Bias against Southerners misses the mark

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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

I also read your other post in which you quoted the May 5th declamation offered by the troops of Hardeman's formation to the Confederates east of the Mississippi, inviting them to make their way to Texas to make a last stand. That was a pretty late date for such a ringing declaration. The army fell apart only two weeks later.

There were lots of similar exhortations in the Galveston paper. Here are excerpts from a few of them in chronological order by date said:

Jo. O. Shelby, Brigadier General Commanding, Pittsburg, Texas, April 26, 1865, reported in the Galveston Daily News of May 13, 1865:

If Johnston follows Lee, and Beauregard and Maury and Forrest all go and the Cis-Mississippi Department surrender their arms and quit the contest, let us never surrender. … The Missouri Division surrender – My God! Soldiers! It is more terrible than death.

Texas Governor Murrah, Austin, April 27, 1865, as reported in the Galveston Daily News of May 10, 1865:

"Resistance to Tyrants is obedience to God!" Bow, then, with humility to the Ruler on high, and strike to the tyrants' heart.

I conjure you, my countrymen, by all the proud memories of the past -- by the unforgotten glories of San Jacinto and the Alamo -- by the fresh laurels your valor has plucked from bloody fields, stretching from the Potomac to the Rio Grande -- by your love for your wives and little ones -- your mothers and sisters -- by all your future hopes and your faith in Heaven -- to stand fast and firm by your colors and your country.

Public Meeting at LaGrange, Texas, April 29th, 1865, reported in the Galveston Daily News of May 6, 1865:

…we do solemnly and irrevocably declare … that under no possible circumstances will we ever submit to re-union, or reconstruction with the Yankee nation, or live under them as a subjugated people.

… our motto shall be "Fight it out, fight on, fight ever, fight everywhere"; and when the proper time comes, as it soon will, let every hill valley and prairie – every gulley, thicket and bottom – be a battle ground from which to hurl death upon our detested foes; and then let us welcome the canopy of Heaven for our tents, and parched corn, jerked beef, or wild game for our rations. Welcome poverty, hunger, thirst, heat, cold, fatigue! Welcome all privations – DEATH ITSELF – if necessary to secure the freedom of our country …

Mass meeting in Travis County, May 2, 1865, as reported in the Galveston Daily News of May 10, 1865:

Whereas, our arms East of the Mississippi have suffered reverses recently, which may tend to depress and discourage our people, now, therefore, to reassure our people and to convince our enemies that in spirit we are unconquered and unconquerable ... Resolved, 8th, That there are some disasters that are worse than defeat or death; among them are national degradation and individual dishonor. To avert direful conditions, which a cruel and relentless enemy would impose upon us, we will stand or fall with our principles and our country ...

J. Bankhead Magruder, Major General Commanding, Headquarters District of Texas, Houston, May 10, 1865, reported in the May 12, 1865, Galveston Daily News:

Once more I say, let us be united, determined and defiant. Our President is doubtless on his way to the Trans-Mississippi Department. The Flag of the Confederacy will be kept proudly flying. Brave men from every Confederate State will rally to its support and swell your ranks.

John P. Major, Brigadier General Commanding, Major’s Division, Walker’s Cavalry Corps, May 15th, 1865, in the May 20th Galveston Daily News:

If every soldier East of the Mississippi is surrendered, and every city, town and village occupied, we will not give up the fight, but unfurl our glorious banner to the breeze, we will send a shout of defiance to our hated foe.

The April 22 issue of the Galveston paper contained the correspondence between Lee and Grant about the surrender of Lee's troops. The April 25th issue had news of Lincoln's assassination.

As a native Northerner, having moved to NC, I can only say, that the first thing you notice upon moving to the South...is the appaling, incredible, butt-numbing, overwhelming ignorance of the older Southerners. Not just me, every single Northerner I have spoken to has noticed it.

The bias you speak of is, unfortunetly, well deserved. Education in the South is at least a generation behind the North. The younger folks, who have to compete with the imported Northerners for jobs, are just as good as anyone. The people who grew up ripping the tops off of tobacco plants, and thats ALL they had to know, live in a different world from myself. God bless them, don't get me wrong, I left the North because I hate it, hate everything about it. But the South has a problem with ignorance, but that will change, and is changing, as the South becomes the new economic powerhouse of the nation. I only hope they keep the good as they gain power and knowledge.

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