Posted on 07/14/2005 6:10:21 AM PDT by robowombat
Bias against Southerners misses the mark By RICHARD COX Published July 11, 2005
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Does prejudice exist in Pasco County, an area with a very diverse population and seemingly very progressive?
I am certain that African-Americans, Hispanics and people from other countries, the poor and homeless, as well as members of certain religious faiths, experience treatment different from the mainstream populace. However, I am a member of a minority who has experienced attitudes and reactions from many individuals who assume that I am intellectually and socially challenged.
A very large percentage of the population of New Port Richey in particular is from the Northeast. I personally like the outspokenness, mince-no-words attitude, the ability to criticize as well as accept criticism without being offended, that seems to represent the culture in which Northerners grew up.
My family members seem to have the disadvantage of being born and living most of our lives in the South, in our case, Tennessee. I grew up in Knoxville, a city that many people seem to associate only with the fanatical behavior of our college football fans, and my wife is from a small city near Chattanooga.
There still seems to be a stereotype that some people associate with Tennesseans. When those individuals heard the distinct accent of my wife, my stepdaughter, and myself, it seemed to conjure up that redneck image one might associate with the humor of Jeff Foxworthy and other Southern comedians. That image is of a culture of ignorant hillbillies (certainly due to inbreeding!), barefoot, living in a shack with no indoor plumbing (but certainly an outhouse in back), having a dog living under the front porch, and owning an overgrown lawn populated with broken-down, dilapidated automobiles. And, yes, we all chew tobacco and sit on the front porch swing playing the banjo. Everyone also flies a Confederate flag and reminisces about the War Between the States.
I first noticed this attitude when my stepdaughter, an honor student, came home from middle school several days in tears because several other students harassed her daily, calling her an ignorant redneck and hillbilly among other derogatory terms. My wife and I have experienced the sudden change in facial expressions from many when they hear our accent. They seem to associate our accent with ignorance, and speak in simpler terms so that we can understand what they are saying. Telephone conversations often produce the same reaction.
I beg to differ. Tennessee is the home of several major universities, four major metropolitan areas with all the drug and gang problems associated with other large cities, and the most visited national park in the United States. Oak Ridge, in the Knoxville area, probably has as high a percentage of residents with doctorate degrees as any city in the United States. Tennessee has a musical heritage equal to none, and it is not exclusively country or bluegrass genres. Many nationally prominent politicians are from my home state, including three former presidents.
Tennessee has produced many famous musicians, actors, scientists and other intellectual and talented natives.
Well, to set the story straight, rural areas of most states have their own populace and dwellings that approach this stereotype.
My wife and I grew up in your average suburban neighborhoods, we both graduated from major universities and had successful professional careers, and, to risk seeming boastful, are probably as intelligent and knowledgeable, if not more so, than the average American. Believe it or not, East Tennessee, the section of the state we are from, fervently supported the Union during the Civil War.
I have noticed in the Pasco Times notices of meetings for various groups from areas of the Northeast and from other countries. Perhaps Southerners in our area should form a similar group. With apologies to an African-American group with a similar title, we could call our group the NAASF, the National Association for the Advancement of Southern Folks, Pasco County Branch. I hope there are enough local Southern residents available to attract to our organization.
--Richard Cox, a retired middle school science teacher and department head, lives in New Port Richey
To defend THEMSELVES and not the union of states.
Hmmm, good point. You don't suppose the newsies are just catering for "entertainment value" under the radar, as it were?
'[T]he government of the Union is a confederation of equal and independent states with limited powers'. Limited FEDERAL powers.
Who wrote it? The legislature of Massachusetts under date of 1809.
Hullo, 4CJ, good to see you again.
Yes, I concur. Although the U of H "distance education" course was mostly a litany of horribles....."they had to do this", "they had to do that", "they didn't have this/that/the other"........ that purported to describe the Southern academies in the antebellum era. The lecturer trotted through all these drawbacks (to modern eyes) before getting around to conceding the fact that, although Southern schools were outnumbered by Northern ones (and btw, he didn't break everything out on a per capita basis when comparing numbers of schools, numbers of instructors, etc.), in the last decade before the Civil War, when some serious cash was beginning to flow into the Southern economy, Southern education was growing faster than the Northern school establishment.
He also had a lot to say about Code Duello, overlooking Lincoln's affair but noting the Hamilton-Burr duel (two New Yorkers getting into a scrape); overall, though, he describes fighting as mostly a Southern preoccupation and bound up with backward and inadequate values, etc. etc......didn't mention Mike Fink's legendary sandbar duel, though, passing over yeomen's and white-trash fights as "brawls", as if they weren't important.
In short, the guy's a pretty good museum-piece 60's Northern liberal. I had a guy just like him for one of my American history courses at university, 38 years ago. I also had the female version for a couple of South American history courses. Fortunately, I'd been inoculated by a real Southerner during my high-school American History course a few years earlier. He actually brought a Klan banner to class one day -- his grandaddy's klavern's banner -- to talk about the Klan and how it used recondite symbolism and mystification as part of its terrifying aura. Talk about relevance. Nobody nodded off that day.
After they killed 300,000 Yankee soldiers.
And as I mentioned before, with less resources.
Right....:)
That is why the Yankees were so hateful to Texas during Reconstruction. Texas was NEVER conquered.
Considering how little you've had to contribute to date, then having you ignore me going forward is no loss.
Kirby-Smith had NO army to surrender. They had already gone home. I can quote you some sources on this if you like.
Send Phil Sheridan!
He Lives! Good to see you back behind the keyboard, 4CJ
Actually I've seen May 30th quoted as the date of surrender as well. But regardless of whether it was May 26th or May 30th or June 2nd surrender he did. And in doing so he surrendered all the troops in Texas since those came under his command.
The State of Texas never signed a surrender document, and so perforce neither did its People in arms as the Militia. Of course, if Texas did surrender, you're free to produce the surrender document, it'll be a useful addition to the discussion. I would encourage you to spend as much time as possible looking for it.
I realize that abiding by the constitution was not a southern strong point, but considering that the confederate constitution says that states may not engage in war without consent of congress or enter into compacts or agreements with a foreign power, then it would be ridiculous to believe that Texas could legally sign any peace treaty.
Not sovereign in the way you seem to think. Perhaps if you gave us your definition?
Good point. Texas is still at war with the United States! Thanks for pointing that out.
My point was that any State Militia troops not in Confederate service (and there were such troops throughout the South, a lot of them in Texas from reading other sources about the Confederates' difficulty in obtaining Militia troops) would not have been stood down by Gen. Kirby Smith's order.
His writ ran only to Confederate troops.
You're making this up as you go along, aren't you? Can I make up a law that says that I am sovereign and therefore can take your house from you?
Which was good as long as South Carolina did not resume its sovereignty, remained under the United States Constitution, and continued as a party to its compact. The State had, however, seceded, resumed full sovereignty, and exercised its sovereign power to demand the return of the property in question...
And what rule of law gave them the right to do so? Does any nation have that power? Can Cuba demand the return of Gitmo and legally shell it into surrender if we refuse to turn it over?
Sure they did, unless you think the United States Government was and is God Almighty, to whom nobody can ever say "no".
Actions are legal because you say they are, is that it? By what right could South Carolina demand something that did not belong to it?
All true, true, and true -- until South Carolina left the Union, and demanded return of its property.
But Sumter was not it's property and South Carolina had no legal claim to it, and no right to demand it be turned over to them.
So what you are saying is that the army had already deserted before Kirby Smith surrendered?
And you base that on what? Did the South Carolina militia mobilize to defend South Carolina or the U.S.? How about the Virginia militia or the Pennsylvania militia?
On Tony, don't tell anyone but he's the owner of a pizza parlor in Queens, near the airport - lol Great thin pizza!
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