Posted on 11/03/2007 6:59:32 AM PDT by BnBlFlag
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Saturday, November 3, 2007 Pride & Prejudice: What does 'Yankee' mean to you?
Southerners reserve three insults for outlanders and assorted other pathetic creatures. They are:
"Bless your heart" "Y'all ain't from around here, are you?" "Yankee"
This blog is barely two weeks old, but it has already taken a few pot-shots at some sacred cows, such as "bait-and-wait" deer-hunting, litterbugs and low expectations in some local schools. The ensuing conversations have largely been delightfully rambunctious, but a few visitors have registered their disagreement by simply invoking the "Yankee" Doctrine: You ain't one of us, so shut the f*** up.
It's not always aimed at carpetbagging pantywaists from states that fought for the Union 132 years ago. Fourteen states were established after the Civil War, mostly in the West, which didn't have a dog in that fight, so there are tens of millions of Americans who never set foot on a Civil War battleground, period. And the last real Yankee has been dead for 51 years (Albert Woolson of Minnesota was a Union drummer boy who died in 1956.)
No, it seems that to a grumpy Southerner a "Yankee" is anyone who "ain't from around here." "Yankee" is never a term of endearment. That epithet is fired like a squirrel-shot at any outsider who doesn't leave his/her native sensibilities at the Mason-Dixon line ... or who doesn't agree with the insulter. ("You don't like grits? What a Yankee!")
That kind of xenophobia didn't hunt before the Civil War, it didn't wash in the civil rights era, and it's unlikely to work in the blogosphere. It might surprise those parochial Southerners who still wield the word like a revenooer's axe, but non-Southerners are rarely insulted by the term. They merely know you're trying to be insulting.
And for the record: The outlanders' habit of calling all Southerners "bubba" or "redneck" or "hillbilly" is equally xenophobic. I'm afraid the American tendency to coin a slur is infinite and knows no geographical bounds. And if you're lucky enough to be a non-Southerner living in the South, then you hear ALL of them!
So, Gator-Baiters, educate this Yankee from Wyoming who loves Texas. What exactly is a "Yankee"? Can you describe what you see in your mind when you use or hear the term? Whether you're a native Southerner or a lifelong Manhattanite, why do you think this apparently archaic term is still so widely used in the new millennium?
Posted by GATOR at 3:25 AM
Labels: epithets, insults, prejudice, Southeast Texas, Texas, Yankee
1 Gator-baiting comments: buddy said... I'm "not from around here", either, and when I arrived here nearly 30 years ago, got the 'damn yankee' comment from some of the locals. Annoying, but expected, considering some of the Gomers who live in the backwoods.
November 3, 2007 8:07 AM Post a Comment
TheBayou@BeaumontEnterprise.com wildfires Write Your Own Caption Yankee
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At some point you’ve gotta get over it.
Ping!
Oh really? Then why you all get your butts kicked then? You all saying you people are so pathetic you got your butts whipped by a bunch of girlie men?
Hey! It’s never gonna happen until the Leftists, Carpetbaggers and Scalawags get off our backs about our Heritage, Traditions and Symbols.
Mick looks like he is hungover...
“Mick looks like he was hungover”.
He probably was!
I agree with that but being antagonistic about it won’t make it happen any sooner. You want to blame someone, blame James Wilkes Boothe. His actions helped to bring people to power who wanted nothing more than to punish the south.
ankee” means: [a] a uniformed member of the greatest sports team in history, or [b] a member of the armies that won the Civil War.
It means a team that may never win it all again thanks
to Curse of Hillary (TM)
Wikipedia:
>>The term Yankee now means residents of New England, of English ancestry, although that was not the original definition
I’m a native of Mass. and my ancestors got here in the 1630s.
If you see “Yankees Suck” bumper stickers on cars
around here, it refers to the Bronx Bombers, though.
>>Traditionally Yankee was most often used to refer to a New Englander (in which case it may suggest Puritanism and thrifty values), but today refers to anyone coming from a state north of the Mason-Dixon line, with a specific focus still on New England. However, within New England itself, the term refers more specifically to old-stock New Englanders of English descent.
>>A humorous aphorism attributed to E.B. White summarizes these distinctions:
To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.
(To baseball fans, a Yankee is someone who pays
$28 (or was it $17?) million to a 45 year old pitcher
for a few months’ work,
but still can’t get out of the first round of the
playoffs.)
err...I think you meant to say JOHN Wilkes Boothe but I do agree with the main thrust of your comment.
Too funny!
Ping!
Interesting blog post from our old Hometown Newspaper, the Beaumont Enterprise.
Yeah you’re right. I thought it didn’t sound quite right but the name is so well known I just assumed it was me.
Personally I don’t have any problems with southern heritage and think it’s great, just different. Also I live in an area where hundreds of men from Kentucky died fighting the british and indians in 1812. For some interesting nearly forgotten history you should search “Battle of the River Raisin”. (I live on the Raisin River)
I hate to break it to him but he is going to die someday and still be a damn yankee.
“Bless your heart” “Y’all ain’t from around here, are you?” “Yankee”
My introduction to the south was by invocation of these phrases - except all strung together into one sentence. Drawn to the south by the space race of the early 60’s, I was but eight years old when my family arrived first in New Orleans, and then Huntsville.
Hardly the carpetbagger or scalawag, and a bit too young to have a political identity, I couldn’t quite capture the reasoning behind the vitriol with which we were “greeted”. Evntually I learned that thre was little to reason that was driving their attitudees.
My parents loved it - they were full and early adopters of the southern lifestyle - especially NO. They loved Mardi Gras and the NO nightlife.
I and my brothers and sisters, on the other hand, didn’t fare quite so successfully. shunned and ostracized by the locals, we grew to depend on each other. Being a newcomer is always an awkward experience - until you get established. The thing I learned about the south was that you NEVER get established. No matter what relationships you form, what alliances or allegiances you embrace, you are always an outsider; perpetually a Yankee (or, as one dimwit on Freerepublic repeats, a “Damn Yankee”).
There is one thing that I will always remember about my years in the south. I learned to fight. My first fight was about (no surprise) my Yankee status. At the time I was 11 and had lived in my neighborhood for three years. The issue that fueled the fight is lost to history, but what precipitated the actual blows was the boy shouting “Yankee!” and pouncing on me. I lost that one - I was totally unequipped and unprepared. But I got over it. And I learned to fight back.
By the time I left the south my tally was 11 & 1, with a firm commitment to never take any shiite from anyone ever again. I’ve read a lot about that famous “Southern hospitality”. I hope that one day I too can experience it...
Ol Dixie ping
Uh, ... maybe attitudes change over time on their own and you're just looking for someone to blame?
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