Bias against Southerners misses the mark

Pasco Times ^ | July 11, 2005 | RICHARD COX

[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

[lentulusgracchus]

Just can't admit the Union was honorable, can ya?

I would if it had been.

Why do you think I hold the opinions I do? I was persuaded by reading about the problems of the time, that the Civil War was a serious conflict in which a lot that was good about the American constitution was lost, and in which American citizens lost a lot politically and legally, without ever being aware that their standing before their own government was on the line. Some Northerners got it right -- Clement Vallandigham, for instance. But he was imprisoned, tried, and expelled from the United States for speaking his mind. And this man had been a member of the Congress until just a few months before he was arrested.

I was raised thinking the Civil War was a noble cause and that the right people won. I reconsidered that view on further reading, and I now believe that I was incorrect, and that what had been told me was largely propaganda and self-service by the real victors of the Civil War -- the Northern industrial and business class, formerly known as the Millocracy, and later known as The Trusts.

As for not being able to fight back, the South was full of bushwackers.

Parts of it were. New Orleans was not. My statement stands.

[lentulusgracchus]

You people cry like 4 year old infants deprived of their bottle over nothing by comparison.

You really refused to read that post, didn't you? It explained all that Southern bitterness......but the truth is, you love it, it's catnip to you.

Just wait. Your turn is coming.

[lentulusgracchus]

I'll leave the sneering and jeering to you, along with the fallacies.

No you don't. You use them all the time. Half this thread, you've expended in sneering and gloating at Southern posters, when you weren't ignoring your own solecisms, screwups, and demonstrations of unfamiliarity with the material under discussion.

I'd say you're in it for the rush, myself, and have no intention of backing off your sneering and jeering and catcalling. It's been your metier on this thread.

I think stand watie is onto something when he tells us that you get rude and crude when you're having your derriere handed to you. You seem to be having a bad thread, without capitan_refugio around to distract attention from your pratfalls of illogic.

But hey, we're not here to review posting style. But since you brought it up and all.

</off-topic>

[lentulusgracchus]

Thanks for that documentary support. You certainly have a file on the Beast, don't you? "Our man 'Spoons'."

Wonder what our man GOPcapitalist ever found out about what Butler and Sickles were up to down in Panama?

I'll have to drop him a Freepmail. I think those mailboxes still work, even if you resign an account. Something like that.

[lentulusgracchus]

[Me] Just war, versus factional war for dominance.

[You, snarking] Now that would depend on which end of the stick you were holding, wouldn't it?

No, it wouldn't.

[lentulusgracchus]

That's pretty rich coming from Palmerston, considering what his appointee, Lord Clyde, did in India after the Sepoy Mutiny was put down. Here's a taste:

Lord Palmerston was objecting to Butler's withdrawal of women's protection from rape. Where is the equivalent British action in your recitation?

You catalogue:

1. Soldiers imposing soldier's retribution (for the Black Hole, which you don't mention, so I will) on enemy mutineers,

2. Plunder and confiscations,

3. Severe and novel punishments administered to captive enemy mutineers as a deterrent,

4. Looting of temples,

5. Mass reprisals for real or imagined sympathizing with the mutineers.

So, where's the rape?

[M. Espinola]

"Right on, brother!

I believe on the majority of domestic and international issues we would most likely have no major disagreements. It's that other little item which took place many moons ago.. -lol

[dixiechick2000]

"The cause which all Americans (except the appeasing leftists) need to rally around, is the total defeat of the jihadist enemy."

"Right on, brother!"


I'll second that, bourbon!

Thank you for restating your position, ME.

[M. Espinola]

"Thank you for restating your position, ME."

Thank you.

Maybe a listing of current conservative issues/positions/key House or Senate votes, should be posted & everyone cast their own vote?

Pizza, subs/grinders, cream soda & ice cold root bear shall be served during the vote - no mess on the keyboards please :)

[Non-Sequitur]

You really refused to read that post, didn't you? It explained all that Southern bitterness......

Bitterness over what? Like I said before, in all recorded history the southern rebellion ended with less punishment, less recrimination, and less damage than virtually any other rebellion in history. At the same time that the south was losing their rebellion, China was ending a rebellion that killed 30 million. Rebellions in England, France, Italy ended with whole regions devestated and populations put to the sword. Germany had millions dead, virtually every city flattened, and Japan had been nuked twice. By comparison the south suffered little more than wounded pride, and you have only yourselves to blame for that.

[Non-Sequitur]

No, it wouldn't.

Yeah, it would.

[Non-Sequitur]

I think stand watie is onto something when he tells us that you get rude and crude when you're having your derriere handed to you.

You're handing me my derriere? Still a legend in your own mind, I see. ROTFLMAO.

[Non-Sequitur]

Wonder what our man GOPcapitalist ever found out about what Butler and Sickles were up to down in Panama?

I'm sure he bailed in part so he wouldn't have to come up with that.

[Non-Sequitur]

A troll is someone who taunts a lot, unbidden and unprovoked, like Non-Sequitur and his Boston towel-buddy do, in order to provoke flame wars and generally stir up bad blood, or to propagandize against e.g. Christian morals on a church-group's BBS the way gay propagandists do, and sometimes Nazis, or Satanists, none of whom can stand believing, witnessing Christians.

You're not a troll, you're just a boob.

[Heyworth]

So, where's the rape?

Where's the rape in New Orleans? There's nothing in Butler's order that permits rape. Eugenia Phillips wasn't raped. The Brits in India were much worse. We're talking about whole villages--that would be men, women and children, hanged. I'd call that more heinous war crime than telling the women of New Orleans they'll be treated like prostitutes if they keep showing disrespect to the Union army.

Oh, and the Black Hole, for which you claim the British were exacting retribution, happened over a century before, in 1756. I guess those Brits hold a grudge as long as the Southerners.

[dixiechick2000]

"Pizza, subs/grinders, cream soda & ice cold root bear shall be served..."


Sounds great!
Count me in.


"...no mess on the keyboards please :)"


I'm not making any promises... ;o)

[TexConfederate1861]

Goodbye Troll.....back to the depths from which you crawled. Go back to DU.....

[M. Espinola]

I'm not making any promises... ;o)"

Just in case ....lol

[x]

Not everything I said was directed at you personally. That's why I said "Some Southerners" rather than "you." When I said that I was trying to convey my experience of how "some Southerners" behaved, not to reproach you personally.

And indeed, for some people the South is so wonderful now, that it had to be wonderful in 1860 or 1960, and some real problems and difficulties are just brushed under the rug. And for some people there's a real, "we're great, you're terrible" edge to regional pride, as well as much complacency.

I don't say that about you personally. If you just love your home state -- fine. But I've seen some of the downside of regional or state pride often enough. The "Southern by grace of God" line may be more or less a good-natured joke, but it's one that wears out after a while.

I'd have to say that we're more fortunate to be Americans than Northerners or Southerners, Easterners or Westerners. Maybe the South will bail out America. Maybe it has in the past. But more often the US has benefited the South and other regions.

That's not to say that we should all be alike or that the regions don't contribute. Rather, given that we're different, those differences can sometimes balance out. This or that part of the country may go crazy, but the country as a whole usually manages to keep its head. Some people -- and again this isn't a personal remark -- are so in love with their own state or region that they'd rather go crazy with it, than take a more objective view of things.

If you're from New York or Boston or Philadelphia or San Francisco and post here, chances are you probably dislike some things about your part of the country -- certainly politics for one big thing -- but you don't hate where you live. There's a tendency for some Southerners to view everything about their region as hunky-dory and to run down just about everything about the North or Northeast or West Coast. You'd have to go to a Democrat or liberal site to find such single-mindedness among New Yorkers or Vermonters or Californians. But things that those states do have to pride themselves on are routinely dismissed here because they're "blue states."

Well, everybody has free speech. And each of us will do as we see fit. But the way these discussions tend to move from "they hate us and think they're better than us" to "we're better than they are" does grate on some people who might be sympathetic under other circumstances. I don't say it's something that you do, but it's something I do see often enough.

[Ditto]

I also think he was probably just using those documents as something "Union" to hate.

Confederate leaders said before and during the war that the Declaration was wrong in proclaiming inalienable rights. This guy was in their "mainstream", albeit most were not as crude as him.