The Gong Show is now on!
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
But the Constitution of the United States says that only Congress may dispose of federal property. So states cannot acquire federal property without congressional approval.
What did the federal government do in 1860 to destroy the independence of the states?
In 1861 it waged war on a state to force it to remain in the union.
But there was no war in 1860 when the secession started. There was no destruction of the Constitution, no attack on the liberties of any state. Only an election result that some people didn't like. The 1809 proclamation from Pennsylvania did not apply in this case. The secession was merely a petulant political action totally unrelated to any injury to the Constitution.
Very true.
The election of Carter for one agonizing term (America Held Hostage) and the Clinton's two scandal ridden terms inflicted enormous damage to this country, and yet there was not an attempt to create a civil war, as they was after the public decided the election of 1860.
The Gong Show is now on!
Minnesota and Wisconsin....just a friendly as Southerners
Not when you get in the Twin Cities! But get far enough away from Ramsey and Hennepin Counties (extreme blue), and you are back to civilization.
Count me as a naturalized Texan. After 33 years in New Jersey, moved to Houston Texas and stayed for 12 years. The move was mostly due to looking to get out of the New York metro area (after travelling on business I decided that there were better places to live and work). Now I'm stuck here in the blue state Hell of Minnesota, but still call Texas home,
Actually, if you'll look back at my post (#161), the "these guys" to whom I was referring were brusque Chicagoans who fancied the N-word, not the same guys Labyrinthos was talking about. I think that's pretty clear.
Well, my numbers could be a tad inaccurate :)
I got the number from that old song: "I'm a good ole Rebel"
"three-hundred thousand Yankees lie dead in Southern dust, we got three-hundred thousand, before they conquered us, they died of Southern Fever, and Southern Steel & Shot, I wish it was three-million, instead of what we got!" :)
Well, for one, Clinton or Carter's party didn't decide to destroy our way of life.......(at least not entirely)
Slaves were an expensive investment.
Johnson you can have...what the HECK have you got against GW!!!!???
And by the way, that "joke is not EVEN funny.....:)
I saw a guy in the Navy get decked for that one......
Think back to those Carter years, 'not entirely', but pretty close. Then the Clinton's picked up where Carter left off.
"Slaves were an expensive investment."
I wonder how the slaves felt about that?
I have an upper Midwest twang and every time I go down to Florida (AKA Southern Brooklyn) I get discriminated against because of my accent.
Probably liked it better than starving during Reconstruction....
I found folks in Minnetonka and Edina to be just fine...actually.
And upstate Wisconsin....even around Duluth...a lib hotbed I'm told.
Reconstruction would have worked well if the ex-confederates would have allowed it and not reestablish the many years of a system very close to slavery under the animal like terrorism of the Klan & Jim Crow 'laws', not ending until forced.
The best option was leaving the South, as so many ended up doing.
Reconstruction wouldn't have happened at all if the ex-confederates had not tried to perpetuate slavery through the implementation of black codes.
That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard!
The Radical Republicans under Thaddeus Stevens and Ben Wade wanted REVENGE, and would have done anything to get it. Texas and other states met the Lincoln-Johnson requirements for re-admission to the Union, and that wasn't good enough for the radicals. Radical Reconstruction was wrong, which is why Andrew Johnson vetoed much of it, and it almost cost him his job.
Nice song. < / sarcasm >
Really, it isn't. But it was written by a Confederate soldier who was very bitter.
Here is the entire song:
Good Ole Rebel
By Major Innes Randolph, CSA
Oh, I'm a good old Rebel , now that's just what I am;
For this "Fair Land of Freedom" I do not give a damn!
I'm glad I fit against it, I only wish we'd won,
And I don't want no pardon for anything I done.
I hates the Constitution, this "Great Republic," too!
I hates the Freedman's Bureau and uniforms of blue!
I hates the nasty eagle with all its brags and fuss,
And the lying, thieving Yankees, I hates 'em wuss and wuss!
I hates the Yankee nation and everything they do,
I hates the Declaration of Independence, too!
I hates the "Glorious Union" -- 'tis dripping with our blood,
And I hates their striped banner, and I fit it all I could.
I followed old Marse Robert for four years, near about,
Got wounded in three places, and starved at Point Lookout.
I cotched the "roomatism" a'campin' in the snow,
But I killed a chance o' Yankees, and I'd like to kill some mo'!
Three hundred thousand Yankees is stiff in Southern dust!
We got three hundred thousand before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever and Southern steel and shot,
But I wish we'd got three million instead of what we got.
I can't take up my musket and fight 'em now no more,
But I ain't a'gonna love 'em, now that's for sartain sure!
I do not want no pardon for what I was and am,
And I won't be reconstructed, and I do not care a damn!
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