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
Forget HELL!
You are some piece of work.
Hopefully you won't have to experience the humiliation this man went through.
Well boo freakin' hoo. Let me ask you this. If men like Innes Randolph, who chose to stoke their festering hatred for the North and for the entire history of this country for years after the war in reaction to losing, are worthy of your respect then are men like Robert Lee and Nathan Forrest, who advocated acceptance of the defeat and reunification of the country, worthy of your contempt?
At times like this I have to say that Don Henley has it right:
You drag it around like a ball and chain
You wallow in the guilt; you wallow in the pain
You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown
Got your mind in the gutter, bringin' everybody down
Complain about the present and blame it on the past
I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little (butt)
Get over it
Get over it
All this...(complainin') and moanin' and pitchin' a fit
Get over it, get over it
With apologies to Mr. Henley, I cleaned up the language a bit for 4ConservativeJustices.
Shouldn't that sentiment be 'Virginian by Birth' or "Georgian by Birth' or something like that? What with all y'all placing state over country and all
You miss the point. Robert E. Lee didn't experience the same degradation that this man went thru. It was a lot easier for him to be noble. (Though he would have been in similar circumstances, due to his nature.) As I said earlier, I don't think he literally hated the Declaration or the Constitution, rather focuses on those as elements of the "Glorious Union" I am reading BETWEEN the lines.
You haven't walked a mile in this man's moccasin's, so you might show just a shred of compassion. His words are insulting, but look at the emotion behind the words.
This coming from a California Peyote-Smoking freak.
(Yea, I like the Eagles too, but face it, they were freaks!)
I've said nor inferred nothing of the like. That's just how you choose to interpret it. I thank GOD I was born American and I especially thank GOD that he saw fit that I was born and reared in the South. I have a special affinity to the state and regional culture that I live in and personally think that there's not a better place on Earth to live, but I suspect most other folks feel the same way about their particular state/region/culture/heritage. If they don't, then sad for them. Don't ever question my love and patriotism for my nation just because I'm proud of my southern heritage and culture. Thanks.
But appropriate.
The same as voiced by numerous yankees including Garrison who stated that the Constitution was 'a covenant with death and an agreement with hell', and that separation from the South was their only recourse.
Bump. Kudos sir.
What degradations did this man go through that Lee did not?
I am reading BETWEEN the lines.
You are offering excuses. I've read interpretations that suggest that Randolph's work was actually a sarcastic exaggeration of southern stalwarts post war, but I also believe that sometimes things mean exactly what they say. And I think that's the case here.
Well, I disagree, so let's leave it at that.
Bump. Regarding the 14th Amendment and dubious legality of it's ratification, the best analysis of such was made by Utah Chief Justice Albert H. Ellett in Dyett v. Turner 20 Utah 2d 403 (1968).
regarding your reply in post 710... I KNOW!!!1 I KNOW!!!!!
Jeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
You southerners can't take it when someone pokes a little fun at you...
Chill out!
Read the rest of my posts before you flame me...ok?
:)
Have a wonderful day..
FRiend
we have discussed this before.
reference "miles of dead Negroes", go argue with the NY Post of the next day after it HAPPENED.
we KNOW you don't want to admit what RACIST, hateFILLED, arrogant filth the DAMNyankee elitest ARE & have always been, but what i posted is incontrovertible FACT!
free dixie,sw
based only on your DUMB-bunny posts, you have nothing but STUPIDITY, prejudice & hate to offer to the forum.
PITY.
free dixie,sw
i think NOT.
almost everybody on FR thinks you are clueLESS & a DUNCE.
head over to DU & be with the other DU DUMB-bunnies.
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