Posted on 01/20/2006 2:50:00 PM PST by oxcart
All your cotton are belong to us.
And continually labeling them as sons of the south just perpetuates an absurd myth. They are Americans, not Sons of the South.
Have a look at his FOG OF WAR movie. It is terrifying. He speaks about the loss of lives even after he knew the war was lost as if it was nothing more than a simple numbers game. It's as if he talking about how many cars did not get produced by GM because of a bad business decision. It reminds me of old Nazis talking about the extermination of jews as if it was just "one of those things."
And there you have it. LOL.
Yankees might get that demented view due to the contributions of some posters on this very site. :)
THAT is an out-of-the-box interpretation of history that rings very true to me.
I am intimately familiar with the Durham, NC (now of fashionable lofts) lauded in this piece. Here is a sad but honest fact: That community should be on fire with growth. It has wealthy and prestigous Duke University at its hip core. It has a sea of high tech research and industry all around it. It is part of a larger urban matrix which is also highly advantaged.
But Durham has a problem. It has a large black population juiced on guns, drugs, and hip-hop culture. The black leadership is largely corrupt and every community project that they touch becomes a magnet for ineptitude and graft. They are indulged by the very liberal university community that is determined to be "diverse."
The violent street cime in Durham is appalling. Teen gang-bangers are continually in the news with their killings.
In the best of all worlds, Durham's black culture should be a strength. Durham has traditionally been a center of black music and other black cultural achievements, although, to be blunt about it, those achievements look better celebrated today by a liberal community than the historical reality.
Real racism (no the modern subtle continual charge of “disrespect”), real racism, bigotry, segregation, disenfranchisement, etc., these things are a huge stain on the South and communities like Durham. Truly they had to be overcome before a bright future became even a possibility. The white people in Durham are over it. The black community is sick and cripples the town. You hear about the lofts in the tobacco factories and all. But the professional families moving into this area mostly want nothing to do with the Durham school system and its diversity.
"Durham has traditionally been a center of black music and other black cultural achievements"
Business, too. One of the larger buildings downtown was built by NC Mutual Insurance, which is one of the largest and oldest black-owned companies in the United States.
That is certainly true, along with Mechanics and Farmers Bank.
Durham is touted as a kind of black Harlem for these achievements.
I think it is a little oversold, a dressing up of black Durham via historical revisionism which is preferred to an emphasis on the current sick state of black Durham.
Yea, there were a few companies, some music, and a few black people of achievement. But the South is a big place. If this is a major center of black culture...well, a nice little historical memory but it doesn't do anything whatsoever, in my mind, to pretty up the current reality of black Durham.
It's a mixed victory.
not many realize that was once true
that's true everywhere except for crusaders
Actually, I think this trivial report from the American South was given a procative but frivilous title.
Someone else in this thread has pointed to the significance of air conditioning in the rise of the American South, which, I think, is more substantive and valid than any crap about the Civil War.
There are lots of historical forces here and most of them are not, IMHO, narrowly political or military.
Mitt will be able to tolerate that comment a lot better than what will happen to his Yanqui behind in the GOP primaries.
I just hope we don't end up with another Rockefeller Republican for the nominee.
And snotty Yankees are still just like they were 150 years ago.
We keep yer asses afloat politically....show some gratitude.
it's amazing how much has changed since my college days in the late 70s
Get real. The heat bill is cheaper in the south.
I am not sure quite what you mean here.
All the school districts in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area of N.C. are thoroughly integrated. But it is specifically the Durham system that is regarded as dominated by black culture, low achievement, discipline problems, hip-hop culture, etc. Many young professional people actively wish to support a diverse culture, in theory, but they have a look at the Durham school situation and want no part of it.
The Durham school board has been such a circus over the last couple of years that it has been written about in the WSJ. One of the members was a convicted shoplifter and completely representative of the worst of black urban culture. She is ignorant, loud, and filled with racial suspicion and animosity to which she gives full voice. If she is criticized, that is disrespecting the community, don't you know.
School board meetings repeatedly turned into shouting matches with her playing to the Jerry Springer segment of the Durham black community and them attending the meetings in the spirit of Jerry's audience.
The most ironic thing about the whole circus is that the white schoolboard members being condemned for their racist attitudes are very much liberal/progressive types.
Here in Nashville, amongst whites who can afford otherwise...only "crusaders" purposely send their kids to failing public schools for the diversity or to make a statement.
This is the state of public schools in nearly any metro district in the South.
Black families who can afford it suffer no such illusions and send their children to private schools like anyone with a brain would.
Yo! I'm down with ya, wardaddy, on all you said about culture and such.
I am in despair. My ideals -- ideals of civility and neighborliness and genteel Southern culture -- minus the racism -- are the delusions of an old fart whose time has passed. I find myself turning away from public matters and thinking more about passing my time reading history and trying to learn to cook like Julia Child.
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