That is a weird rant. Being from Georgia, I am unsure how anyone from the bible belt can feel that any other place in America is more racist. The further north I moved the less confederate flags I saw... still see some of them in North Carolina but in Georgia I doubt I could go 10 miles without seeing one on a truck or a residence.
Thats not to say the Northern and western states dont have their own racist problems but it tends to be less blatant.
That's...sort of the problem.
Not racist enough to wear it on their sleeve? I dont particularly care if someone is a raging racist if they never act on their racism or dont broadcast it. The south is pretty great about broadcasting that hate.
They're also pros at hiding it
Almost every has their own prejudices and most people understand that it is completely irrational. Someone who hangs up a confederate flag thinks prejudice is rational and should be embraced. There are definitely racists in the south that do not broadcast it. Consider the amount that do broadcast that hate, I think most people would say there are more people who outwardly embrace this kind of irrational behavior in the south. If there are that many that are "out" then what does that say for the numbers who are closeted in the south?
Who knows. It works because nobody actually talks about it unless they're absolutely sure everyone's on the same page, so you can get a bunch of racists and civil rights proponents together at a spaghetti dinner and nobody would be able to tell. You get to low or medium income housing in a non-southern state, and these encounters become vicious, like a virus infecting a new species.
It's kind of like homeless people in New York. The homeless are there in numbers as opposed to being occasional oddities, as are rich people, so New Yorkers get to be experts at completely ignoring them even if they're making a huge display. You get a tourist that comes in and suddenly out comes the money or pictures or arguments or fights.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's endemic to everywhere, yeah. It's more dominant (I think that's the word I'm looking for) in the South though. The best data is probably the exit polls separated by race in the South vs. everywhere else. White voters are majority Republican everywhere, but in the Deep South it's 75-90%.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
As other people have mentioned, this discussion is mostly over which region has gauche racism. The problem is that so many people see that as the only real racism, or as the worst kind of racism. And when you say something like "Yes yes, racism exists outside the south, BUT..." you, at least by appearance, are elevating "oafish racism" above other forms of racism. This elevation does nothing other than ease the conscience of less oafish racists.
northern racism is pretty insidious since it's pretty much entirely out of sight out of mind poverty driven racism. I think the difference comes from northern states voting democratic who sometimes make an effort to change this while southern states vote republican whose official stance is fuck minorities
northern racism is pretty insidious since it's pretty much entirely out of sight out of mind poverty driven racism. I think the difference comes from northern states voting democratic who sometimes make an effort to change this while southern states vote republican whose official stance is fuck minorities
I think the best way to illustrate the issue was how the implementation of EO 9066 was done on the West Coast versus in Hawaii.
On the West Coast, the population of Japanese-Americans was small and in isolated patches. so the order was implemented through isolation - they were rounded up, and sent off to concentration camps. In comparison in Hawaii, Japanese-Americans made up a significant part of the population of Hawaii, so wholesale relocation was not feasible. Instead, they were placed under very restrictive laws that controlled how they could live, and punished harshly if broken.
As other people have mentioned, this discussion is mostly over which region has gauche racism. The problem is that so many people see that as the only real racism, or as the worst kind of racism. And when you say something like "Yes yes, racism exists outside the south, BUT..." you, at least by appearance, are elevating "oafish racism" above other forms of racism. This elevation does nothing other than ease the conscience of less oafish racists.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and propose that those people who advocate for a return to a pre-Civil War state of affairs where blacks weren't considered human beings, but instead property to be owned and traded is the worst kind of racism, as oafish or not oafish as it may be.
not that analogous since the northern way of keeping black people in poor inner city ghettos was a lot more subtle than rounding up japanese was to the point where most people don't even realize it existed and still exists today. it's also made its way south now as well- southern blacks were just as devastated by the housing bubble as northern ones
Yes lets have a ridiculous forum spat and pretend its helping anyone anywhere.
Why talk about anything?
As to citing anything, I wish I had better than my anecdotal experience but I do not so I extrapolate from my experience living in the south. It is more of a hotbed of racism due to migrant workers and left over racism against black people. That is not to say that white people are the only perpetrators but the power dynamic makes it worse.
Maybe because the north is more homogeneous I hear less about racial tension, but if anyone does have some studies id be interested in reading them.
Yes lets have a ridiculous forum spat and pretend its helping anyone anywhere.
Why talk about anything?
As to citing anything, I wish I had better than my anecdotal experience but I do not so I extrapolate from my experience living in the south. It is more of a hotbed of racism due to migrant workers and left over racism against black people. That is not to say that white people are the only perpetrators but the power dynamic makes it worse.
Maybe because the north is more homogeneous I hear less about racial tension, but if anyone does have some studies id be interested in reading them.
What kinds of places were you in? Affluent, middle, or ghetto? City or country? If all you know of Georgia is the stretch from Atlanta to Savannah, you might not be impressed with the racism in the state. You go to places that are pretty isolated from major commercial highways and then you get the real stuff. Every state has got those places, though, even Alaska. Well, maybe not the real small ones like Hawaii or Rhode Island.
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
And I'm sure Rhode Island, too. There is no place on earth with two or more people that doesn't have some kind of racism/classism.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a leftover from the U.S. annexing Hawaii only about a hundred years ago. That kind of thing makes people sore for generations, without even delving into any preferential treatment for segments of the populace.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Yes lets have a ridiculous forum spat and pretend its helping anyone anywhere.
Why talk about anything?
As to citing anything, I wish I had better than my anecdotal experience but I do not so I extrapolate from my experience living in the south. It is more of a hotbed of racism due to migrant workers and left over racism against black people. That is not to say that white people are the only perpetrators but the power dynamic makes it worse.
Maybe because the north is more homogeneous I hear less about racial tension, but if anyone does have some studies id be interested in reading them.
You're completely unwilling to research your opinions to find out if your experience is representative of the norm?
And I'm sure Rhode Island, too. There is no place on earth with two or more people that doesn't have some kind of racism/classism.
As someone who grew up in Hawaii: Everyone is racist about everything.
Frank DeLima made a career out of making racist jokes often and loudly.
As did Bu Laia.
You can find pockets of people out in the sticks of the big island, Oahu and Kauai that are stereotypically anti-haole but it kind of loses a lot of its teeth in a culture where Portuguese jokes are considered polite conversation.
The guy complaining about the South lost me at the word 'traitors'...
That's an accurate and measured description of the Confederacy. And if you ask "Why is that relevant today?" then you just need to point to the people still proudly displaying a traitor's flag in 2015. And furthermore, a lot of the same policies exist, in slightly different form. Look at how closely related the last states to legalize gay marriage and the last states to remove anti-miscegenation laws (by court order, not by them actually wanting to do so) from the books are. There are some differences, but I'd argue there are some pretty not-so-coincidental similarities.
If you're from those areas and aren't part of the problem, you aren't part of the problem, so don't take it personally. There is absolutely both a nation-wide issue with racism, but it does have a particular regional manifestation as well. The South would do well to take a hint from Germany and say, "fuck that period completely." The first amendment prohibits a legal equivalent of German criminal code § 86a (it's a crime to use Nazi symbols), or holocaust denial bans, but it should be punished socially to the same degree.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
This is totally off-topic, but Oregon has a really interesting history with racism that I've always thought is a really interesting angle on the history of racism in America. The short version:
Unlike California and Washington, Oregon was settled largely by families for agriculture from the beginning. It was great cropland, and was largely settled by families, unlike the largely male settler movements into the rest of the west coast. And it was largely poor families coming from the south and middle areas of the east coast, who were overwhelmingly Democratic. And yet despite the democratic party's support of slavery, Oregon voted to enter the union as a free state. Not because Oregonians weren't racist, but because they were terrified that if the plantation system made it to Oregon they'd be quickly swallowed up by rich landowners again, which is what many of them had emigrated away from in the first place.
Before Oregon ever became a state the Dred Scott decision overruled the Kansas-Nebraska Act, meaning that all states were now effectively slaves states. So a couple years later after Oregon was finally admitted, they promptly passed a ban on any black immigrants to the state. It was never really enforced evenly, there were actually black immigrants to Oregon during that time, but they were generally overlooked (if not exactly welcomed) as the real goal of the law wasn't to keep blacks out, it was to keep plantations out.
This is certainly not intended to defend racists or hate crimes, but slavery was always about more than just race, it was also about class. Poor white southerners fought for the Confederacy for many reasons, but one reason was that they were terrified - not without cause! - that if slavery ended the small economic slice they had would be lost, even though the income inequality of institutional slavery was terrible for them as well. It's a waaay* over-simplistic argument, but you could certainly make a case that one reason the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s was so successful compared to similar mass movements in the 20s and 30s was the huge economic boom of the time.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
They were also short.
That also is irrelevant to the topic of racism in the South.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
They were also short.
That also is irrelevant to the topic of racism in the South.
And yet you brought it up.
Also are you seriously making the argument that the civil war and it's perception in the south isn't relevant to modern southern racism?
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Even in the more metropolitan areas of the south you still have rampant racism echoing over from previous generations through planning and development, if not active reallocation of city funds. Orlando is a great example of this. The greater metropolitan Orlando area if formed of dozens of municipalities, almost all of which are paired with a former "white" and "black" town. Maitland has Eatonville, Winter Park has Denning, Orlando has Parramore... pretty much every pair of municipalities historically were split. Back in the day before central planning was a thing, most of these were only post-office areas and where folks generally lived.
Then immediately following desegregation you find that most (not all, but most) of the black municipalities are unable to declare themselves as such lose self governance almost entirely to the county while the white towns become cities with self governance. The white towns slowly expanded over the 50s thru present to become sprawling suburban landscapes with the ever shrinking "black" towns being run out as they are bought out and annexed parcel by parcel, with local shops and homes Eminent Domain-ed into oblivion.
Those places like Eatonville and Sanford, which managed to hold onto their areas, get disproportionately less funding for schools, infrastructure, pretty much everything from the state and county authorities to the extent where you will have 4-way intersections that have two sides of the highway literally be sprawling mixed use palaces and the other half not having running water.
To a greater or lesser degree this is true everywhere in the US, but even in the "progressive" areas of the south things are still pretty much terrible. And that's not even going into the problems with places like Miami or Tampa which would take 5k word posts just to overview.
re: treachery
The question more becomes, "Is referring to people who live in the South now as traitors, regardless of their view of the Civil War, in any way helpful to a discussion of racism, much less actually attempting to change perspectives?" And the answer is, "No." Using the term "traitor" is no more useful to the conversation than referring to George Washington as a traitor, especially since the majority of people who still have even a small bit of sympathy for the Lost Cause do, in fact, equate the actions of the secessionists with the actions of the American Revolutionaries. It will get you farther to discuss the reasons why the War was ill advised or the systemic affects of the War on modern race relations than discussing why Southerners are traitors.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
They were also short.
That also is irrelevant to the topic of racism in the South.
And yet you brought it up.
Also are you seriously making the argument that the civil war and it's perception in the south isn't relevant to modern southern racism?
Nope.
Someone else used the word traitors. I am saying THAT is irrelevant,
I figure I could take a bear.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
I missed this earlier, but no public school is going to sing praises of the confederacy in the deep south (at least, from all accounts I've seen). Lots of folk fly the Virginia Battle Flag and talk about freedom and gun ownership and all that jazz but that's not something they learn in schools. That's a cultural thing that's typically passed down from rural poor father to rural poor son the same as distrust of city-folk and government types are of any rural poor culture. You occasionally see stories about a wingnut teacher here or there but those cases you hear about for a reason, typically because said wingnut is on suspension or getting fired by the school board.
In the deep south you got "rebel flags" but pick your local rural hinterland in any country or state and you will have your own variety of moderately anarchic authority-distrusting folk with some sort of flag or symbol setting them as separate and unique from the more prosperous metropolitan areas.
In the case of the deep south, the confederacy represents very little of what those flying the Virginia Battle Flag actually want (segregation et al, yes. Plantation culture, definitely no). The purpose of that flag is to give a symbol pride to a people who are dealt a pretty shitty lot when all is said and done, and while the south's position as being a terrible backwater is (mostly) self inflicted by centuries of poor decision making by their leaders and serious cultural flaws, most folk flying those flags come from homes well below the poverty line and grow up in a world where working in the local mill-town job is their entire lot in life, be it working on someone else's farm or for the paper mill that makes everything you live and breath a noxious fume. I'm not saying that makes those flag wavers right at all, racism has nothing at all to do with why their lot is shit and it has been shit for the rural poor in the deep south before, during and after the confederacy regardless of skin color.
Race is a commonly used trigger by local politicians and elite, however, to keep the rural poor from rocking the boat for better economic conditions (and now Islamaphobia and LGBTQ issues are serving a similar purpose) and fairer labor laws. Since before the Civil War the landed elite have used race as a means to control the white rural poor and most of the poor urban populations as well. By redirecting their hate for their terrible lot to something else, the southern aristocracy has pretty much remained as they have since the colonial era with only slight hiccups during reconstruction.
The fact that the white rural poor's symbol of pride goes hand in hand with literally enslaving/lynching/murdering/abusing folks who are nearly in the same boat as they are poverty-wise and who could be their best ally in actually changing the political environment of the southern states from essentially serfdom in the rural areas to something more progressive is unfortunate and miserable to see.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
They were also short.
That also is irrelevant to the topic of racism in the South.
And yet you brought it up.
Also are you seriously making the argument that the civil war and it's perception in the south isn't relevant to modern southern racism?
Nope.
Someone else used the word traitors. I am saying THAT is irrelevant,
We are discussing the fact that you find it irrelevant.
You're just repeating that it's irrelevant without making any sort of argument about why or how it's irrelevant.
So again, I do not think the modern South, or even specifically the individuals that fly the bars and stars are traitors. That would be a ridiculous argument to make. However, the actual secessionist were traitors and the defeated souths inability to accept they were in the wrong vis-a-vis sedition still greatly contributes to the attitudes of the modern South, both racial and social.
I missed this earlier, but no public school is going to sing praises of the confederacy in the deep south (at least, from all accounts I've seen). Lots of folk fly the Virginia Battle Flag and talk about freedom and gun ownership and all that jazz but that's not something they learn in schools. That's a cultural thing that's typically passed down from rural poor father to rural poor son the same as distrust of city-folk and government types are of any rural poor culture. You occasionally see stories about a wingnut teacher here or there but those cases
I am obviously only a single anecdote but I've had a few too many arguments about how the civil war had nothing to do with slavery. The exploitation of the white poor is horrendous of course, I don't think anyone is making the argument that people aren't essentially people. I don't think my points are in opposition to yours.
They were explicitly taught in High School that the civil war was entirely the fault of Lincoln marching on the South and that the South was merely defending themselves and would never have marched into the North if they didn't think it was the only way to end the war. It was the Northerners that did all the burning and raping and pillaging, not those fine upstanding southern generals.
I have to hear about this crap every time Lincoln comes up whether in a film or on Jeopardy.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
As a product of the public school system in the South East, that is absolutely not what is taught in any public school I attended.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
I missed this earlier, but no public school is going to sing praises of the confederacy in the deep south (at least, from all accounts I've seen). Lots of folk fly the Virginia Battle Flag and talk about freedom and gun ownership and all that jazz but that's not something they learn in schools. That's a cultural thing that's typically passed down from rural poor father to rural poor son the same as distrust of city-folk and government types are of any rural poor culture. You occasionally see stories about a wingnut teacher here or there but those cases you hear about for a reason, typically because said wingnut is on suspension or getting fired by the school board.
In the deep south you got "rebel flags" but pick your local rural hinterland in any country or state and you will have your own variety of moderately anarchic authority-distrusting folk with some sort of flag or symbol setting them as separate and unique from the more prosperous metropolitan areas.
In the case of the deep south, the confederacy represents very little of what those flying the Virginia Battle Flag actually want (segregation et al, yes. Plantation culture, definitely no). The purpose of that flag is to give a symbol pride to a people who are dealt a pretty shitty lot when all is said and done, and while the south's position as being a terrible backwater is (mostly) self inflicted by centuries of poor decision making by their leaders and serious cultural flaws, most folk flying those flags come from homes well below the poverty line and grow up in a world where working in the local mill-town job is their entire lot in life, be it working on someone else's farm or for the paper mill that makes everything you live and breath a noxious fume. I'm not saying that makes those flag wavers right at all, racism has nothing at all to do with why their lot is shit and it has been shit for the rural poor in the deep south before, during and after the confederacy regardless of skin color.
Race is a commonly used trigger by local politicians and elite, however, to keep the rural poor from rocking the boat for better economic conditions (and now Islamaphobia and LGBTQ issues are serving a similar purpose) and fairer labor laws. Since before the Civil War the landed elite have used race as a means to control the white rural poor and most of the poor urban populations as well. By redirecting their hate for their terrible lot to something else, the southern aristocracy has pretty much remained as they have since the colonial era with only slight hiccups during reconstruction.
The fact that the white rural poor's symbol of pride goes hand in hand with literally enslaving/lynching/murdering/abusing folks who are nearly in the same boat as they are poverty-wise and who could be their best ally in actually changing the political environment of the southern states from essentially serfdom in the rural areas to something more progressive is unfortunate and miserable to see.
I also want to point out that the majority of combat arms enlisted are white, and I would venture a guess that (like most military enlistees and some commissions) they very likely come from poor areas in the South. So it's a double whammy of them (us I suppose is accurate demographically, as I am a white southern veteran from a poor area of the South) having no upward mobility with regards to employment and the majority that make it into the military going into combat arms feel like they are serving for what they (we) likely feel is an unappreciative nation of people better off than they(we) are. Just look at all of the people sharing that meme about military pay vs star professional athlete/actor/etc. income. (Not arguing that I agree in regards to an "unappreciative nation".)
Speaking personally, I enlisted as it seemed the only way I was ever going to pay for a college education (and thus some form of upward mobility), and had friends that did the same. Of course the motivation isn't entirely mercenary, but the promise of a paid for college education as well as a roof to sleep under and food to eat is up there.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
They were also short.
That also is irrelevant to the topic of racism in the South.
And yet you brought it up.
Also are you seriously making the argument that the civil war and it's perception in the south isn't relevant to modern southern racism?
Nope.
Someone else used the word traitors. I am saying THAT is irrelevant,
We are discussing the fact that you find it irrelevant.
You're just repeating that it's irrelevant without making any sort of argument about why or how it's irrelevant.
So again, I do not think the modern South, or even specifically the individuals that fly the bars and stars are traitors. That would be a ridiculous argument to make. However, the actual secessionist were traitors and the defeated souths inability to accept they were in the wrong vis-a-vis sedition still greatly contributes to the attitudes of the modern South, both racial and social.
I missed this earlier, but no public school is going to sing praises of the confederacy in the deep south (at least, from all accounts I've seen). Lots of folk fly the Virginia Battle Flag and talk about freedom and gun ownership and all that jazz but that's not something they learn in schools. That's a cultural thing that's typically passed down from rural poor father to rural poor son the same as distrust of city-folk and government types are of any rural poor culture. You occasionally see stories about a wingnut teacher here or there but those cases
I am obviously only a single anecdote but I've had a few too many arguments about how the civil war had nothing to do with slavery. The exploitation of the white poor is horrendous of course, I don't think anyone is making the argument that people aren't essential people. I don't think my points are in opposition to yours.
In my experience this isn't something that is taught in the school system (public or private) but something that is learned outside of school.
They were explicitly taught in High School that the civil war was entirely the fault of Lincoln marching on the South and that the South was merely defending themselves and would never have marched into the North if they didn't think it was the only way to end the war. It was the Northerners that did all the burning and raping and pillaging, not those fine upstanding southern generals.
I have to hear about this crap every time Lincoln comes up whether in a film or on Jeopardy.
1. I was never taught that in the public school system, nor was anyone I know.
2. Sherman's march to the sea left a massive bad taste in the mouth of people in the South that survives to this day. But that is cultural, not something taught and propagated explicitly as something "prideful" in any public school system I've ever witnessed.
They still didn't commit treason in defense of slavery and they also didn't enact voting restrictions at the first opportunity. They also don't still decry 150+ year old war unironically as an invasion. And I certainly do not see, first hand, evidence that people still have all kinds of 'southern pride'. Nope.
You can take your indignation about how the south is treated and keep it to yourself. They've earned the enmity. I can tell you this much, it wasn't California where I saw a motorcyclist openly displaying the Stars and Bars.
And speaking about how people in the South have committed treason and are deserving of ridicule, humiliation, and enmity in the present tense doesn't really make the argument that you (the general you, not the poster I am quoting) are saying that "those guys in the past" were/are the traitors.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
They were explicitly taught in High School that the civil war was entirely the fault of Lincoln marching on the South and that the South was merely defending themselves and would never have marched into the North if they didn't think it was the only way to end the war. It was the Northerners that did all the burning and raping and pillaging, not those fine upstanding southern generals.
I have to hear about this crap every time Lincoln comes up whether in a film or on Jeopardy.
To be fair, the majority of the destruction was in the south, because A)they never got further north than Pennsylvania, and 2) [eat it, cool smiley] the vast majority of the campaigns actually happened in the south.
Traitor is such a silly word to describe huge social issues though. It's competely meaningless. A civil war is fought to decide who gets to be the government. Its outcome decides who gets called traitor or not.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
They were also short.
That also is irrelevant to the topic of racism in the South.
And yet you brought it up.
Also are you seriously making the argument that the civil war and it's perception in the south isn't relevant to modern southern racism?
Nope.
Someone else used the word traitors. I am saying THAT is irrelevant,
We are discussing the fact that you find it irrelevant.
You're just repeating that it's irrelevant without making any sort of argument about why or how it's irrelevant.
So again, I do not think the modern South, or even specifically the individuals that fly the bars and stars are traitors. That would be a ridiculous argument to make. However, the actual secessionist were traitors and the defeated souths inability to accept they were in the wrong vis-a-vis sedition still greatly contributes to the attitudes of the modern South, both racial and social.
I missed this earlier, but no public school is going to sing praises of the confederacy in the deep south (at least, from all accounts I've seen). Lots of folk fly the Virginia Battle Flag and talk about freedom and gun ownership and all that jazz but that's not something they learn in schools. That's a cultural thing that's typically passed down from rural poor father to rural poor son the same as distrust of city-folk and government types are of any rural poor culture. You occasionally see stories about a wingnut teacher here or there but those cases
I am obviously only a single anecdote but I've had a few too many arguments about how the civil war had nothing to do with slavery. The exploitation of the white poor is horrendous of course, I don't think anyone is making the argument that people aren't essential people. I don't think my points are in opposition to yours.
I made an argument. You didn't address my argument.
They were explicitly taught in High School that the civil war was entirely the fault of Lincoln marching on the South and that the South was merely defending themselves and would never have marched into the North if they didn't think it was the only way to end the war. It was the Northerners that did all the burning and raping and pillaging, not those fine upstanding southern generals.
I have to hear about this crap every time Lincoln comes up whether in a film or on Jeopardy.
They were explicitly taught in High School that the civil war was entirely the fault of Lincoln marching on the South and that the South was merely defending themselves and would never have marched into the North if they didn't think it was the only way to end the war. It was the Northerners that did all the burning and raping and pillaging, not those fine upstanding southern generals.
I have to hear about this crap every time Lincoln comes up whether in a film or on Jeopardy.
Grad in 2002 from SWVA, I've said it before on these forums, NOVA likes being north and SWVA loves being "real virginia" and the south, to a over exaggerated fault. I spent school years split, but did middle/high school in SWVA. The schools absolutely taught no such thing. It talked a bit about major things/events like Sherman "burning the south", but it never painted the south in a good context. I'm not claiming what you said was false, just trying to bring focus that the area that loves its southern pride didn't bother to take this view. The years and therefore state education programs might not have lined up with my experience though, or maybe she had a good ol' boy teacher who went off the curriculum path. None of the books took this view either from what I remember, so I am pretty sure it wasnt my teachers not towing the line.
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Who knows. It works because nobody actually talks about it unless they're absolutely sure everyone's on the same page, so you can get a bunch of racists and civil rights proponents together at a spaghetti dinner and nobody would be able to tell. You get to low or medium income housing in a non-southern state, and these encounters become vicious, like a virus infecting a new species.
It's kind of like homeless people in New York. The homeless are there in numbers as opposed to being occasional oddities, as are rich people, so New Yorkers get to be experts at completely ignoring them even if they're making a huge display. You get a tourist that comes in and suddenly out comes the money or pictures or arguments or fights.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think the best way to illustrate the issue was how the implementation of EO 9066 was done on the West Coast versus in Hawaii.
On the West Coast, the population of Japanese-Americans was small and in isolated patches. so the order was implemented through isolation - they were rounded up, and sent off to concentration camps. In comparison in Hawaii, Japanese-Americans made up a significant part of the population of Hawaii, so wholesale relocation was not feasible. Instead, they were placed under very restrictive laws that controlled how they could live, and punished harshly if broken.
Sound familiar?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and propose that those people who advocate for a return to a pre-Civil War state of affairs where blacks weren't considered human beings, but instead property to be owned and traded is the worst kind of racism, as oafish or not oafish as it may be.
Why talk about anything?
As to citing anything, I wish I had better than my anecdotal experience but I do not so I extrapolate from my experience living in the south. It is more of a hotbed of racism due to migrant workers and left over racism against black people. That is not to say that white people are the only perpetrators but the power dynamic makes it worse.
Maybe because the north is more homogeneous I hear less about racial tension, but if anyone does have some studies id be interested in reading them.
What kinds of places were you in? Affluent, middle, or ghetto? City or country? If all you know of Georgia is the stretch from Atlanta to Savannah, you might not be impressed with the racism in the state. You go to places that are pretty isolated from major commercial highways and then you get the real stuff. Every state has got those places, though, even Alaska. Well, maybe not the real small ones like Hawaii or Rhode Island.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
And I'm sure Rhode Island, too. There is no place on earth with two or more people that doesn't have some kind of racism/classism.
You're completely unwilling to research your opinions to find out if your experience is representative of the norm?
Then you add nothing to the debate.
As someone who grew up in Hawaii: Everyone is racist about everything.
Frank DeLima made a career out of making racist jokes often and loudly.
As did Bu Laia.
You can find pockets of people out in the sticks of the big island, Oahu and Kauai that are stereotypically anti-haole but it kind of loses a lot of its teeth in a culture where Portuguese jokes are considered polite conversation.
That's an accurate and measured description of the Confederacy. And if you ask "Why is that relevant today?" then you just need to point to the people still proudly displaying a traitor's flag in 2015. And furthermore, a lot of the same policies exist, in slightly different form. Look at how closely related the last states to legalize gay marriage and the last states to remove anti-miscegenation laws (by court order, not by them actually wanting to do so) from the books are. There are some differences, but I'd argue there are some pretty not-so-coincidental similarities.
If you're from those areas and aren't part of the problem, you aren't part of the problem, so don't take it personally. There is absolutely both a nation-wide issue with racism, but it does have a particular regional manifestation as well. The South would do well to take a hint from Germany and say, "fuck that period completely." The first amendment prohibits a legal equivalent of German criminal code § 86a (it's a crime to use Nazi symbols), or holocaust denial bans, but it should be punished socially to the same degree.
You mention Germany, and obviously during WW2 German traitors were almost certainly great people. And if they had been more politically powerful early on, perhaps the Nazis would have been the traitors.
If you have a civil war and call the losers traitors over a hundred years later, your attitude to national loyalty and awareness of how winners decide labels is so laughably poor I personally am going to walk away from you.
There are clearly many issues in the South. Being 'traitors' isn't one of them.
The confederacy formed a new government and considered itself completely separate to the United States and were the initiating belligerents
If traitors doesn't apply to them (them as in, the men responsible for forming the CSA, not the citizens of the states contained within) it doesn't really apply to anyone
It's entirely irrelevant, is my point.
Just as whether the entire USA were traitors to the rightful rule of the British Crown is completely irrelevant to the issue of racism in the modern US.
I know. I just chose Germany as a non-random example since he had already mentioned it.
I think I'm fine here, thanks though.
Yes one could make the very real argument that the founding fathers were traitors. It is a matter of history being written by the winner but well
that literally describes all history.
But the fact is the South were traitors, history would have always remembered them as traitors because southern victory only meant secession. They started the war, they wanted the war.
But i'm sure (slash I know) they teach a very different version of history that while at the bare minimum concedes they lost, allows them to be the good guy.
Cause hey, introspection is hard.
Unlike California and Washington, Oregon was settled largely by families for agriculture from the beginning. It was great cropland, and was largely settled by families, unlike the largely male settler movements into the rest of the west coast. And it was largely poor families coming from the south and middle areas of the east coast, who were overwhelmingly Democratic. And yet despite the democratic party's support of slavery, Oregon voted to enter the union as a free state. Not because Oregonians weren't racist, but because they were terrified that if the plantation system made it to Oregon they'd be quickly swallowed up by rich landowners again, which is what many of them had emigrated away from in the first place.
Before Oregon ever became a state the Dred Scott decision overruled the Kansas-Nebraska Act, meaning that all states were now effectively slaves states. So a couple years later after Oregon was finally admitted, they promptly passed a ban on any black immigrants to the state. It was never really enforced evenly, there were actually black immigrants to Oregon during that time, but they were generally overlooked (if not exactly welcomed) as the real goal of the law wasn't to keep blacks out, it was to keep plantations out.
This is certainly not intended to defend racists or hate crimes, but slavery was always about more than just race, it was also about class. Poor white southerners fought for the Confederacy for many reasons, but one reason was that they were terrified - not without cause! - that if slavery ended the small economic slice they had would be lost, even though the income inequality of institutional slavery was terrible for them as well. It's a waaay* over-simplistic argument, but you could certainly make a case that one reason the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s was so successful compared to similar mass movements in the 20s and 30s was the huge economic boom of the time.
*waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
A good book on this is Breaking Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory.
They were also short.
That also is irrelevant to the topic of racism in the South.
And yet you brought it up.
Also are you seriously making the argument that the civil war and it's perception in the south isn't relevant to modern southern racism?
Then immediately following desegregation you find that most (not all, but most) of the black municipalities are unable to declare themselves as such lose self governance almost entirely to the county while the white towns become cities with self governance. The white towns slowly expanded over the 50s thru present to become sprawling suburban landscapes with the ever shrinking "black" towns being run out as they are bought out and annexed parcel by parcel, with local shops and homes Eminent Domain-ed into oblivion.
Those places like Eatonville and Sanford, which managed to hold onto their areas, get disproportionately less funding for schools, infrastructure, pretty much everything from the state and county authorities to the extent where you will have 4-way intersections that have two sides of the highway literally be sprawling mixed use palaces and the other half not having running water.
To a greater or lesser degree this is true everywhere in the US, but even in the "progressive" areas of the south things are still pretty much terrible. And that's not even going into the problems with places like Miami or Tampa which would take 5k word posts just to overview.
The question more becomes, "Is referring to people who live in the South now as traitors, regardless of their view of the Civil War, in any way helpful to a discussion of racism, much less actually attempting to change perspectives?" And the answer is, "No." Using the term "traitor" is no more useful to the conversation than referring to George Washington as a traitor, especially since the majority of people who still have even a small bit of sympathy for the Lost Cause do, in fact, equate the actions of the secessionists with the actions of the American Revolutionaries. It will get you farther to discuss the reasons why the War was ill advised or the systemic affects of the War on modern race relations than discussing why Southerners are traitors.
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Nope.
Someone else used the word traitors. I am saying THAT is irrelevant,
I missed this earlier, but no public school is going to sing praises of the confederacy in the deep south (at least, from all accounts I've seen). Lots of folk fly the Virginia Battle Flag and talk about freedom and gun ownership and all that jazz but that's not something they learn in schools. That's a cultural thing that's typically passed down from rural poor father to rural poor son the same as distrust of city-folk and government types are of any rural poor culture. You occasionally see stories about a wingnut teacher here or there but those cases you hear about for a reason, typically because said wingnut is on suspension or getting fired by the school board.
In the deep south you got "rebel flags" but pick your local rural hinterland in any country or state and you will have your own variety of moderately anarchic authority-distrusting folk with some sort of flag or symbol setting them as separate and unique from the more prosperous metropolitan areas.
In the case of the deep south, the confederacy represents very little of what those flying the Virginia Battle Flag actually want (segregation et al, yes. Plantation culture, definitely no). The purpose of that flag is to give a symbol pride to a people who are dealt a pretty shitty lot when all is said and done, and while the south's position as being a terrible backwater is (mostly) self inflicted by centuries of poor decision making by their leaders and serious cultural flaws, most folk flying those flags come from homes well below the poverty line and grow up in a world where working in the local mill-town job is their entire lot in life, be it working on someone else's farm or for the paper mill that makes everything you live and breath a noxious fume. I'm not saying that makes those flag wavers right at all, racism has nothing at all to do with why their lot is shit and it has been shit for the rural poor in the deep south before, during and after the confederacy regardless of skin color.
Race is a commonly used trigger by local politicians and elite, however, to keep the rural poor from rocking the boat for better economic conditions (and now Islamaphobia and LGBTQ issues are serving a similar purpose) and fairer labor laws. Since before the Civil War the landed elite have used race as a means to control the white rural poor and most of the poor urban populations as well. By redirecting their hate for their terrible lot to something else, the southern aristocracy has pretty much remained as they have since the colonial era with only slight hiccups during reconstruction.
The fact that the white rural poor's symbol of pride goes hand in hand with literally enslaving/lynching/murdering/abusing folks who are nearly in the same boat as they are poverty-wise and who could be their best ally in actually changing the political environment of the southern states from essentially serfdom in the rural areas to something more progressive is unfortunate and miserable to see.
We are discussing the fact that you find it irrelevant.
You're just repeating that it's irrelevant without making any sort of argument about why or how it's irrelevant.
So again, I do not think the modern South, or even specifically the individuals that fly the bars and stars are traitors. That would be a ridiculous argument to make. However, the actual secessionist were traitors and the defeated souths inability to accept they were in the wrong vis-a-vis sedition still greatly contributes to the attitudes of the modern South, both racial and social.
I am obviously only a single anecdote but I've had a few too many arguments about how the civil war had nothing to do with slavery. The exploitation of the white poor is horrendous of course, I don't think anyone is making the argument that people aren't essentially people. I don't think my points are in opposition to yours.
They were explicitly taught in High School that the civil war was entirely the fault of Lincoln marching on the South and that the South was merely defending themselves and would never have marched into the North if they didn't think it was the only way to end the war. It was the Northerners that did all the burning and raping and pillaging, not those fine upstanding southern generals.
I have to hear about this crap every time Lincoln comes up whether in a film or on Jeopardy.
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As a product of the public school system in the South East, that is absolutely not what is taught in any public school I attended.
I also want to point out that the majority of combat arms enlisted are white, and I would venture a guess that (like most military enlistees and some commissions) they very likely come from poor areas in the South. So it's a double whammy of them (us I suppose is accurate demographically, as I am a white southern veteran from a poor area of the South) having no upward mobility with regards to employment and the majority that make it into the military going into combat arms feel like they are serving for what they (we) likely feel is an unappreciative nation of people better off than they(we) are. Just look at all of the people sharing that meme about military pay vs star professional athlete/actor/etc. income. (Not arguing that I agree in regards to an "unappreciative nation".)
Demographic breakdown of race by Army service branch (Combat Arms, Combat Support, and Combat Service Support) pg 16. Ignore the claim about the Heritage Foundation study on socio-economic demographics of enlistees because it is dubious at best.
http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/docs/demographics/MRA_booklet_10-ARMY.pdf
Here is a writeup that counters that Heritage Foundation "study".
http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/poor-and-uneducated-like-we-thought/Content?oid=933196
Combat Arms officers also tend to be white and southern.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/geography-and-the-american-military/
Speaking personally, I enlisted as it seemed the only way I was ever going to pay for a college education (and thus some form of upward mobility), and had friends that did the same. Of course the motivation isn't entirely mercenary, but the promise of a paid for college education as well as a roof to sleep under and food to eat is up there.
In my experience this isn't something that is taught in the school system (public or private) but something that is learned outside of school.
1. I was never taught that in the public school system, nor was anyone I know.
2. Sherman's march to the sea left a massive bad taste in the mouth of people in the South that survives to this day. But that is cultural, not something taught and propagated explicitly as something "prideful" in any public school system I've ever witnessed.
And speaking about how people in the South have committed treason and are deserving of ridicule, humiliation, and enmity in the present tense doesn't really make the argument that you (the general you, not the poster I am quoting) are saying that "those guys in the past" were/are the traitors.
To be fair, the majority of the destruction was in the south, because A)they never got further north than Pennsylvania, and 2) [eat it, cool smiley] the vast majority of the campaigns actually happened in the south.
I made an argument. You didn't address my argument.
Grounds for divorce, imo! :rotate:
Grad in 2002 from SWVA, I've said it before on these forums, NOVA likes being north and SWVA loves being "real virginia" and the south, to a over exaggerated fault. I spent school years split, but did middle/high school in SWVA. The schools absolutely taught no such thing. It talked a bit about major things/events like Sherman "burning the south", but it never painted the south in a good context. I'm not claiming what you said was false, just trying to bring focus that the area that loves its southern pride didn't bother to take this view. The years and therefore state education programs might not have lined up with my experience though, or maybe she had a good ol' boy teacher who went off the curriculum path. None of the books took this view either from what I remember, so I am pretty sure it wasnt my teachers not towing the line.