Is there any geographical pattern to anti-South hatred?

[carolinayellowdog]

Hey,

Like many of you, I've been astounded by the intensity, frequency, and relentlessness of anti-Southern feeling expressed here-- and not just since the election. Having traveled all over the Northeast, Midwest, and Southwest (CA included) I never once encountered anyone who seemed to bear me any ill will for being from the Southeast. Generally people always had positive things to say when they found out I was from Virginia, and the (mild) accent seemed to charm people rather than bother them.

Then I came to DU and learned that ferocious regional hostility lurks in the hearts of a startling number of people-- people with whom I agree in general about politics. This has got me to wondering about a lot of things. Why do they hate us Southern liberals for being Southern a hundred times more than they hate Northern conservatives for being conservative? (And if they don't feel that way, why do they express themselves with such amazing vituperation?) WHERE are all these viciously anti-Southern people learning to hate? I sure as hell never was taught to hate anyone from other regions, and never once encountered any Northerner or Westerner in person who seemed to have deepseated regional hostilities. That includes brief stints living in Michigan and Ohio.

Have y'all observed any common threads about the people who hate us so much? Geographical concentrations in particular regions? Demographic factors like age? Or are the people obsessed by these feelings randomly distributed around the country and I've just been amazingly lucky never to have run into any of them before?

CYD

[Maddy McCall]

1. Oh yeah, I've noticed it...

And I've brought it to Skinner's attention numerous times.

IMHO, bigotry against southerners is no better or different than the bigotry with which they have stereotyped Southerners.

In other words, the irony is that they are guilty of what they accuse us of.

:shrug:

[Ripley]

2. As someone who has a well-rounded observation...

My parents were born and raised in NC (most of my extended family lives there), but Dad took a job in Ohio after Air Force and college. I was raised in Ohio, spending lots of time in NC. I've lived in Alabama for 10 years now. I've traveled extensively in the US and abroad.

My take here at DU: while we honestly can't know for sure what race, gender, or age posters are, I believe the most vehemently anti-southern people are very young (teenagers - early 20's) and the vast majority have probably never stepped foot out of their extremely blue west coast or northeast area. It's pretty outrageous how that thread about the flag is still allowed to remain right now while supposed southerners are commenting on how we (those who try to explain what the flag is and how blacks in our areas of the south react to it) are Racist DUers who have been called out now.

It really makes my blood boil when most of the blacks I have worked with or know from Alabama to Atlanta (where I used to live) don't give a rat's ass about the flag - don't want it on the State Capitol and maybe do think rednecks who wear it could be racist. But they don't get bent like the mighty liberals who think blacks are still getting their homes burned down here if they were to speak out against it. I find that elitist, yes I said it, elitist attitude extremely condescending toward blacks in the South. Half of African Americans in the USA live in the South. They call it home and if anything more of them are moving back to the South (at least Atlanta). So for the high and mighty whiteys to be "defending" the downtrodden blacks is highly offensive to me. I even had one poster tell me some blacks don't mind the word "nigger" but that still doesn't mean we shouldn't allowed it to be used. Is that not acting like the Great White Daddy or what?

I'm sick of arguing this shit for 3 years here. It's no different than the sexist threads where The Great White Daddy tells us little women how to feel about the word "cunt" or "bitch" or whether or not a guy at the office telling us how nice our tits are is offensive or not (see, it's a compliment!). I've just about given up on this board. It is run by a few young white men in DC who clearly don't have any intention of trying to be fair. Southern defending the South? Fuck you! Woman defending your objectification and discrimination? Fuck you.

While I too, can rant against the asshole ignorant intolerant shits in Alabama...and there are a lot...I will just as readily defend their right to wear a confederate flag that says Sweet Home Alabama. The South does have it's problems and some of it is ingrained bigotry passed down from generations. But there also is a hell of a lot of progress made just since I've lived here. I can tell you stories about what they did to the one of oh maybe 5 black kids in my high school in Ohio, but I supposed it wouldn't matter because only people in the South can be racist.

There are some great Southerners here like QC who are able to speak about the Confederate flag more eloquently than I, but it is a very complicated historical issue. To reduce the CF to a symbol of Support for Slavery is so ignorant and anyone who bothered to talk to Southerners or read the history of it, the Civil War and it's descendent's black and white would know better. A lot of uneducated folks from outside the South is what I see here at DU.

Just an anecdote: Last year some of my family was visiting - we stayed in Biloxi. I took my sister (who has lived in California for 20 years) and her native Californian husband to the Beauvoir. They smirked and laughed as we went in, but I knew they would change. They watched the movie, looked at the museum and afterwards were more serious. They said, "Gee, I never looked at the South that way before. I really didn't even understand the Civil War at all."

Now, I am no apologist for slavery, bigots and segregation, but the swath of hatred being painted across all Southerners is a bit much and I for one don't bother to log onto DU very much anymore and probably won't participate much in the future.

Sorry to be so wordy, might be my last post. Yall take care. :hi:

[carolinayellowdog]

3. My own brother in Boston wishes we were in different countries

Thanks, Ripley, for the comments. Growing up in the Hampton Roads area didn't provide a very definite Southern identity or accent, and my brother moved to Boston almost 30 years ago and definitely doesn't consider himself a Southerner. I OTOH was educated in the Deep South and ended up living in rural parts of VA and NC that are definitely Southern. After the election we discussed its implications and I got from him the same reading too many DUers have taken from it-- "if only we could get rid of the South everything would be fine." I didn't even bother to bring up the fact that he was wishing disaster upon me and the rest of his folks down here.

Something that's rather odd is that he takes after mother's side of the family in physical resemblance, and I take after father's side. I've had a long attraction to the rural South and now live in northeastern NC, where our father's people have been for 200 years. He has zero interest in anything rural or Southern, doesn't even drive a car, is a totally urban northeasterner. Genealogical research has recently led me to the discovery that hundreds of our maternal ancestors lived in colonial Massachusetts so I guess he has gravitated to one set of roots and I to another.

But being a rural Southerner gives me no more sympathy for the Confederacy than the average Bostonian would have. In this area, and for my family, the bottom line of the Civil War was that a bunch of maniacal idiots made the disastrous decision to secede, leaving the North no choice but to invade us. The result being that several Unionist Southern ancestors fighting alongside Northern "invaders" died at the hands of their fellow Southerners. So I hate and curse that flag with as much (if not more) feeling as any Northerner.

CYD

[Ripley]

5. Some of the CF support I see is from a "rebel" standpoint.

I've seen people ask, "what are they rebelling against?" or "why can't they get over the Civil War?"

Well, when I first moved here I met with a Realtor. She was driving us through the campus of the University of Alabama. I noted what a beautiful campus it was and she went on to tell me about how only a handful of the original buildings remained. You see General Sherman and his army burned down over 90% of the school's buildings and books. She is about 60 and actually got kind of pissed. Then she realized we were looking at her with big eyes and she said, well it's the truth.

I can't see the value of Sherman's slash and burn through this state (especially burning down schools) and it left these people pretty damned uneducated, desperately dirt poor and backwards for a long time. That's not to excuse any of them for being racists...just an observation of why they remember what happened in that war and why they still feel rebellious towards their northern counterpart Universities. They had a lot of rebuilding to do with not much help from them.

I wish more people would read Cold Mountain to understand in a very personal way the real plight of many soldiers who fought for the South. They defended their homes, families and animals much the same way Iraqi's are defending theirs. I'm not a historian and don't know the statistics, but I'm sure only a small percentage of Southerners were wealthy enough to own slaves and they were the businessmen and politicians who got the war on.

People like this realtor may be misguided in their holding onto their Dixie Pride with the flag, but I can understand their bitterness.

When asked to describe how I find Alabamians...I most often use the term "fatalistic." (Of course not meaning to stereotype or give percentages...just an observation in general) Lots of them, black and white, live in poverty and don't have access to good education, health care, etc. Both blacks and whites have harsh histories and often share Fundamental Christianity as their rock. What people tend to forget or actually not even KNOW outside the South is that it is not literally all blacks against all whites here. It is all poor to middle class blacks and whites getting screwed over economically by the ridiculous minority Upper Class - the few filthy rich land-owner-type white Republican fascists who have learned propaganda well and use it to divide the rest.

[quaoar]

9. If you haven't already read about it

You should check out the story of The Incident at Looney's Tavern.

The Civil War had quite a few detractors in Alabama, especially in north Alabama, where there were far fewer slaveholders. They didn't see the war as being in their best interests. It gave birth to the legend of the Free State of Winston, as in Winston County.

[Ripley]

10. I have heard mention of Looney's Tavern.

I was under the impression there was a humorous play associated with it, but didn't know the subject matter. Thanks - I'll check it out.

[doni_georgia]

12. Ripley - you are correct. I am a history teacher and here's the scoop

<<<I wish more people would read Cold Mountain to understand in a very personal way the real plight of many soldiers who fought for the South. They defended their homes, families and animals much the same way Iraqi's are defending theirs. I'm not a historian and don't know the statistics, but I'm sure only a small percentage of Southerners were wealthy enough to own slaves and they were the businessmen and politicians who got the war on. >>>>>

31% of southern families owned slaves during the Civil War. In addition, many free blacks in the south owned slaves, and some slaves were white. My own ancestor owned black and white slaves. In his will, it leaves one black slave and his white assistant to his eldest son. Most slave owning families in the south owned 10 or fewer slaves. Only a small handful (3000 families in all the south) owned 100 or more slaves, and only 12 families owned more than 500 slaves.

Add to this that slavery was ALIVE and WELL in the Union during the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederacy! All of the border states were allowed to keep their slaves until after the Civil War and the signing of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. In addition, there were still slaves in New Jersey during the Civil War. These are all little known facts. Many people in the north supported slavery, and most believed that negroes were inferior to whites, and many in the north agreed that they were not fully human. The Civil War wasn't great crusade to end slavery. Northern workers did not want to lose jobs to free blacks. The Civil War was fought for economics not human rights.

In 1860 during the Lincoln/Douglas debates, Lincoln stated that states that already had slaves should be allowed to keep them. He later gave in part of the way to northeastern abolitionists, but he had to appease Union states which still allowed slavery. The compromise was to free the Confederate slaves (when technically he did not have the power to do so), while allowing those states fighting for the Union to keep the institution of slavery intact.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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

[arwalden]

15. ???

[carolinayellowdog]

14. Free black slaveowners

Hey,

I'm mystified by Ripley's hostile response, but will take your post as an opportunity to report the good news/bad news of my latest trip to the courthouse of the county in which my paternal ancestors lived. Good/bad from the POV of a liberal Southerner:

GOOD: Now there are 4 family lines in my genealogical chart of families classified as mulatto in colonial records but white from the 1790 census onwards

BAD: They were rich and owned slaves

This exemplifies the complex moral legacy of the South: many more of us have African American ancestry than appears on the surface, but many mulattos were just as involved in slave society as whites.

CYD

[ashling]

4. I'm from Texas

my Dad was from Texas and my mom was from Mississippi. I went to college and law school in Jackson, Ms. I have lived in Md and Va and worked in Wash, DC.

I never felt this hatred (as opposed to regional jokes and kidding) until I moved to Washington State a few years ago.

I am genetically a progressive Democrat. We spent 3 years in Washington State where I was extremely active with the local Dem party, my daughter organized the young dems in our county (that organization was dormant) attended the Young Dems of America Convention in Buffalo as a delegate from Wash and went to the DNC in Boston as a page of the Washington Delegation (that's how well she was thought of by the Washington folks) My wife worked for the state and was extremely active in the union as well as being the PCO form our precinct at the County. I was union laison for the local party (a position that was only created through my work drafting resolutions in support of grocery workers) etc., etc.

After 3 years of having dem and union coleagues bash Texas at every opportunity we realized we were not in the right place. We left there with the words of Davy Crocket "You may all go to hell, I'm going to Texas."

I was waiting at a traffic light in Olympia Wa one time when someone next to me said "Texas Sucks!" (I still had Texas license plates then) After moving back home I had a guy come up to me at a gas station, and snarl at me "are you REALLY goin to for Kerry?" When I answered in the affirmative he called me a piece of shit.

Each of these comments came from an ignorant supercillious ass. My response was the same to both of them. "Gee' I hope that makes you feel better." At least the Texas guy was somewhat humbled by my response.

[QC]

6. There is a lot of scapegoating behind the hatred here.

Pretending that the South has a monopoly on everything that is wrong in the world allows smug, pampered bourgeois liberals to avoid the uncomfortable truth that there is injustice right in their own neighborhoods, and even worse, that in many ways that injustice makes their smug, pampered, bourgeois existences possible.

I'll never forget seeing on TV, during the L.A. Riots, innumerable nice white people professing shock that black people in their fair city could possibly feel so aggrieved. They were stunned by the whole thing, in large part because they thought that racism was something that happened somewhere else, like Mississippi, and not close to home.

That kind of displacement is one of the most powerful roles that the South plays in the American imagination. It's what allows people from places like Boston, with its vicious racial history, to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the problem of racism. It's not their responsibility, you see, because it's something other people do in a land far, far away.

I'm with Julia and Ripley about the direction this board has taken. The people in charge seem to have no problem with the nonstop hate here, and frankly I don't think that spending time here is any longer very productive. This used to be a place where you could learn a lot and get some emotional support, but in many ways it has become nothing more than a mirror image of Free Republic.

If anyone knows of some good political boards, please post links.

[carolinayellowdog]

7. Scapegoating that is implicitly racist

Hey QC,

I will miss your posts, but agree that the admins seem to have no interest whatsoever in dissuading the hatemongers. One thing that is particularly galling to me is that if the same people were to post "let's expel half the African Americans in the US" or "let's reduce the number of African-American elected officials in the US by 75%" their posts would disappear in seconds. Yet "let's get rid of the South" IMPLIES both of those things and gets posted a dozen times a day with no consequence.

CYD

[quaoar]

8. I went to graduate school in Chicago

And I was the only student in my program from a Southern state. I was asked once, "How do you handle all the racial tension down there?" I replied, "Better than y'all handle it up here."

[Ripley]

11. Yup.

Growing up the way I did gave me insight into how people in general are often quick to ignorantly judge and label others. My NC cousins I spent summers with gave me "Oh-HAAAGGGHHHH-Oh Yankee" HELL and my Jewish and German Ohio friends always had a joke to tell about my "Hillbilly Yall-and-Mama-funny-talking" family.

I guess it taught me to try to get along with all kinds of individuals and understand where they are coming from before making assumptions. I once worked in Atlanta at a HQ for a high-end frame maker in a posh suburban setting. There was a white woman who had transplanted from New York there in management. She had been in Atlanta for 5 years or so (I had only lived there about 6 months). I was discussing a great BBQ joint I found in Lilburn (suburb) with co-workers. She immediately said "God! I would never drive that far outside civilized Atlanta! Who knows what those people would do or say?? Aren't you afraid to go there? Who knows what those rednecks will put in your food if they think you're a Yankee!!"

Frankly I was stunned at her ignorance and clear weakness of character. Her rudeness to my coworkers who grew up in rural GA is unforgivable.