Posted on 10/07/2010 8:12:40 AM PDT by ComtedeMaistre
Southerners who celebrate their cultural heritage, are among the most misunderstood people in America. Italians who celebrate Colombus Day, and Irishmen who celebrate St. Patricks Day, never have to suffer the grief that Southerners who want to celebrate Robert E. Lee's Birthday have to endure.
Southern identity is partly about celebrating the Anglo-Celtic culture, which is the core culture that existed in America at the time of the founding of America in 1776. It is the culture that gave us the King James Bible, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and others. Most Southerners, both white and black, are descended from people who were in America before the Civil War in 1860.
It is often said that America is a nation of immigrants. Southerners are not immigrants to America. When the first Southerners came to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, America did not exist as a nation. Southerners were the pioneers who built America. Southerners created colonial America in 1607, before the Mayflower folks arrived in 1620. Two sons of the South, the Virginians, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, led America to independence as a Constitutional Republic in 1776. Why shouldn't Southerners be proud of such a great heritage?
Many of the Northerners who love to mock and insult the South, are people whose ancestors came to America as immigrants, after the statue of liberty was put up in 1886. They love to mock the people who created and built the America that their ancestors immigrated to. If someone could create a time machine, and we could go back to the 1890s, we would tell our Southern ancestors to stop those European immigrants from getting off their boats at Ellis Island. It is time that the Southerners who created American culture and the American nation, are shown a little appreciation by the Ellis Island Yankees, who just got off the boat the other day. If you are a pro-Southern Yankee, this complaint does not apply to you, of course.
[This thread aims at divisiveness. We have enough of that already.]
The divisive people are those who are trying to take down monuments all over the South, and those who are always mocking the South.
I never claimed any “Southern superiority” to anyone. Southerners do not stop others from celebrating their culture and heritage.
I made it clear in my post that I respect Native Americans and Blacks. But Southerners have become the punching bag of the nation, and are the only people that you can insult, without consequence.
Are you comfortable as a Southerner, being the butt of jokes in this country. Are you comfortable having your ancestors constantly portrayed as monsters? And you are accusing me of being divisive? How so? By calling for Southerners and their culture to be treated with more respect?
Why don’t you tell those who are always mocking and insulting Southerners, to stop being divisive? Southerners only want to be left alone to celebrate their culture, without being called names.
Why would Southerners be more "pioneers" than Midwesterners or Northeasterners or Westerners?
Some of the oldest settlements of the United States, the ones furthest removed from the era of pioneering, are in the South - like Jamestown and St. Augustine and Williamsburg.
Southerners are not aborigines.
They are indeed immigrants.
state rights and the right to self-determination
My first ancestor arrived on these shores in 1649.
My father’s isde of the family have lived in eastern NC since the 1720’s when one of my ancestors moved there from southeastern VA. Mom’s side comes out of the hills of TN.
American by birth
Southern by the grace of God
So then it was really about individual property rights rather than state's rights. And while the Constitution does have some protections against government seizing your property, it does not guarantee you the right to take your property wherever you choose.
Are sanctuary cities about taking advantage of illegals or are they about self-determination?
Welcome, my Native Brother (or sister - screen names are not always gender specific).
I’m from Texas and my dad was born in “Seven Shooter” Oklahoma in Paul’s Valley.
I claim Texan!
Sister
Your argument is based on a false premise.
I have never felt mocked or insulted, even when I lived in the North with a Southern accent.
Get over it. These are crucial times for our nation, and your gripe is a non-issue.
pissed off-American work?
“Journalist H.L. Mencken, From “Five Men at Random,”
Well, that is all interesting, but as my brother often says
as we review the past and remember the good times in our lives...”It is all gone with the wind”
Great peach orchards around Pauls Valley.
Thanks.
RE: A state’s right and determination to do what?
The thirteen states formed a loose confederation with a very weak federal government. However, when problems arose, the weakness of this form of government caused the leaders of the time to come together at the Constitutional Convention and create, in secret, the US Constitution.
Strong proponents of states rights like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were not present at this meeting. Many felt that the new constitution ignored the rights of states to continue to act independently.
They felt that the states should still have the right to decide if they were willing to accept certain federal acts. This resulted in the idea of nullification, whereby the states would have the right to rule federal acts unconstitutional. The federal government denied states this right. However, proponents such as John C. Calhoun fought vehemently for nullification. When nullification would not work and states felt that they were no longer respected, they moved towards secession.
I like your sentiment. Can we stop stereotyping and denigrating "norhterners" and "Yankees" too?
Oh, really.
A pity none of the "Northern opposition" in Congress bothered to mention that federal lands were only for white people at the time.
Presumably Congress forgot that the Choctaw weren't white.
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