet the lost the war, their slaves, and thus their way of life.

So, if God is All Powerful, and has a Plan, that means God Made the Decision for them to lose and suffer.

He Turned His Back on His Faithful. He Punished Them for Their Sins. And they can’t accept that. Something or someone else must be at fault. So they transferred their anger from a God they could not blame to the nearest target, their former slaves and their descendants.

And if you are not up on your Bible, there is this point. One view of some Fundamentalist Christians from the 18th to early 20th Century was that Africans are descended from Cain. When Cain slew Abel God marked Cain. That mark was seen as some as dark skin.

Google “black skin and the curse of Cain” or variations of that.

[Texasgal]

95. Your experience is way different from mine.

I am a Native Texan as is my family. I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood and school. I am still in a very diverse neighborhood. I have many memories of my grandmothers, and GREAT grands and we never discussed the Civil War... I mean... never. I was lucky to have been someone who was gifted a large part of my Grandparents home and paperwork. Grandma still kept her war rationing stamps. She kept letters from her fathers father etc. Never in all of these things was the Civil War ever debated. EVER.

I am so happy and grateful that I currently live in an extremely diverse area. Your explanation seems very rare as a Native Texan here. Sorry, but the civil war talk and racism is everywhere...not just in the south. As a matter of fact, one of the very first times I ever experienced out right deep seeded racism was in the city "of brotherly love" Philly.It actually made my mouth drop!

[csziggy]

108. Southern Baptist Convention ethics person supports taking down the flag

The Confederate flag at the South Carolina capitol, that is. And his statement goes far beyond just taking down that disgusting flag:

Southern Baptist’s Russell Moore: It’s time to take down the Confederate flag
By Russell Moore June 19

This opinion piece is by Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

This week the nation reels over the murder of praying Christians in an historic African American church in Charleston, S.C. At the same time, one of the issues hurting many is the Confederate battle flag flying at full-mast on the South Carolina Capitol grounds, even in the aftermath of this racist act of violence on innocent people.

This raises the question of what we as Christians ought to think about the Confederate battle flag, given the fact that many of us are from the South.

<SNIP>

The Confederate States of America was not simply about limited government and local autonomy; the Confederate States of America was constitutionally committed to the continuation, with protections of law, to a great evil. The moral enormity of the slavery question is one still viscerally felt today, especially by the ancestors of those who were enslaved and persecuted.

<SNIP>

Even beyond that, though, the flag has taken on yet another contextual meaning in the years since. The Confederate battle flag was the emblem of Jim Crow defiance to the civil rights movement, of the Dixiecrat opposition to integration, and of the domestic terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens’ Councils of our all too recent, all too awful history.

Much more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/06/19/southern-baptists-russell-moore-its-time-to-take-down-the-confederate-flag/

Considering the history of the Southern Baptist Convention, this is a HUGE step. Mr. Moore's commentary is a wonderful too, expressing why slavery was wrong (even though the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention supported it -my statement, not his) and why racism is wrong. I hope the entire Southern Baptist Convention adopts his statement as theirs and pushes this attitude among their ministers and followers.

This opinion piece should be given to every single white supremacist and segregationist especially those who attempt to use religion as an excuse for their hatred.

[MicaelS]

109. Excellent...long overdue. n/t

[csziggy]

110. Particularly considering that Southern Baptists have used the Bible to support

Their racism - that is addressed in his commentary. I am so happy to see this specifically renounced. It was bullshit when they invented these concepts to justify brutalizing other humans, bullshit when they continued teaching them to justify their racism, and bullshit today and forever.

Disclaimer - my uncle was and two cousins are Southern Baptist ministers. I'm descended from many SB ministers, including the man, Charles Crow, who started the Alabama Baptist Convention which lead to the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention. I was lucky enough to have been brought up Presbyterian who were at least quiet about racism.

As a result of hearing the racist statements and attitudes from my relatives I examined Christian beliefs and began doubting them in my teens. I no longer believe in any religion.

While I don't believe in a religion, I understand all too well their influence so I am pleased to see one increase their enlightenment and acceptance of all humans equally.

The next step for the SBC will be to accept LGTBs and same sex marriage. I'm not holding my breath.

[MicaelS]

114. I attended a SBC Church in a small town in Texas...

As a small child, so I have been exposed to it too.

[mmonk]

97. I'm from the South (though not deep south). It's a place of contradictions.

For example, my family had the last Unionist Representative in the NC Legislature (Dr. John Carr Monk). It's a place where people talk about their places of worship along side old Confederate memorials. It's a place where slave owners and civil rights leaders were both from. It's a place of the Civil War and fusion politics that joined black and white. It's also a place where the right and big money have now exploited and have renewed old ghosts.

[onecaliberal]

102. Haley and Jindahl have no skin in the game.

It's not their heritage. Their heritage is in another country. They don't give a rats ass about POC. They torched the ladder they used to climb up when they arrived at the top. It's about money and power, and what they can get from you, not what they can do for their people.

[Man from Pickens]

105. Stereotypes of Southern racism are wrong

Lived most of my life in the in the northeast, came down to SC a couple of years ago.

There's some racism here for sure, but it's largely confined to isolated ignoramuses in the countryside who never moved into the modern era. There really aren't that many of them.

The racial situation here is almost exclusively a white/black dichotomy, as it is very rare to see anyone who isn't one or the other. I have seen maybe 6-7 Asian people here in 2 years and about 4 people from India, and that's it for other races.

Whites and blacks interact freely and without conflict here, far more so than up north. Up north there is racial violence all the time, here is is very rare (cops excepted).

Having firsthand experience in both regions there is no doubt in my mind that there is more racism in the northeast than in the south.

[steve2470]

106. I'd say it depends on educational level in the South, among other factors

My parents were both college-educated at decent schools, and we NEVER talked about the Civil War or the "War of Northern Aggression" or "the south will rise again", or some such nonsense. We lived in the present and were not racists.

Yes, of course, there will always be the exception(s) to that rule, but anyone who has a decent college education including American history knows the truth. I think this holds for all sections of the country, not just the south. I keep emphasizing college education, because it's pretty common for high schools to gloss over that period or outright lie in some areas from what I've heard.

[roamer65]

112. The failure goes back to Reconstruction.

We should have approached Reconstruction the same way we did the occupation and rebuilding of Germany and Japan. Complete reordering of their government and ideologies, from the top down. Confederates should have been tried for treason and war crimes, just like Nuremberg. Reconstruction should not have ended until the job was complete.