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
free dixie,sw
Once & for all, simply reprint what you rave on about, word for word - or clam up.
i do not have it (as you well know, MORON!), as it was removed by the Admin Mod for it's RACIST CONTENT.
you, otoh, will NOT re-post it as you KNOW it will get you BANNED, forever.
head over to DU, mr SPIN, & take your HATRED, STUPIDITY & RACISM with you.
FR does NOT NEED the likes of you! be gone!
free dixie,sw
I think that the Celtic influence in the South is a bit overrated anyway. There was probably more Celtic influence in the South than in many regions, but they were still Celtic drops in the Anglo-Saxon ocean that is the American melting pot.
I thought I'd just insert a little scientific logic in a conversation that was nearing unintelligible due to misinformed passion. As for the Celtic stuff, I don't mind it too much, since I find joy in attending all those festivals, including things like Oktoberfest and the Celtic festivals----I can't resist authentic food of any kind, unfortunately.
But, isn't there a little Spanish Armada background in "Black Irish" to begin with?
Ask your doctor about seeking help along the lines of Prozac.
Comentaba solamente respecto al tono general adentro aquí.
Similar to the lingo of Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp & Joe.
My race has not yet been exterminated, if that's what your asking.
No, we have you.
Lawyer talk. Re-read the order. Palmerston got it, why can't you?
Read the order. It's there in black and white.
The Civil War was Mr. Lincoln's War, and everybody knew it then.....and they know it now. Your hiding behind Lincoln's own canard that "they started it" does you no credit.
Or do I need to quote Lincoln's own secretary to you?
It was always his game, his war, and his Empire.
If Booth hadn't shot him, it would be even money whether Congress ever got its power back. Lincoln might today be remembered as the American Caesar, who pretended to fight for freedom but extinguished the Republic instead.
And no, Jefferson did not exaggerate our difficulties with racial politics, which is now amplified into a systematic parsing of interest-group grievance politics as "the politics of identity", copyrighted by Hillary Clinton.
My father was "black Irish" and he thought this was the source of his family's black hair (about evenly divided among black, brown, and red hair).
However, there is another potential source of this dark-haired strain, and that is the original, pre-Celtic population, who were probably genetically related to the Basques and the pre-Celtic, pre-Phoenician population of old Iberia. Those people, who immigrated from northern Africa at the end of the last pleniglacial epoch, were distributed throughout Europe and are represented in European history by e.g. the Ligurians and other non-Indo-European remnants. They will partly have accounted for the "pre-Greek" or "Pelasgian" substrate of Greek society, which however had already received an Indo-European-speaking population related to the Anatolians (who spoke Luwian and Hittite) who burned Troy II in the 19th century B.C., seven centuries before Priam's reign.
In fact, the builders of Troy II, and the jewelers who fashioned "Priam's Treasure" from Troy II, were probably related to the "black Irish" and the builders of Stonehenge.
Jefferson and Washington provide and interesting case-study in revisionism. Rather than modify the facts or omit important details, the revisionists have actually massaged the very conditions in which they lived, retroactively applying a moral standard which did not exist in their day (and oftentimes using their words to do it). Slave ownership carried a stigma, but in their day it was akin to, say, what cigarette smoking has become in the current era.
When you start a war if would be nice if you could know the outcome ahead of time, but you can't. The south lost their rebellion and you're bitter about it 140 years later. Germany and Japan lost their wars and they seem to have accepted the outcome without the bitterness prevalent in people like you. 'Sore loser' seems to be the only appropriate description.
And your clinging to the "It was all Lincoln's fault" defense is to be expected. You didn't really start it. You didn't really lose. Denial is the southron defense.
If Booth hadn't shot him, it would be even money whether Congress ever got its power back. Lincoln might today be remembered as the American Caesar, who pretended to fight for freedom but extinguished the Republic instead.
Lord, it is getting deep in here.
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