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Bias against Southerners misses the mark
Pasco Times ^ | July 11, 2005 | RICHARD COX

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: accent; bigotry; dixie; greatname; pasco; tennessee; thesouth
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To: TexConfederate1861
A lot less Southerners died in the immediate aftermath of the war due to the benevolent surrender terms established by Grant and Sherman. Yet we rarely hear gratitude from latter-day Confederate partisans for these actions. And we only hear ridiculous denigration of Abraham Lincoln from the Lew Rockwell crowd, but never a recognition that Abraham Lincoln's path would probably have been even more gentle than what got Johnson in trouble.

I'm not fan of the attitude of haters like Wade, but in practice, the Reconstruction was a more gentle fate than most crushed rebellions have faced throughout history. Much of the outcry over the years is because the target of Reconstruction included one of the most petulant crybaby classes the nation has ever seen, the Southern planter slaveowner aristocracy which is the mother of all divisive complaining special interests that we see today. The forerunner of all those who place loyalty to the imagined interests of their own subgroup above the interests of the Union. It's a tragedy that so many good men, North and South, died because these privileged wanted to create an expanding slave empire.

561 posted on 07/19/2005 5:14:57 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
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To: eyespysomething
Everything is a coke except Dr. Pepper. LOL, I wonder why that is?

Probably because Dr. Pepper was invented before Coca-Cola, but both are from the south. Dr. Pepper in Waco, and Coke in Atlanta. Having been born and raised here in the Atlanta area, I can say that this is true. Everyone in my family will use the term 'Coke' as a generalization, but a Dr. Pepper is always called specifically by name.

Now, one exception to the generalization use of 'Coke' would be 'RC Cola'. This is also a southern soft drink. (Columbus, Ga.) This company, BTW, came out with the first diet drink .... Diet-Rite.

Two of my favorite snacks .......A bottle (glass, of course) of Coke, with a package of salted peanuts poured into it. Second only to that is an RC Cola and a Moonpie.

SodaMuseum.com

562 posted on 07/19/2005 5:17:21 AM PDT by Jackknife (No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.-MacArthur)
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To: TexConfederate1861
That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard!

Truth hurts, huh? The first reconstruction act wasn't passed until March 1867. After the race riots in Memphis and New Orleans. After the Black Codes had been passed in every southren state that returned the freed blacks to a state as closely approximating slavery as was possible. Even all those blacks y'all claim fought so bravely for the confederate cause. That's gratitude for ya.

563 posted on 07/19/2005 5:18:23 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: TexConfederate1861
Osama Bin-Ladin would be in agreement with the sentiments expressed in the song. Maybe Osama is just a "Good Ole Rebel" too.
564 posted on 07/19/2005 5:18:51 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
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To: TexConfederate1861
I hates the Constitution..." too!

A sentiment common throughout the south prior to the rebellion as well.

565 posted on 07/19/2005 5:20:25 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: lentulusgracchus

I don't have it at hand, although it is uploaded to the net, but i am sure i have seen in the operational narrative section of some Ohio and Kentucky (US) regiments in Dyer citations for operations against guerrillas in Kentucky as late as June 1865.


566 posted on 07/19/2005 5:25:05 AM PDT by robowombat
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To: TexConfederate1861

It's a shame the so many good southern men who didn't hate the Constitution or the Declaration had to die while a hateful bitter man like Major Innes Randolph, CSA, was allowed to survive.


567 posted on 07/19/2005 5:25:42 AM PDT by Ditto ( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
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To: Ditto
Major Randolph, CSA, has his spirit alive in some today.

I hates the Yankee nation and everything they do,

But I killed a chance o' Yankees, and I'd like to kill some mo'

But I wish we'd got three million instead of what we got


568 posted on 07/19/2005 5:36:38 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
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To: Fred Hayek
Now I'm stuck here in the blue state Hell of Minnesota, but still call Texas home

Minnesota isn't too bad......I lived in Duluth for a couple of years when my dad was stationed there, attached to the big SAGE center at Duluth AFB. They have their Democratic-Farmer-Labor thing still going on from the 1920's, but one of these days the farmers and laborers are going to figure out the Democrazy Party has walked away from them and is now doing a Socialist-envirofascist-lesbian thing, and the 'Rats' grip on Minnesota will loosen up.

Other than the politics, like the man said, if you stay away from Minneapolis-St. Paul, it's a nice state.

Until November.

569 posted on 07/19/2005 6:14:56 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: Non-Sequitur; 4ConservativeJustices
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.

As long as they are members of the Union, and bound by the pact of the Constitution.

570 posted on 07/19/2005 6:20:04 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: bourbon
"these guys" to whom I was referring were brusque Chicagoans ...

Oh, sorry, I completely misread your post.

My bad.

571 posted on 07/19/2005 6:21:31 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: TonyRo76
I have a proudly-admitted bias in favor of Southerners. To me, a Southern accent makes any person sound more friendly. Makes a man sound more honest...and a woman sound more sexy! ;)

Being from the Mid-West I feel the same way (Men sound more sexy,though) There may be a day when we'll move South, just to escape the rat-race. The prejudice against us would be tough, though.

572 posted on 07/19/2005 6:25:05 AM PDT by madison10
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To: robowombat
Believe it or not, East Tennessee, the section of the state we are from, fervently supported the Union during the Civil War.

Sounds to me you are biased yourself if you're proud of being from an area that supported the Union during the Civil War.

573 posted on 07/19/2005 6:26:22 AM PDT by lonestar (Me, too!--Weinie)
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To: lentulusgracchus
As long as they are members of the Union, and bound by the pact of the Constitution.

You're looking at it backwards. Even had the South Carolina secession been legal Sumter was still federal property, regardless of where it was located. As such it could be disposed of only through congressional legislation. South Carolina had granted title to the property that Sumter was built on free and clear to the U.S., so they could demand all they wanted but until Congress acted then ownership of Sumter remained with the U.S.

574 posted on 07/19/2005 6:28:44 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: lentulusgracchus

no problem.


575 posted on 07/19/2005 6:32:26 AM PDT by bourbon (It's the target that decides whether terror wins.)
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To: Colonel Kangaroo
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.

The federal government is simply a creation of the states. The states are the contracting parties. Besides massive cessions of land (Nortwest Territory, Tennesee, Alabama etc) to create new states, Southern blood and monies were paid to acquire new territories. Northern states wanted to have the territories for whites only (not that there would ever be a mad rush for blacks to emigrate west - there were few in territories) - and attempted to deprive Southerners of the equal participation in settlement of the territories.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it deny a state, or group of states, access to property in common. Specifically Article 9 §1 grants Congress the power to deny emigration in states 'now existing', not any future expansion.

The federal government was also charged to 'insure domestic Tranquility', yet did nothing to rein in insane Northerners hell bent on destroying Southerners and the union. Mass murderers (John Brown and his men) were financed by yankees, but not prosecuted - instead they were editorialized as martyrs. Brown and his men marched their victims to a clearing, and with swords split open the head of James Doyle, and then proceeded to sever the arms of his son Drury, and killed his other son Willaim. Brown and his murderous minions then slaughtered Allen Wilkinson in front of his wife and children, and lastly murdered William Sherman.

One socialist, Julia Ward Howe, later memorialized the actions of Brown in song and his 'terrible, swift sword' Most don't realize it, but it's to the tune "John Brown's Body", so with each rendition, a mass murderer is being glorified.

Lastly, several of the states seceded AFTER Licoln demanded troops from those states to be used to invade the seceded states. The Constitution does not require states to enumerate their actions, nor does it prohibit secession. The convention did vote down (twice) the use of force against a state.

576 posted on 07/19/2005 6:45:16 AM PDT by 4CJ (||) OUR sins put Him on that cross. HIS love for us kept Him there.(||)
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To: Colonel Kangaroo
Maybe Osama is just a "Good Ole Rebel" too.

You've got to be kidding me.

Forgive me for thinking that 9/11 was an attack on us all, not just "Yankees."

577 posted on 07/19/2005 7:04:10 AM PDT by bourbon (It's the target that decides whether terror wins.)
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To: Colonel Kangaroo; M. Espinola

Espinola--

I've heard you say a number of times, much to your credit, that we should put the whole Northerners vs. Southerners thing behind us for the moment and focus on greater threats that don't give a d-mn about the distinction between Northerners and Southerners (like Osama's brand of militant Islam).

So, in that spirit, do you think posts like #s 564 and 568 are helpful to this cause?


578 posted on 07/19/2005 7:12:50 AM PDT by bourbon (It's the target that decides whether terror wins.)
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Comment #579 Removed by Moderator

To: bourbon
Forgive me for thinking that 9/11 was an attack on us all, not just "Yankees."

That's my entire point. Osama does not see the difference. But Major Randolph, CSA, did. The hotheaded fire-breather Ruffin, proclaimed his hate for the "Yankee race" shortly before his suicide. Separate Southern nationalism had no place in 1860 nor does it now when guys like Osama see only one people and are out to get us all.

580 posted on 07/19/2005 7:18:07 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
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