Sir_Winston54
Assume the position!
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Kettle corn. 'Nuff said.
Southern Culture
- Thread starter WriterDom
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ownedsubgal
lost little girl
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i just re-read the OP and realized this isn't a "why i love the south" thread, just a southern culture thread. i do have some less than pleasant feelings/memories about the south.
i grew up in rural Virginia, in a place where the rebel flag still flies freely and proudly from the homes of many whites...not limited to rednecks by any means, you see the biggest and boldest flags flying from the front yards and porches of the old money mansions and plantation homes along main street. it is a place where along every socio-economic level, most people will never view others as equal simply because of their race. i remember back in 4th grade, my best friend was a poor white girl named Bonnie. we always ended up in the same class, we both loved reading, we both loved long walks in the woods and daydreaming. my parents would often take the two of us out...mcdonald's, roller skating, movies. one day in the lunchroom she gets really annoyed by the loud table of kids behind us. she says to me and everyone around, "god, i hate those black kids. why do they have to be so LOUD?"...i'm sitting there slack-jawed, and say "but Bonnie, I'M black." she gives me a quick dismissive wave of the hand and goes, "but S., you're not BLACK black." that's the first time i felt that line, that gap as wide as the grand canyon between black and white in the south. of course we were kids, so wee remained friends. but 8 years later preparing for our h.s. graduation, i went to her place to pick her up and was not permitted (by her parents) to set foot into the house....had to wait on the porch.
this was a place where it was socially and legally impossible for a white person to commit any crime against a black person. when i was in 9th grade, my father was murdered. he was having an affair with a white woman, and was killed by a teenage nazi/skinhead/whateteverthef*ck they call themselves. the killer claimed self-defense, and spent less than 2 weeks in county jail. it was without question the most painful and traumatic event to ever occur in my life and the loss of my Dad and the first person on earth who ever truly loved me is something from which i will never fully recover. but that's just the way it was/is there, and how it is in many places throughout the south. there is racism everywhere of course, but there is a different tone, a different depth to southern racism that makes it especially difficult to deal with.
despite that horror, i still love Virginia, still love the south and would prefer to live in the southeast over any other part of this country. so it makes me think that all of the positive qualities of the south...the charm, the hospitality, sense of community, slower paced living, appreciation for nature, fantastic food...must be pretty powerful indeed if they can override all of that ugliness.
i grew up in rural Virginia, in a place where the rebel flag still flies freely and proudly from the homes of many whites...not limited to rednecks by any means, you see the biggest and boldest flags flying from the front yards and porches of the old money mansions and plantation homes along main street. it is a place where along every socio-economic level, most people will never view others as equal simply because of their race. i remember back in 4th grade, my best friend was a poor white girl named Bonnie. we always ended up in the same class, we both loved reading, we both loved long walks in the woods and daydreaming. my parents would often take the two of us out...mcdonald's, roller skating, movies. one day in the lunchroom she gets really annoyed by the loud table of kids behind us. she says to me and everyone around, "god, i hate those black kids. why do they have to be so LOUD?"...i'm sitting there slack-jawed, and say "but Bonnie, I'M black." she gives me a quick dismissive wave of the hand and goes, "but S., you're not BLACK black." that's the first time i felt that line, that gap as wide as the grand canyon between black and white in the south. of course we were kids, so wee remained friends. but 8 years later preparing for our h.s. graduation, i went to her place to pick her up and was not permitted (by her parents) to set foot into the house....had to wait on the porch.
this was a place where it was socially and legally impossible for a white person to commit any crime against a black person. when i was in 9th grade, my father was murdered. he was having an affair with a white woman, and was killed by a teenage nazi/skinhead/whateteverthef*ck they call themselves. the killer claimed self-defense, and spent less than 2 weeks in county jail. it was without question the most painful and traumatic event to ever occur in my life and the loss of my Dad and the first person on earth who ever truly loved me is something from which i will never fully recover. but that's just the way it was/is there, and how it is in many places throughout the south. there is racism everywhere of course, but there is a different tone, a different depth to southern racism that makes it especially difficult to deal with.
despite that horror, i still love Virginia, still love the south and would prefer to live in the southeast over any other part of this country. so it makes me think that all of the positive qualities of the south...the charm, the hospitality, sense of community, slower paced living, appreciation for nature, fantastic food...must be pretty powerful indeed if they can override all of that ugliness.
intothewoods
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holy shit, osg. That's terrible.
jockdom
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I stand corrected, damn fine tunes tho, well worth a listen.
ownedsubgal
lost little girl
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WriterDom
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I'm finding that very hard to believe. I haven't been to Virginia much but I have never see any rebel flags in front of any house that I can remember. Not in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, or Tennessee. You do see an occasional bumper sticker or something in the back window of a truck, especially in South Carolina where the flag has been an issue.
Homburg
Daring greatly
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I've seen it heading out in the western parts of the state. Not commonly, but enough to make it noticeable.
Sir_Winston54
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WriterDom
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I might have seen a rebel flag before and just don't remember. But it would be in front of a trailer with foot high grass, two cars in the yard on blocks and a piss stained mattress drying in the sun.
I don't think it's "wrong" to do it. But here you might as well put up a sign saying you are inbred redneck.
I don't think it's "wrong" to do it. But here you might as well put up a sign saying you are inbred redneck.
Homburg
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Yeah, pretty much.
WriterDom
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Well, there are a lot of people pissed off about changing the Georgia flag. One issue voters. Over something that stupid. I'm not ashamed of the flag. I just know it offends a lot of people. And I'm fairly certain it was put on there as a reaction to segregation. Another reason for it to go.
ownedsubgal
lost little girl
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i don't know where you're from, but as you say clearly you haven't spent much time in Virginia. Caroline...a rural county known primarily for two things: being the place where they finally caught John Wilkes Boothe, and Loving v. Virginia, the supreme court case which finally brought an end to all legal restrictions on marriage between the races (the Lovings were a white man and black woman from Caroline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia). you will see the rebel flag all over the place, and those with money who love to flaunt it started a trend maybe a decade back of erecting two giant flagpoles in their yards so you could see both the U.S. and rebel flag from miles away.
there is also a chapter of the Klan there that as far as i know still meets every saturday night at a little tobacco store next to the railroad tracks in Milford.
this past election season in Chesterfield, a suburban area outside of Richmond, a group of skinhead "youngsters" had a ball driving around in their pick-up and replacing every Obama/Biden sign in people's yards with the rebel flag. one elderly black man replaced his sign twice before finally giving up out of fear and simply posting a sticker in his front window.
things have not changed as much as some would like to believe.
FurryFury
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OMG!
I see rebel flags ALL the damn time. I know plenty of homeschooling religious conservative Bubbas, Bubbettes and Jr's, that are ALL about Southern Pride.
When I mention that many of the things they do to "Celebrate" their history can be taken as hate and persecution and therefore I would never be comfortable with them, they call me ignorant. See to them, it was The War of Northern Aggression, and all about money. It had nothing to do with slavery or race issues at all, ever.
This is akin to someone using Nazi symbols around Jewish, gay and other persecuted people but telling you that you are ignorant because the symbol is much older and shouldn't offend.
I seriously get angry with these kinds of people. I'm often surrounded by them.
I see rebel flags ALL the damn time. I know plenty of homeschooling religious conservative Bubbas, Bubbettes and Jr's, that are ALL about Southern Pride.
When I mention that many of the things they do to "Celebrate" their history can be taken as hate and persecution and therefore I would never be comfortable with them, they call me ignorant. See to them, it was The War of Northern Aggression, and all about money. It had nothing to do with slavery or race issues at all, ever.
This is akin to someone using Nazi symbols around Jewish, gay and other persecuted people but telling you that you are ignorant because the symbol is much older and shouldn't offend.
I seriously get angry with these kinds of people. I'm often surrounded by them.
WriterDom
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OMG!
I see rebel flags ALL the damn time. I know plenty of homeschooling religious conservative Bubbas, Bubbettes and Jr's, that are ALL about Southern Pride.
When I mention that many of the things they do to "Celebrate" their history can be taken as hate and persecution and therefore I would never be comfortable with them, they call me ignorant. See to them, it was The War of Northern Aggression, and all about money. It had nothing to do with slavery or race issues at all, ever.
This is akin to someone using Nazi symbols around Jewish, gay and other persecuted people but telling you that you are ignorant because the symbol is much older and shouldn't offend.
I seriously get angry with these kinds of people. I'm often surrounded by them.
Comparing Southerners to nazis is a little like saying America is better than Nazi Germany because the US only baked 3 million Jews in ovens. No, we didn't, but there were slaves in the north and border states. And that stain won't come out with Tide or bleach.
ZRT
The 'Yarch's Ass Kicker
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Tacking back to the original topic at hand:
Texas is a strange hybrid, with Southern overtones blending into a Western mindset. Here on the west side of the state, what I appreciate most is the tendency to integrate and assimilate. Living in what passes for a frontier, we tend more to run on meritocracy than artificial distinctions. If somebody can pull their own weight on the job, in the community, we make them our own.
We speak our own language, with a lot of Spanglish loanwords, we joke and work and fight, and we make it. We're never "about to do something", nah, we're "fixin' to get to it, vato."
It's pretty damned cool. Scots-Irish as all hell.
Texas is a strange hybrid, with Southern overtones blending into a Western mindset. Here on the west side of the state, what I appreciate most is the tendency to integrate and assimilate. Living in what passes for a frontier, we tend more to run on meritocracy than artificial distinctions. If somebody can pull their own weight on the job, in the community, we make them our own.
We speak our own language, with a lot of Spanglish loanwords, we joke and work and fight, and we make it. We're never "about to do something", nah, we're "fixin' to get to it, vato."
It's pretty damned cool. Scots-Irish as all hell.
FurryFury
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My point was and is, that hate symbols are and will continue to be hurtful no matter how you want them to be perceived or personally feel about them.
WriterDom
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My point was and is, that hate symbols are and will continue to be hurtful no matter how you want them to be perceived or personally feel about them.
They are hateful symbols only because hateful people started using them as symbols. If I had a C.S.A. sword on my wall it would a historical symbol, not a hateful one. IMO anyway.
WriterDom
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I personally find nothing glorious about The Civil War, artifacts from it or old Southern society. I've lived in the South all my life but none of that interests me. I think it's pretty sad and horrible.
And you hate college football.
JMohegan
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The lower level of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond has an exhibit called: "Virginia and the Confederacy, a Quadricentennial Perspective." Basically, it asks the question - out of 400 years of history, why are these 4 such a focus for so many?
These 2 plaques give partial answers to the question. The first paragraph of the second plaque addresses why the anthem and battle flag of the Confederacy have been "under attack."
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa78/johnmohegan/MOC2.jpg
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa78/johnmohegan/MOC1.jpg
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