Posted on 05/17/2005 10:26:50 AM PDT by Destro
THE REDNECK PROBLEM
By WILLIAM RASPBERRY
May 17, 2005 -- THE plight of have-not blacks in America's urban ghettos, says economist Thomas Sowell, can be laid at the feet of white people. And not just any white folks. The culprits are that particular breed of white people known as "rednecks."
If you've followed the writings of Sowell for as long as I have, you'll know that he's not saying anything as simple as racism accounts for today's black poverty. He's saying something much more complex and, to my mind, far more intriguing.
Immigration from the British Isles to the New World was not so random as many of us imagine. Most of the settlers of Massachusetts, for instance, came from near Haverhill in East Anglia. Virginia aristocrats came from the south and west of England.
And the Deep South was populated largely by immigrants from the northern borderlands, Ulster and the Scottish Highlands — from "among people who were called 'rednecks' and 'crackers' in Britain before they ever saw America." And these are the people who formed the culture — the speech patterns, preaching styles, social behaviors, propensity for violence and attitudes toward schooling — that became the culture of Southern blacks, Sowell claims in his new book, "Black Rednecks and White Liberals."
And it is this cultural heritage, he argues, "more so than survivals of African cultures," that has produced the urban black culture of today.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Other than the school system, in the fifties and sixties New Orleans was the most integrated city in the South. Esp after the events with the sitins and bus/streetcar boycotts, the companies gave in rather than be obstinate. The most visible example of the opposite there was the closing of the City Park Pool, rather than integrate. Other than that people were generally quite cordial to one another, race not mattering much other than to the Ku Kluxers, everyone knew their place in society, and as long as you didn't cross the line there was harmony. But in the North (i have the insight of having a father who grew up in New Orleans and a mother raised in New York), NYC was heavily segregated, not just by law in the schools, but it was heavily barricaded culturally. There was virtually NO interraction--in fact was a great deal of tension and racism that prevailed (though it is Hollywood--rent A Bronx Tale, and see what happened when some kids went down the wrong side of Webster Ave into the Fordham section of the Bronx--its an accurate example of the kind of things that happened). Though not perfect example, at my father's high school--Alcee Fortier, the 1968 class was the first fully integrated class (yes he graduated in 67, but the younger classes had already began integration before then.) Washington Irving High did not fully integrate until the early 70s, and my mother graduated in 66.
For the record, the state to have the highest number of Klan membership, then or now, is Indiana.
Irish immigrants reviled in the North were not and can not be held to be the Northern standard. The Irish who rioted targeted "WASPS" as well as Blacks.
There was plenty of contact, and no doubt lots of cross-cultural exposure. And a white freed indentured servant had about the same social class as a freed slave. Socially, lower-class early American whites were closer to black fieldhands than to the Virginia planter class.
The main difference now is, in 2005 you can make fun of a "redneck" for anti-social behavior, but if you do that with "homeys from da hood", you get called bad names and told you just don't understand their culture.
It'll be easier to understand now though, I guess, 'cuz I tend to get along pretty well with rednecks, whether they wear the bill of their ballcap pointed foreward or to the rear...
"But it's a mixture of things, Scottish, Irish, English- you know, 1700s colonists. I know some in my family were rich and others were poor."
Sounds like the typical southern mutt, if you throw in a legend or two about Cherokee blood.
Well, coming from a 1/2 dago 1/4 French Cajun 1/4 Bavarian German, YOU SHOULD SPELL IT HOW YOU PRONOUNCE IT!!!!! hehe
"If you're a small farmer from the hills of Tennessee or North Carolina, how willing are you really going to be to die so that some aristocrat from the lowlands can keep his slaves?"
Not at all willing. They were, however, willing to die to defend their home and family from hostile invasion.
But, Indentured Servants were entitled to a parting fee, sometimes in the form of land. Slaves were kept for life. Anyway, about 40% of indentured servants died. And indentured servitude starting dying out after the 1650s, because people from England were less likely to indenture themselves out.
"Irish immigrants reviled in the North were not and can not be held to be the Northern standard."
Precisely. Hold them to the Southern standard, then?
I am not sure I concur with Mr. Sowell's sociological analysis.
For one thing, the percentage of slaves was always much higher in the tidewater regions of the deep south than in the backwoods where the so-called Borderers and Scots Irish were more likely to settle. A slave based economy was a product of the aristocratic plantation owners, not the dirt-poor subsistence farmers of Appalachia and the frontier.
The problems confronting blacks in today's society are more the product of a recent liberal polico-social philosophy which actually helped to break up the southern black families by encouraging immigration into the northern cities for higher welfare benefits for unwed black women with children. It also created a new "master" the government which figuratively replaced the slave-owner as the distributor of benefits. Consequently, thanks to liberalism, many blacks today may be politically free, but they still suffer from the kind of slave mentality which oppressed their ancestors. And of course, the biggest slavemaster in the world is the liberal Democrat Pary which seeks to make ALL Americans dependent upon government.
Nor should the Radical Republicans in office after Lincoln's assasination excape culpability. Instead of wirking to integrate and educate the freed slaves and make them a part of the National economy, they set the stage for Klu-Kluxers with their use of the blacks as a cudgel to punish the South for seccession, and assist carpetbaggers.
The Borderers and Scots Irish were a rough bunch - but without them there would probably have never been an expanding frontier and the America we know today.
We would still be thirteen colonies hugging the Atlantic coastline and Canada would probably still be French and the midwest and southwest would be all Spanish.
You know, we could use a LOT of those old Scots Irish and Borderers VERY BADLY today - if you get my drift.
"""If you're a small farmer from the hills of Tennessee or North Carolina, how willing are you really going to be to die so that some aristocrat from the lowlands can keep his slaves?"""
They were willing. That's how you got the Civil War. It was a rich man's war and poor man's fight.
I don't challenge your detailed experiences here and there.
But apparantly you challenge mine.
That's just great.
Good open mind you got there.
What? Was I wrong? I mean, did you find the attitude in places toward you as a stranger in Singapore, Wisconsin (corner bars), Tokyo, California Coast, Northeast US, Hong Kong, Europe much more different--compared to say rural Texas, Tennessee, Alabama--and generally meaner and less welcoming?
What does "knowing one's place" mean? It just sounds like a romanticized version of what you say happened up North at that time.
Well in regard to that and poor Celtic whites who joined the Klan out of fear, and those affluent Anglo Saxon whites who ran the Klan pretty much and played on the suspicions and fears of the lower classes, then for them yes it was an issue.
I'm referring to the ability to move upward in society. It was a likely factor elsewhere, but the oringinal post painted with all too wide a brush to imply there were no black slaveowners anywhere in the south, when in fact there were, especially in Louisiana in particular, though the gulf coast area in general had a small token amount spread out through the rest of it. In Louisiana, up to 15% of the slaveholders at one point were black in origin, and more over, 40 percent of the planter Factors in Louisiana were. Planter factors were the sales/purchasing agents for plantation owners, sold the staple goods produced through their agencies in London or Paris or in the local market nearest them, and sent back finished goods as well as money, taking a percentage on both sales and the purchasing end. While the planters relying on slave labor lost their shirts after the war, the Factors were able to go on doing business the same way.
PS: There were 2 types of anti-Slavery Northerners. The Christian origin abolitionists who viewed slavery a sin and many of these (but not all) viewd Blacks as racially equal and the Free Soil Republicans who did like Blacks or view them as equals but were against slavery for economic reasons - by that I mean they were against slavery because they did not want to compete for work against slave labor.
That's the Marxist view of the Civil War. It's actually pretty accurate, IMO.
"But, Indentured Servants were entitled to a parting fee, sometimes in the form of land. Slaves were kept for life."
There were all manner of obscure little infractions that kept indentured servants from completing their period of indenture. For women, getting pregnant was one. Typical period of service was more like fourteen years. And, the "headrights" land, 50 acres in MD or VA, was usually kept by those who paid to transport them over. The decline of the headrights system of indentured servitude did lead to the rise of the African slave trade. Prior to this, African slaves were something of a status symbol, or so I've read in various old accounts and letters from Colonial Maryland. Being "property" as they were, African slaves were well kept, by comparison. Indentured servants were worked nearly to death and fed very poorly, in order to get the most out of them during the time that they had to work them.
PS: There were 2 types of anti-Slavery Northerners. The Christian origin abolitionists who viewed slavery a sin and many of these (but not all) viewd Blacks as racially equal and the Free Soil Republicans who did NOT repeat NOT like Blacks or view them as equals PER SAY but were against slavery for economic reasons - by that I mean they were against slavery because they did not want to compete for work against slave labor.
I think you stated it clearly and concisely. Can't see how anyone could argue your points.
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